'It took us a very long to dig ourselves out of that hole': Emma Thompson and Greg Wise's marriage was 'saved by therapy'

Dame Emma Thompson and Greg Wise first met on the set of 1995’s Sense and Sensibility, and like something out of a romantic Jane Austen tale, the pair got their happy ending.

The couple welcomed their daughter, Gaia, in 1999, married in 2003 and informally adopted their son, Tindyebwa around the same time. However, Greg has candidly recounted how he and Emma faced difficult moments getting there, including the struggles with IVF that left them “dislocated”.

Speaking on Elizabeth Day’s How to Fail podcast, Greg recalled feeling helpless not being the “saviour” for his wife as she endured all the hormones and treatments for IVF, and praised therapy as being the thing that “saved his marriage” as well as himself.

Opening up on their difficulties to conceive a child, he shared on the podcast, “We'd been together for three, four years, decided we wanted to start a family. In Gaia's second year of life we tried again and failed and tried again and failed. It's brutal anyway, and it brings so much baggage with it.

“It's the most authentic feeling of failure ever because this is why we're here. We are here to procreate. And you're not a man if you can't. And you're not a woman if you can't. We’re brought up with the fables that all boys grow up to be fathers and all girls grow up to be mothers. And it took us a very long time to dig ourselves out of that hole.”

When asked by host Elizabeth if the pair were able to talk to each through those painful feelings, Greg conceded, “No, no, we were dislocated.”

Greg went on to explain how it felt to watch Emma take on a lot of the physicality of the procedure alone. “it's a brutal process and where I was in myself at the time, the saviour figure, I couldn't save them.

“She was undertaking all of this. All I could do was to support and try and soothe her rather than myself”.

When asked what ultimately brought the couple back to each other, Greg revealed, “It took a while. It was Gaia. ‘Here we are. We are a family.’”

“We do have a child that we love. We are this shape. I think also we bring with us the idea of what a family should look like by the family that we came from. So, we both came from families of two siblings. That's a family. That's what it looks like.

“Mom, dad, two kids. We've only got one. We're not a family. We've failed.”

Greg and Emma would complete their family with their son, Tindyebwa. A Rwandan refugee and former child soldier, the pair met Tindyebwa at a Refugee Council event in December 2003 and would informally adopt him when he was aged 16.

Completing the family portrait was one thing, but Greg admits that therapy saved not only their marriage, but his life.

“Therapy saved my life. It saved our marriage without a doubt. Without a doubt. I would not be sitting here without therapy.”