Cameron Diaz and Benji Madden. Ricky Vigil M/GC Images
Cameron Diaz and Benji Madden credit their strong partnership to therapy.
“So therapy is a big thing in our family, thank god,” Diaz, 52, said on Tuesday, December 10, episode of brother-in-law Joel Madden’s “Artist Friendly” podcasts. “It’s what we depend on, so you have that commitment to work on it.”
Diaz explained that she and Benji, 45, utilize therapy to prevent themselves from doing the “same thing over and over again” while trying to figure out how to get a different end result in an issue. Instead, the couple uses therapy to self-reflect on why the action led to the instance.
“Why didn’t it work? How can I make it work? What’s my part? What’s the other person’s work?” she reflected. “Let’s be self-aware and go into the next attempt a little bit more equipped to hopefully come out with a different outcome.”
Cameron Diaz has dated several celebrities, but never thought she’d get married until she started dating her now-husband, Benji Madden, in May 2014. “[Marriage] was the biggest thing I’ve done in my 40s, and it opened me up in different ways,” Diaz told Harper’s Bazaar in May 2016, 16 months after she and the rockstar […]
Joel, for his part, echoed similar sentiments sharing that he and wife Nicole Richie also are avid therapy users.
“Either resolve something or create a new understanding of a new process together,” the Good Charlotte singer said. “It’s like going into the gym and learning new moves, building on strength.”
Diaz also explained that from her perspective, both partners need to be fully committed to each other and their family in order to maintain a strong bond.
“It goes back to wanting to do it. You can’t be in a marriage and have a family if … both people are not 100 percent every day,” she shared. Nobody can be 99 and the other one be 100.”
The actress added that even on a couple’s worst days, there still needs to be that sturdy foundation.
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“Even if you’re mad [at] each other and don’t want to see each other [or] sick of each other it’s still 100 percent commitment to the marriage and to the partnership and getting things in the family,” she said. “If it’s not 100 percent it just doesn’t work if one person is at a deficit.”
Benji and Diaz tied the knot in 2015 after nearly one year of dating. The couple share daughter Raddix, 4, and son Cardinal, 8 months. Diaz gushed to Tuesday that she was the “most grateful” for her marriage and family with Benji.
“It was the best thing that ever happened to me. I was older than [Benji] like the fact that I hadn’t found him before … I was out there a lot longer than he was,” she recalled. “You know how much we’ve grown over the last decade together and how much we accomplished. I don’t know how either one of us would have done that without one another.”