Busy Philipps Opened Up About Nearly Divorcing Her Husband For Not Helping With Their Kids

Busy Philipps says she considered divorcing her husband for not helping her take care of their two daughters.

The actress and Instagram phenomenon recently opened up to Harpers Bazaar about how her marriage to screenwriter Marc Silverstein changed after they became parents.

Busy felt that Marc was not interested in being a father, and left the raising of their two daughters (Birdie, 11, and Cricket, 6) entirely to her.

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In a 2018 interview with Parents magazine, she revealed that Marc was opposed to them even having a second child, telling her that if they did, it was “all on her”.

Busy was so unhappy with the division of parenting duties that she asked for a divorce, reasoning that if she left, she might actually get some time off.

“I understand that I’m in a place of privilege, and even if I left Marc and I’d been super down on my luck, there was a version of life that I could have made work for me and my daughters,” she admits. “This is not the reality for many women.”

However, Marc fought the divorce, saying he’d ‘do anything’ to save the marriage:

Marc was like, “I’ll do anything.” And I was like, “OK, then do everything. Because I have done it all, all by myself, and I’m done, dude.” I was fully out the door. I wasn’t expecting anything from him, but what we ended up doing was creating our own system.

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Marc now stays at home with the girls, taking over morning and bedtime routines for their eldest daughter and preparing all their meals.

“I like being good at stuff, and I didn’t feel like I was good [in the home], so I stayed away,” he says of his initial attitude to parenting. “I realised that deep happiness comes from my family. And once I figured out what I could bring to the table, things changed. I wanted to do more.”

Considering that the division of labour in the home is still very much tilted towards women, it’s heartening to see that Busy and Marc have managed to work things out. And Busy says she hopes it inspires their daughters, too:

[In a partnership], you have to decide what works for you. I want everything for my girls, but the only way they’re going to believe it’s possible for them is if they see me have it.

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• Busy Philipps
• parenting
• Relationships