These days, it’s easier than ever to meet new people thanks to dating apps. Before, though, you had to go out into the actual world and hope to meet the perfect person to discover love. Even famous people had to deal with the same doubts and heartbreaks that come with attempting to create a real connection. One of such people is Maureen McCormick. She was well known for playing Marcia Brady on The Brady Bunch from 1969 until 1974.
McCormick is now 67 years old, and her life has not been like a movie. After the cameras stopped filming, she had a hard time adjusting to life without them. She became famous very quickly, but that didn’t help her deal with what happened next. McCormick had to deal with a lot of personal difficulties after The Brady Bunch, like drug misuse, bulimia, and severe depression. People thought she was a great American kid, which made her mental health worse. This was a very different part from the genuine Maureen.
In a 2016 interview with People magazine, she said, “I’ve had a lot of hard times, but I learn and grow from each one.” While I was in a psychiatric hospital and rehab, I appealed to God for aid. Her openness to talk about these things has helped break the taboo around mental illness and addiction, especially among former child stars who generally suffer in secret.
But in the midst of all the tumult, something happened that would change her life forever. During a show one night, McCormick saw a man standing behind her. She had never met him before, yet something about him attracted her eye right away. He had dark hair and a powerful body, and he seemed calm and strong. In her memoir, Here’s the Story, she wrote a lot about what happened: “I turned around and saw this person behind me.” I had never met him before. He had a strong frame, sharp features, and dark hair. I looked him in the eye and thought, “This is the man I want to marry.”
It sounds like something that happened in a movie, but it really did. When Maureen first met Michael Cummings, she felt different. She chose to go after the relationship instead of letting it happen on its own. She began attending the same Bible study groups as him and made sure to sit near to him at church so they could get to know each other better. They had just been through a lot, so it took a lot of courage for them to do it. But her honesty and determination paid off: they went on a first date, and after that, something real started to grow between them.
Michael was a kind and knowledgeable person. He adored Maureen, not Marcia Brady. That was the most important thing. McCormick was honest with him about her past from the start. She was honest when she said she was still healing and didn’t know everything. In an interview from 2015, Cummings remarked, “She was honest with me from the start.” She has always been honest: “We’ll handle whatever comes up together.”
View this post on Instagram
They cared a lot about one other, but their relationship wasn’t always easy. McCormick was still a long way from being healed, and sometimes her old fears and her walls would come back. She pushed Michael away at times because she wasn’t sure whether he could genuinely love her for who she was, not who people thought she was. But Michael didn’t go. He told her that love isn’t about being perfect; it’s about being there for each other when things are rough.
McCormick stated that Michael had pledged to do it for the rest of his life and would keep working on it until he couldn’t anymore. “He thought that being a child star had stopped my growth, and in many ways, he was right.” Maureen was able to keep going on her road to recovery and find herself again, not as a former TV star, but as a strong, faithful, and resilient woman because she understood and cared about her.
They became greater friends because they trusted each other and had a religion that helped them get through hard times. They had a child together in 1989, and even though life, fame, and recovery were challenging, they stayed together. Maureen and Michael have stayed true to each other and the principles that brought them together: faith, honesty, and hard work.
The pair will celebrate their 37th wedding anniversary on March 16. Not many people in Hollywood get this far, and even fewer do it with such elegance and regard for one other. McCormick thinks that their faith kept things together. “We both thought our love was real, strong, long-lasting, and worth staying in the relationship for, even though we had a lot of problems.” We thought our love was true because of what we thought.
View this post on Instagram
Their story reveals that not all love starts with fireworks. It could start with a look at church, a shared value, and a desire to go through sadness together. Maureen McCormick didn’t meet someone she loved in a movie or on TV. It came from real life, being open to new things, taking risks, and meeting someone who saw her as Maureen instead of Marcia.
Most relationships don’t last long and aren’t very deep, but Maureen and Michael’s love is different. If both parties are honest, patient, and have faith, a relationship can get through hard times and even get stronger. It’s always a good idea to celebrate that kind of love.