After 14 years of marriage, Chip Gaines has learned a lot from wife and business partner Joanna Gaines. But one lesson stands out more than any other ― and no, it’s not the importance of shiplap in home design.
“I could rattle off at least ninety things that she’s the best at and that I’ve learned from her, but honestly trust, above all else, [trust] is the key,” the “Fixer Upper” host says in an essay about his marriage for Country Living. “She has my back. And I have hers — in all things.”
The Gaineses are parents to four kids and have a successful home improvement empire that includes a retail megastore, a furniture line and a hit HGTV show. But it hasn’t always been easy for them; in an interview with People magazine in May, Joanna said that money was incredibly tight early on in their marriage.
“He always had a wad of cash, but we were broke,” she said. “If I needed to go grocery shopping it’s whatever was in his pocket. That’s how we paid the bills.”
In his essay for Country Living, Chip said the couple’s trust in each other helped them weather the good times and the bad.
“Without trust, it would be very easy for me to worry about every little thing in all aspects of our lives,” he writes. “But you can’t operate that way, especially in business. You need someone on your side. And if there’s one thing I know for certain, Jo is on my side.”
For her part, Joanna has said the marriage and business partnership works because Chip reminds her to focus on what matters.
“Sometimes Chip will have to give me little daily reminders, like not to sweat the small stuff, and I’m the one who is usually reminding him to sit down and take a quick break,” Joanna wrote in a blog post last year.
Sounds like a perfect match to us.
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