“I made a very smart choice with my wife,” Bateman told The Independent in 2008. “I didn’t marry a ‘girlfriend.’ I married a ‘wife’. I think my gender is known to pick women that make us feel good, and who are kind of subordinate to us. And I was guilty of that for a long time. I didn’t really have the balls to be with someone who was my equal and, as a result, a lot of those relationships were short-term.”
Eventually he said to himself, “Well, I only want to get married once, so make sure I marry a friend that I’m really attracted to.’ She was a very close friend, and it’s worked because I don’t need to be in a certain mood to like her— she’s like a friend who you never tire of.”
Bateman and Anka dated for several years before marrying on July 3, 2001. They welcomed their first child, Francesca Nora Bateman, on Oct. 28, 2006, and her sister, Maple Sylvie Bateman, was born Feb. 10, 2012.
And checking off those boxes was way more fulfilling than anything the actor did back in the 1980s.