Inside the Puzzling Reason Ted Danson and Mary Steenburgen Are Still Together After 30 Years

Ted Danson is crediting a set of small, steadfast rituals – not fame, not fortune, not even their long-running on-screen chemistry – for keeping his 30-year marriage to Mary Steenburgen "happily glued together" as the pair enter their eighth decade.

OK! can reveal the couple, who have been married since 1995 and are now playing love interests in the second season of Danson's Netflix hit A Man on the Inside, say their early-morning routine of waking at 4:30 a.m. to play Wordle, Connections and Spelling Bee remains the quiet anchor of a relationship – which began on a film set in the mid-1990s and could easily have drifted under the pressures of stardom.

They insist those "little things" – the games, the shared coffee, the daily habit of showing up – matter far more than the allure of the career options or partners they could have chosen at the height of their fame.

Reflecting on that bond, a friend of the couple told OK!: "They both had lives filled with glamorous possibilities, but what kept them together is the smallest stuff – the things ordinary couples do. They never thought they were too famous for the mundane."

The source added that the daily rituals felt like 'threads that stitched them into one life, not two."

Another longtime colleague who has worked with them separately and together added: "It sounds baffling, but it's the puzzle games and the early mornings that keep them connected. Anyone else in their famous shoes might have drifted. They had choices and temptations down the years, but they chose the tiny habits over the big temptations to keep themselves tied together."

The source added the pair's morning routine has become "almost sacred" to the couple.

Danson, 77, explained their morning practice with precision, saying about how he and Steenburgen wake ultra-early: "[It's] because we had to go get ready and be in a car, we probably got halfway through Spelling Bee. These are important facts."

Steenburgen, 72, added: "And another important fact is that we're bright enough to do these games together. So we each have half a really amazing brain."

Danson also said about how they continue the ritual virtually if their film keeps them apart: "To both of us, it's like heaven on Earth. Even if she's working in a different time zone, we will wake up in time to be able to play our games and have coffee over the phone."

Danson and Steenburgen first grew close while filming Pontiac Moon in 1994, shortly after Danson finalized his divorce from his second wife, Casey Coates, with whom he shares daughters Kate and Katrina.

Steenburgen was raising her children, Charlie and Lilly, following her separation from actor Malcolm McDowell. Their relationship quickly deepened, with both later saying they were startled by the ease and certainty of the connection.

For their 30th anniversary, they celebrated in Japan. Danson said of the milestone: "I had to work. But then the next day we got on a plane and flew to Japan, just the two of us."

Steenburgen added: "We'd never been there, and it was No. 1 on our wish list for travel. We really loved it. The whole experience blew our minds."

Danson and Steenburgen are also kept close by the recent addition of two new grandchildren in their lives. It adds to the three the couple already share, with Steenburgen saying they are "obsessed" with the kids.

And the joy, Danson said, keeps coming. "I would never have imagined that I would be madly in love and have fun and laugh in my late 70s," the Cheers actor said.

Steenburgen added: "For two people who in some ways are quite different, we are weirdly compatible."