Chip and Joanna Gaines just celebrated 16 years of marriage, but Chip revealed in an interview with PEOPLE Magazine that he wasn’t always looking forward to or interested in marriage.
Chip 44, opened up about how when he first met Joanna, he wasn’t sure he was ready to leave his bachelor days behind him.
“I really wasn’t that guy,” he said. “I dated girls whose goal in life was to get married and have kids. They had it all planned out, but I was too selfish. It was about me and what I wanted to do, and I didn’t have anything tying me down.”
In the interview, Chip recalled meeting Joanna for the first time at her father’s automotive shop, where she was working in Waco, Texas.
“It felt like there was this real transition. I matured and grew up,” he said. “It just kind of clicked in my brain: ‘This is going to work.'”
The two married in 2003, but turning from a bachelor to a married man wasn’t easy, and Chip went through a period of time adjusting to the lifestyle.
“I had to make a lot of changes. I had to be a better person. But when I thought about the idea of being an 80-year-old man sitting on a rocking chair with my beautiful wife, and for she and I to have made it [that far], I got really excited,” he said.
Now 16 years later, the couple shares five kids: Drake, 14, Ella, 12, Duke, 10, Emmie, 9, and Crew, 11 months, and a variety of businesses.
The couple, who gained notoriety after their HGTV show “Fixer Upper” became a hit, owns a renovation company, a market in Waco, and even has a household line with Target.
Chip and Joanna have written books, Joanna has a clothing line, and are currently working on opening a cafe in downtown Waco. As if they did not have enough projects going on, the couple is getting their very own cable TV channel.
They’re a well-accomplished couple but Chip gives most of the credit to his wife: “I tell my kids this a lot. She’s the one that makes this whole thing go around.”