Matthew McConaughey Backs Away from Fights With Camila Alves When This Happens

Matthew McConaughey and his wife, Camila Alves, have been married since 2012. McConaughey says he knows it’s time for him to cool off and pause an argument when he does this one thing.

Matthew McConaughey says his parents had a ‘passionate’ marriage

McConaughey says his parents often had fights that turned physical. During an interview with Jada Pinkett-Smith on Facebook Watch’s Red Table Talk, he compared their relationship to “a hurricane in the Pacific.” When it comes to his own marriage, he says he would rather have “a river with a few rapids.”

According to McConaughey, his father broke his mother’s middle finger four times. He also says there was a time when his father flipped the dinner table over and began to charge at his mother after she repeatedly called him “fat man.”

He says his mother waved a 12-inch chef’s knife at his father and later broke his nose with a phone receiver. According to him, the fight ended with his parents bloodied and on the kitchen floor, making love.

“My mom and dad had a very passionate relationship,” says McConaughey. “Twice divorced, thrice married. But once again, the love won. If the love didn’t win, it would have twice married, thrice divorced. A lot of the time, it was like, ‘I love you, but I don’t like you right now.’ The love was never in question.”

How Matthew McConaughey knows he needs to take a time out

McConaughey says he communicates with his wife differently than the way his parents did. “I don’t need that; I’m glad my wife doesn’t need that,” he says on Red Table Talk.

McConaughey reveals he takes a step back when he gets to the point where he begins to raise his voice. He says he knows it’s time to think about what’s happening between him and Alves when he begins to get loud.

He shares that he has “an alarm that goes off,” that lets him know he’s reaching a level he would rather not engage. He says he can also tell quickly if he’s getting to that point if he dishes out a “sharp” remark during an argument.

Lessons Matthew McConaughey learned from his parents

Although McConaughey’s parents fought a lot and there was often chaos at home, he says he learned valuable lessons from them. He learned not to lie, to answer to his name, not to hate people, and to refrain from saying he can’t do something.

McConaughey says he would be physically punished for doing any of those four things. The actor recalled the time his father punished him for lying about stealing a pizza. He says he could tell it broke his father’s heart when he hit him, but he says he still remembers that lesson to this day.

McConaughey says when he tested his parents, he was punished with what he calls a “butt whooping.” He never forgot what he did wrong after that. “Those four times that I got in trouble, I earned it,” says McConaughey. He says he learned from his parents that when he does something wrong, he’s not only disrespecting others but also himself.

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