For Home and Away favourite Tori (played by Penny McNamee) love hasn’t come easy since stepping foot in Summer Bay.
WATCH: Penny McNamee shows off her baby Neve
After ill-fated romances with Ash (George Mason) and Nate Cooper (Kyle Pryor) among others, Tori is hoping to end her unlucky-in-love streak with newbie Christian Green (Ditch Davey).
But away from the big screen, it’s a different story altogether for the actress who embodies the fictional doctor.
Unlike her on-screen counterpart, Penny, 37, has enjoyed a stable longterm relationship with her high-school sweetheart, Matt Tooker.
“I met Matt in high school and we got married when we were 26,” she told New Zealand publication Stuff.
“We’ve been married 11 years this year so my romantic life is much more settled and content than poor Tori’s.
“Tori’s a real romantic and I don’t want that to be crushed. She’s not had the best year but maybe things are about to change now.”
In a previous interview with New Idea in 2018, Penny admitted that she and Matt – who now share two kids, Jack, five, and Neve, one – met in a “nerdy” way.
“It was 1999 at our school music camp,” she confessed.
“I’d just moved to the school, Matt was in the orchestra playing the French horn – if it can get any nerdier! – and I was in the choir.”
For schoolgirl Penny, it was love at first sight and it didn’t take much convincing that he was the one for her.
“I adored him off the bat,” Penny explained. “I was a ridiculous 16-year-old girl who totally thought he was dreamy.”
Matt was just as enamoured, revealing that his first impression of his now wife was that she was “confident and bubbly.”
Their romance wasn’t completely smooth-sailing however, and the pair endured a brief two-year break up in their younger years.
“We were only 19 and we both knew we had to go off and live our lives – we wanted to study and travel,” Penny explained of the couple’s split.
“Even though we really did love each other, we decided to break up, which was heartbreaking.”
But destiny eventually prevailed and the pair got back together, tying the knot in 2009 before starting a family together.
Penny has even divulged she and Matt may even add to their brood in the future.
“I think ultimately, we would like to have a third. I’m not going to pump another one out now but we’ll give it a few years and if it’s in the cards for us, then great,” she told New Idea.
“I think now that I have two and Jack has a sibling, I think if we never had a third that would be fine but having a third would be a pretty special bonus.
“With my health and things, it might not be guaranteed so we’ll give it a few years and try again, if it happens, it happens. If it doesn’t, I’ve been so blessed to have these two.”
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