Why Cranston needs therapy

last updated 8 January 2015

Bryan Cranston has cracked the secret to a successful marriage, said Tim Teeman in the Financial Times. His parents’ marriage ended “awfully” when his father “went temporarily crazy,” the Breaking Bad star says, leaving his mother deeply depressed. “She lost the love of her life,” Cranston says, “and she never fully recovered.” His own first marriage fizzled in his 20s. “We weren’t in love with each other. By the time I was courageous enough to face that, we were already married.” So when he began dating his second wife, Robin Dearden, in his early 30s, he told her he would only get married if they attended marriage guidance counseling before their wedding. That way, they could prevent “problems festering like a sore,” Cranston says. “It really helped us.” He and Robin still do occasional therapy sessions, and Cranston, 58, has also done a lot of individual work as well. “I look at it as a tune-up. If your car starts running rough, are you going to open the hood and fix it?” It seems to work: He and his wife have been together for 25 years. The irony, he says, is that growing up in California, “anyone seeing a therapist was crazy. The stigma was awful. It kept people away who could have really used therapy.’’