Why Goldie Hawn has to ‘work harder’ at her relationship with long-term partner Kurt Russell

Goldie Hawn and Kurt Russell have been together for 43 years, and are as in love today as they were when they first began dating. 

The Hollywood couple often get asked about their relationship – which they make look effortlessly easy – and their reasons behind choosing not to get married. 

Goldie often opens up about their love story in interviews, and famously wrote about it in her 2005 memoir, A Lotus Grows in the Mud, where she explained that while it might seem like the easy option, choosing not to marry makes the couple work harder at their relationship. 

On being questioned about getting married, she wrote: “I laugh it off and say, ‘Been there, done that.'” She added: “And if that sounds like an excuse not to work at the relationship, it isn’t. If anything, it makes us work harder. I try to remind myself each morning why I am in love.” 

In the memoir, she also reflected: “Kurt Russell was sent to us by God. Here was a grown man who was capable of loving fully, with all of his heart. He drew a circle around us in the sand, and its powerful alchemy has protected us ever since.” 

© Getty Images

Goldie and Kurt have been together since Valentine’s Day 1983, and have an incredibly happy life away from the spotlight. 

They share son Wyatt, 38, while Kurt is also dad to son Boston, 46, who he shares with ex-wife Season Hubley. 

© Getty Images

Goldie shares older children Oliver, 49, and Kate, 46, with ex-husband Bill Hudson. Oliver and Kate affectionately call Kurt “Pa.” 

During an interview on The Dan Buettner Podcast, the Oscar-winning actress spoke once again about her decision not to get married again. 

© Getty Images

“I have a relationship with birds,” she said. “I’m a bird. And you leave the cage door open, I may never fly out. But if you close that door, for my freedom and my independence, I would probably take all my feathers off.” 

Meanwhile, back in 2015, Goldie appeared on Loose Women, where she was asked why she hadn’t married Kurt after all their years together. She replied: “I would have been long divorced if I’d been married. Marriage is an interesting psychological thing. If you need to feel bound to someone, then it’s important to be married. 

“If you have independence, if you have enough money and sense of independence and you like your independence, there’s something psychological about not being married because it gives you the freedom to make decisions one way or the other. “For me, I chose to stay. Kurt chose to stay, and we like the choice.”