Robin Roberts is opening up about the important lesson wife Amber Laign taught her about “unlearning” toxic relationship patterns.
Roberts, 63, and Laign, 48, first met on a blind date over drinks in 2005 and tied the knot in September 2023. The couple have mainly kept their relationship private, but on the July 9 episode of The Jamie Kern Lima Show, Roberts spoke about how she planned to break up with Laign a year into their relationship because “there was no drama.”
“I have never talked about this before, but I'm going to talk about this with you," the Good Morning America anchor told Lima, thefounderof IT Cosmetics and author of the bestselling bookWorthy.
"I’d had dysfunctional relationships that I didn’t know were dysfunctional at the time,” Roberts said. “Amber had already told me, ‘I’m not going to do one of those make up, break up things,’ so it’s about a year in… and at that point in my mind I was like, ‘I’m out of here,' because there's no drama."
"I’m used to conflict and I was equating conflict with love,” Roberts continued. “If the relationship was easygoing, then it must not be sexy, it must not be fun. The relationship was really good but this was my thinking.”
Roberts recalled sitting at the bar with Laign and thinking, "Boy, this is gonna devastate her." But as she started her break up speech, Laign told her, “Robin I know the relationship you had before. If that is what you want, knock yourself out.”
“I was stunned,” Roberts said. “I thought she would be like ‘You must stay with me’ and she did just the opposite with such confidence and said, ‘I know what you had -
and I know what you have now and if that’s what you want…’ and I didn’t go through with it.”
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Roberts said she was “so grateful” to Laign because it made her rethink — and "unlearn" — what she knew about relationships. "Why did I think that was love before? Why do I think now that it’s no drama and it's easy… why do we look at that as not being sexy or not being a true relationship?"
“We never talk about unlearning, we always talk about learning,” Roberts said. “Sometimes you have to unlearn and I had to. I shared this with friends in a similar situation and they were like, ‘Wow thank you.’”
“You have to really dig deep and go, ‘Is that what we think is love?’ No,’ but at the time we do.”
In January 2023, Roberts announced on Good Morning America that she planned to marry Laign that year.
"I'm hesitating because I haven't said it out loud yet … I'm saying 'yes' to marriage," Roberts said when discussing New Year's intentions on air. "We're getting married this year."
The two said "I do" in Farmington, Connecticut on Sept. 8, 2023 in front of 250 guests, then celebrated their nuptials a second time in New Orleans in December.
New episodes ofThe Jamie Kern Lima Showpodcast are available Tuesdays onYouTube.
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