Neighbours veteran Alan Fletcher and his journalist wife Jennifer Hansen have revealed the secret ingredient to their happy 31-year marriage.
WATCH Alan Fletcher and Jennifer Hansen’s marriage
Speaking to Cameron and Ali Daddo on their Separate Bathrooms podcast, the couple opened up about jealousy over Alan’s intimate scenes on the long-running soap, their unconventional sleeping arrangements, and how he once put career ambition ahead of their relationship.
The couple, who have been together since the late 1980s and share two children, met when Jennifer needed a headshot while trying to break into the television industry.
“Al used to take headshots of other actors for portfolios. When I was trying to get into TV, I needed a headshot and I’ve booked him,” she said.
“And then a photographer at work said that he takes the photograph for free and I forgot to cancel Fletch, he turned up on the doorstep and I said ‘Oh no, I don’t need you anymore’ and I sent him away!”
But Alan, 64, remembered their first encounter slightly differently, saying Jen invited him in for a coffee, kicking off their romance.
Jen, a news journalist on Smooth FM’s More Music breakfast show, admitted she even gave Alan an 18-month deadline for him to propose.
“I set some ground rules before we moved in. I’d heard too many stories about couples who live together for 10 years, then the girl gets dumped and the guy goes off and marries someone in two months,” she said.
“So I said ‘ok, I’m happy to live together, but here’s the long-term picture; I would imagine we would probably get married or at least there’d be a proposal within a year and a half, if it’s going somewhere. So I gave him an 18-month deadline!” she laughed.
Despite Jen’s ultimatum, Alan said he didn’t feel too much pressure to pop the question.
“I didn’t feel pressured, because actually I’d been on a trip to Sri Lanka with some pals of mine and while I was there we were staying with a gem dealer and he helped me buy a sapphire which I always had in my head was going to for our engagement ring,” he revealed.
“I’d been carting this sapphire around for a considerable amount of time knowing full well that at some stage I would be proposing. I wanted to save it up for some special time, so we actually went on a trip to Bali, because it was three weeks.”
Jen and Alan revealed that due to their conflicting work schedules during the week, they don’t sleep in the same bed – which has been a god-send for their marriage.
“We had to make some adjustments because when Jen’s working I sleep upstairs in the spare room. Because she’s got to go to bed at 9.30pm at get up at 4am and they are not my hours!” Alan said.
Alan also opened up about a time in his life when he put his career aspirations ahead of his relationship.
“What I’ve found for myself there was nothing I could do in life and no achievement that would be better than being married to Jen. There was a time that I was actually putting ambition ahead of my relationship, doing the things I want to do and only thinking about myself,” he said.
“Now we’ve sort-of evolved into a situation where we are each other’s priority and then everything else that could happen is a bonus outside of that.
“The worst thing, I think everyone who has ever had it, even if you’re having a successful time, if you know that your partner’s not happy then it just eats away at you, it robs you of any success. So we make each other a priority.”
When asked about potential jealousy from watching Alan engage in intimate scenes on Neighbours, Jen admitted “you have to lay the ground rules”.
“It was only a problem with one actress, because there were some rumours publicly… Which I didn’t think was a problem but then there was another person, who was a troublemaker, who started telling me these rumours were true,” she said.
“So that upset me at the time, but then I found out that she was apparently stirring him as a joke which wasn’t funny at all.”
The couple, who share two children – Veronica and Tom, said the way they resolve conflict has evolved over time.
“Obviously every relationship is going to go through periods where you are just rubbing up against the wrong way emotionally and so forth,” Alan said.
“Obviously sometimes you need to actually go and talk to people about it, every couple should do that if the necessity arises.”
Having spent so much time together during Melbourne’s on-again off-again lockdowns, the couple have come to love getting dressed up and making an effort for their date nights at home.
And when they came out of lockdown last year, Alan wanted to keep the home dates for quality bonding time.
“We have a date night once a week which is really important to us,” Alan said.
“We schedule our day so that we can actually say ‘this is going to be our time’. We going to actually make time for each other during the day, because Jen’s got the afternoon off and I’m often free.”
Alan, who has starred as Dr Karl Kennedy on Neighbours since 1994, revealed he has been on a one-year contract for the past 27 years.
“It was funny how that worked out, literally one year contract every year,” he said.
But Alan said the uncertainty around contract renewal doesn’t give him anxiety.
“I have a really good relationship with the bosses. They don’t play games at Neighbours, you know if they want you back, so it’s generally a very simple negotiation,” he said.
“It’s very much a family environment, which is really cool, it great that we have a wonderful relationship.”
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