Of all the secrets that people want to know, it seems like getting an answer to the question "How do you make long-term relationships work?" is high on the list. And if there's anyone who could answer that question for us all, it's Sting and his wife, Trudie Styler.
These two have been married for 27 years and together for 37 years in all — that's incredible! And it turns out that the key might just be marrying someone you really like.
Sting told People magazine, "I know something about marriage. I’ve been married to Trudie for 27 years now. People say to me, ‘How has it lasted this long?’ I say, ‘Well, it’s kind of a miracle, but we don’t take it for granted.’"
Could that really be it? Sting definitely seems to think so. He went on to say, "We’re friends, too. We love each other, but we actually like each other — and that’s an important distinction there. Love is passion and all of that stuff, but actually liking somebody and enjoying someone’s company is something slightly different, and it lasts longer. So you can have both, and I think that’s important. Be married to your best friend."
I don't know about you, but I am completely into this advice. For some reason, some people seem to think that it's not romantic to marry someone who could be your best friend, but the longer I'm married, the more I realize it would be impossible for me to be married to someone who isn't. My husband and I just celebrated 13 years, so we aren't at Sting and Trudie level — but it makes sense.
Sting also opened up about fatherhood and how it kind of caught him off-guard. That's pretty funny, since he's dad to six kids. He and Trudie have four: daughters Mickey, 36, and Eliot, 29, and sons Jake, 34, and Giacomo, 24. Sting also has daughter Fuchsia, 37, and son Joe, 43, with his ex-wife, Frances Tomelty.
Sting said: "I never intended to be a dad. I became a dad by accident six times — that’s how smart I am. Yet they were the happiest accidents of my life because they’re remarkable human beings. I can’t really take much credit for that, but they are, and they too have produced seven grandchildren at this point, who are also wonderful. So all of this has happened by accident. I didn’t intend to be the patriarch of a tribe, but I am."
He also said: "No parent is perfect, and I’m sure that there were times when it was great to be my child, and also times it was just a pain in the [expletive]. I’d go pick the kids up from school and other parents are asking for my autograph. That’s embarrassing for me and the kids."
All of that totally makes sense. It definitely has to be difficult at times when your dad or your mom is never just your dad or mom — they're someone to basically the entire world.
Sting has also infamously said before that he isn't supporting his children through adulthood. He double-downed on this in the interview and explained: "My kids are fiercely independent. They’re not sitting there waiting for a handout at all, and I wouldn’t want to rob them of that adventure in life: to make your own living. It’s a wonderful and difficult thing to do. So I haven’t promised them anything. I’ll obviously help them if they’re in trouble, but they’re not waiting for a handout. They’re too independent."
Sting himself had to make his own way in the world. He grew up in a shipyard town in England, and his parents completely balked at the idea of him being a musician, let alone a successful one.
"You leave school and you get a job, so there was no idea of making a living out of playing music. It would be absurd. Absurd. And of course it was. I just got through the gate by the skin of my teeth."
Sting really started to become famous in his 20s with his band the Police. "That allowed me to have a real job [as an English teacher], vote, pay taxes," he said. "I was a father, and I was a husband, so I had a real life to compare this rather rarefied life that I was given: the life of success and fame. I could compare the two, and it kept my feet on the ground. I’m glad I didn’t have success at 16 or something, out of school. People don’t survive that."
Sting and Trudie got married in 1992 after a decade together. In 2018, Trudie told People, "I’m married to an incredibly good husband and we’re devoted to each other. We laugh a lot! I think that’s important in a marriage. He has my back; he’s my champion."
She also said that wasn't all. Trudie says that having their own separate interests also helps: "Obviously there has to be a chemistry — that’s why we can stay together for as long as we’ve been together. We have space apart because he tours and I go and do the things that I have to do with my films — we don’t live in each other’s pockets."
In fact, Trudie has had quite a busy career of her own over the years. She has acted steadily throughout it, most recently in the TV series Forever Alone. She also runs a production company called Xinghu, and she's been the producer of New York's Rainforest Foundation Benefit Concert for years.
In 2002, Trudie chalked up the length of their relationship (then 20 years) to why people take them seriously as a couple: "I think we have been accorded some sort of respect — we've just gone the distance. Twenty years of being together, in the sort of industry where marriages fail. And we've been around now for such a long time that we're sort of establishment. I think we've become thought of in affectionate terms."
Sting and Trudie met in the 1970s, and Sting left his first wife to begin a relationship with Trudie. Of course, there's more to the story, and it turns out that Trudie was actually best friends with Frances, Sting's first wife, and that they all lived next door to one another. Yikes! But obviously, it was meant to be, even if it was messy at the time.
Trudie even recalled the first time she saw Sting. She saw him walking down the street, and "I thought, 'I fancy that guy with green hair.'"
At the time, Sting was dad to his oldest son and had another child on the way with Frances. Trudie has also said she never goes into detail about their meeting and what happened next. "I don't talk about it because it's tied up with, you know, his ex-wife and I don't talk about her.'"
Ultimately, this is just part of their story. As Trudie explained, "Neither of us are proud of a situation that happened — it just happened. We loved each other and we lived together and then we got married and we had more kids. And that's our life story."
