Daniels, 93, married her husband William when she was just 18 years-old in 1951
The wife of a Boy Meets World star revealed she and her husband had an open marriage during their early years together, but that she had to call the arrangement off because she couldn’t handle it.
Bonnie Bartlett Daniels has revealed she and husband William Daniels ‘never felt tied to fidelity’ at the beginning of their now 72-year marriage.
The 93-year-old got candid about her relationship with the ‘Boy Meets World’ actor, 95, while promoting her new memoir, ‘Middle of the Rainbow’ which she said is intended to serve as a ‘history of women’s experiences.
‘I guess it was a little bit of an open marriage at first, but that was very painful,’ Bartlett Daniels told Fox News Digital on Tuesday, January 17. ‘That didn’t work well.’
‘And it was a time when people were doing that,” she continued.
‘It was at a time in New York when there was a lot of sex and a lot of people doing all kinds of things, you know — very free.’
The couple married in 1951 but Daniels reveals how she went on to have ‘an affair that lasted a few months’ with an actor who was ‘slightly boring’ sometime around 1959.
‘I never felt guilty because I never felt tied to fidelity, and neither did Bill,’ she wrote.
However, her husband’s affair with a producer in the ’70s left her ‘devastated’ and completely changed the dynamic of their marriage.
By that point, the actress learned she ‘could no longer tolerate any kind of open marriage’ and the twosome moved ‘forward day-by-day’ to repair their broken relationship.
‘It was very painful for the both of us,’ she told the outlet.
‘But it was something we had to go through because we never went through it,’ she continued.
‘When we got together I was 18. Bill was my first boyfriend … We just had to go through all that and still, we loved each other very much and always have.’
‘[We] have always been there for each other. That’s what matters — if you’re there for the person and help [them] along in a relationship, [have] respect for them and what they’re doing and being there for them… [You have to] be together on the other side.’
In her memoir, Bonnie wrote about how she looked for a ‘kinder and gentler man’ than William to see during the early days of their marriage.
She described having ‘an affair that lasted a few months’ in 1959.
Bonnie said it was with a ‘slightly boring actor,’ but added that ‘the sex was good.’
Bonnie, who starred alongside her husband in the show St. Elsewhere, told Fox she was inspired to start writing the memoir during the #MeToo movement.
‘The MeToo thing was starting, and I said, ‘You know, if I were to write something, I don’t want it to be about my career only.
‘I would want it to be a history of women’s experiences and how men have treated women.
‘So many of us have been through so much,’ Bonnie said. ‘But now I can tell my own story.’
