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Rena Sofer is a soap opera actor best known for her roles in General Hospital and The Bold and the Beautiful. Sofer’s real life, surprisingly, also has some soap opera elements. She and her husband, Sanford Bookstaver, had a rocky marriage and ended up marrying each other again after a divorce.

Rena Sofer and Sanford Bookstaver smiling, sitting on a large ottoman
Rena Sofer and Sanford Bookstaver | Jamie McCarthy/Getty Images

Rena Sofer and Sanford Bookstaver got divorced and remarried

Sofer and Bookstaver, a TV director and producer, got married for the first time in 2003. Two years later, they welcomed a daughter together named Avalon.

In 2017, Sofer and Bookstaver got a divorce. However, the pair shocked fans when they announced they had reunited in 2019. That same year, they decided to get married again.

In 2021, Sofer took to Instagram to celebrate their unconventional marriage timeline. She wrote, “This guy!!! Married me 18 years ago today. I divorced him four years ago yesterday. Then he took me back (well, we took each other back) two years ago. And I’ve never been happier!!! I love you @sbookstaver you are my #loml forever!!!”

Rena Sofer opened up about why the separation needed to happen

In October 2022, Sofer was a guest on State of Mind, a YouTube series hosted by her former General Hospital co-star Maurice Benard. During her appearance, Sofer spoke candidly about her experiences with love, including her temporary separation from Bookstaver. “I needed the death of the relationship to understand how to live in the relationship,” she said.

Sofer continued, “I lost myself in the marriage, and it wasn’t his fault. It was me trying to be something I wasn’t, me losing sight of how to fix it.” As a result, Sofer felt it was necessary to get out of the relationship, even though Bookstaver was not on board with a divorce.

During their split, Sofer and Bookstaver remained friends to co-parent their daughter. Sofer told Soaps In Depth that she did try to date other people, but not much came out of that. In late 2018, she had a change of heart when Bookstaver showed up at her birthday party despite living across the country at that time. Sofer explained,

“He flew in from New York to be at my birthday party for three hours, and then he flew back. That was a big deal for me, because it kind of answered the question of, ‘Who’s going to have my back for the rest of my life?’ Here’s a guy who [was no longer obligated to] have my back anymore, and he still did!”

The couple rekindled their love in 2019, and the rest is history.

Rena Sofer was once married to fellow soap star Wally Kurth

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Before dating Bookstaver, Sofer had been married once before. From 1994 to 1997, she was married to actor Wally Kurth, who played her love interest on General Hospital. The pair even welcomed daughter Rosabel together.

Sofer told Benard that their marriage broke down shortly after her stint on the show ended. “We fell in love on TV,” Sofer explained. “And when I left the show, we realized, ‘Oh, our characters were in love. We weren’t in love.’”

She added, “I really like Wally a lot. I mean, he’s an incredible guy. He’s just not the guy for me, and it really took me leaving for both of us to realize that we weren’t meant to be together.”

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