Blake Lively reveals rule she and Ryan Reynolds abide by to make their marriage work

Couple have been married since 2012

Blake Lively has revealed the one rule that she and her husband, Ryan Reynolds, have abided by to make their marriage work.

The 36-year-old actor spoke candidly about her husband of nearly 12 years during an appearance on pal Amber Tamblyn’s Substack show, Further Ado, which aired on 22 February. During their relationship, Lively and Reynolds have also welcomed three daughters – James, nine, Inez, seven, and Betty, four – and a one-year-old child, whose name hasn’t been publicly revealed.

Speaking to her fellow Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants co-star, the actor said that back when she and Reynolds first started dating, they made one rule in their professional careers, for the sake of their relationship.

“When Ryan and I got together, we made a rule not to work at the same time,” she said during the episode of the show, as reported by E! News. “So that we could always prioritise our personal life.”

Lively specified that she and Reynolds have continued to follow the strategy for when they take on jobs, ever since married in 2012. However, she confessed that it hasn’t been easy for her and her partner to stick with this rule.

“That takes working really hard when we’re not,” she continued. “Just like financial planning and sustaining that; it takes balance.”

She also acknowledged that when she and Reynolds first got together, she was the one with the demanding work schedule, as she was filming her hit show, Gossip Girl.

“I’m used to working hard and going and going and going and going and not stopping,”  she added. “Especially, Gossip Girl was six years of my life, and we were sometimes shooting three episodes at once.”

In 2019, Reynolds first opened up about the agreement that he and his wife have when it comes to their work lives. “Blake and I don’t do movies at the same time. If she is doing a movie in Thailand and I am doing a movie in Vancouver we would just never see each other. We operate as a unit, and that works really well for us,” he told People at the time. “The kids stay with us, and the family stays together, and that is where home is. So if we are in Spain or Utah or New York, as long as we are together, we’re home.”

The beloved Hollywood couple first met in 2010, while on the set of Green Lantern, in which Lively played the titular character’s love interest. They went on to spark date rumours in 2011, before officially tying the knot one year later.

Earlier this month, the pair also made headlines when Reynolds hilariously questioned his wife’s whereabouts, as she was attending the 2024 Super Bowl in Las Vegas. While Lively was at Allegiant Stadium, alongside close pal Taylor Swift, Reynolds hilariously took to Instagram to ask his viewers: “Has everyone seen the #Deadpool trailer? Also has anyone seen my wife?” In the photo, the actor posed next to a still of himself in the Deadpool trailer.

That night, Lively took to her Instagram Story to answer her husband’s question about where she was, despite being shown on the jumbotron multiple times throughout the Super Bowl. In the follow-up post, she was posing next to the same Deadpool trailer that Reynolds had been in his own post, as she wrote: “Honey, I’m home.”

Earlier this week, The Age of Adaline star took to Instagram to share even more details about her appearance at the Super Bowl, during which she wore a red Adidas tracksuit with a white cropped tank top and stiletto heels. More specifically, she revealed that her trip to Vegas was the first time leaving her four children.

“Last week I left my kids for the first time ever and wore pants that were shoes,” the caption of her post read. “I treated a friendship bracelet like a Flat Stanley for my husband like I didn’t realize it wasn’t ‘07. I borrowed more jewelry than the skelton in the Pirates of the Caribbean ride. And I went clubbing. Now I know what my episode of the Twilight Zone would look like.”