Alan Cumming reflects on his 20-year relationship & honestly its so INSPIRING

It hasn’t all been perfect. Cumming has “made some bad choices along the way” but chooses to highlight so much of what is right and what works for him and Shaffer. Cumming says that that sense of groundedness is highly important to him, especially since he’s rarely been single in his adult life. “I’m drawn to being part of a duo. I like coupling, and I like having a partner,” he says.

The two are also very independent and have very successful careers in their own right. That ebb and flow of connection, the balance between cohesion as a pair and individual sense of self, is a huge part of what makes the relationship successful according to Cumming. “And he has his own life. He's an artist, he's got his own thing that's very independent of me, and that's great as well. I really love that. I love the fact that we bring things to each other and it's a two-way street.”

As the saying goes “distance makes the heart grow fonder” and that’s proven to be true for Cumming and Shaffer as well. Cumming says on traveling and both being so independent, “In a way, I think one of the reasons why our relationship is so successful is that we have time apart. It allows you to miss that person. And when you go back, you celebrate them and you are joyful to be there. It's a positive made out of a negative, I suppose.”

After 20 years of marriage, Cumming has a perfect list of what truly matters for those of us hoping to keep the spark alive even half as long. “We are still in love, and we still find each other really sexy,” he says. Incredibly understandable. Shaffer is a handsome man himself, and Alan Cumming’s performance as the Emcee in the 1998 production of Cabarethelped make me the homosexual I am today. There are other things to life than just sustained sex appeal, as important as that may be. Cumming has something else that takes top billing. “Most of all,” he says, “we still make each other laugh.”