Chip Gaines Shares Why Divorce Will Never Be “An Option” For Him & Joanna

Chip and Joanna Gaines have been married for 18 years and they’re as strong as ever. So strong, in fact, that they know divorce will never be “an option” for them because they’re so dedicated to each other, as the home renovation and design duo shared in a recent interview.

“Jo and I are not quitters,” Chip told Access Hollywood on Monday. “Throwing in the towel is not something that honestly ever even comes to mind, and I would say that happened pretty on in our relationship. We just thought that it’s interesting that divorce or leaving one another is not really an option for us.”

The Fixer Upper couple met for the first time shortly after graduating from Baylor University in 2001. They later married in 2003 and have since welcomed five children together. The two have also launched a number of businesses together, including their own home design store, restaurant, and coffee shop. This partnership has only helped them grow into the couple they are today. “So somehow that little foundation has served us well,” Chip told Access Hollywood.

While the couple says they will never quit on each other, they have faced issues in their relationship like most couples. In his 2017 book, Capital Gaines: Smart Things I Learned Doing Stupid Stuff, Chip revealed that he had planned on moving to Mexico to enroll in a three month Spanish immersion program while Joanna, who was his girlfriend at the time, managed his businesses. But after dealing with bounced checks and angry employees, according to TODAY, Joanna gave Chip an ultimatum: “You have three days to get back to Texas or our relationship is over.”

And though the couple has also had to deal with divorce rumors over the years, they don’t seem too bothered by what’s being whispered about them in the rumor mill. “Things have definitely been challenging, we’re not perfect, we have issues and trials and errors just like anybody, but when you say, ‘throwing in the towel’, in fairness I would admit it if we had considered that along the way but relationally, we’re in it forever, this will never be a gossip mag that we don’t make it,” Chip told Access Hollywood. “You can’t lose if you don’t quit and Jo and I keep showing up day after day, sometimes it’s right, and sometimes it’s not, but we keep putting one foot in front of the other.”