When Christine Taylor and Ben Stiller announced their separation in 2017, they had already been married for 17 years, raised two children and built a relationship that had stretched across both family life and Hollywood.

For Taylor, the decision did not feel freeing.

It felt painful, heavy and deeply different from the future she had imagined.

Nearly a decade later, the 54-year-old actress is looking back on that chapter with a very different perspective. She says the separation was difficult, but it ultimately gave both her and Stiller the distance they needed to understand what had gone wrong — and what they still wanted from each other.

Their unexpected path back to marriage did not happen through one dramatic gesture.

It happened slowly, during the COVID-19 pandemic, while the entire family was living under the same roof and the couple began working through their relationship in therapy.

Today, Taylor says they are stronger than they were before.

They Had Reached a Point Where Life No Longer Fit the Same Way

Taylor and Stiller first met in 1999 while working on Heat Vision and Jack, a Fox television pilot that never made it to air.

The connection moved quickly.

They married less than a year later and eventually welcomed two children, daughter Ella and son Quinlin.

Over the years, their personal and professional lives frequently overlapped. They appeared together in projects including Zoolander, Dodgeball: A True Underdog Story, Tropic Thunder, Arrested Development and Zoolander 2.

But Taylor now says the marriage eventually reached a stage where they were no longer moving through life in the same way.

She had met Stiller when she was 28, before several enormous life changes followed.

Marriage came.

Then motherhood.

Her career changed as she made choices around raising a family.

Taylor explained that adults, just like children, move through different stages and periods of growth. Over time, she and Stiller found themselves in different places emotionally and personally.

They kept trying to make the relationship work.

But eventually, Taylor said, they had to recognize that forcing everything to fit was no longer helping.

The answer was to stop.

Their 2017 Separation Was Not an Easy Decision

In May 2017, Taylor and Stiller publicly announced that they were separating after 17 years of marriage.

Behind that announcement was far more emotional difficulty than the brief public statement could show.

Taylor has now said that reaching the decision was “very difficult.”

She had not imagined her marriage reaching that point, and part of the pain came from believing that the two of them should somehow have been able to solve whatever was wrong.

The separation therefore did not feel like a simple change in relationship status.

It carried disappointment.

Taylor said there was a feeling of dejection because the reality did not match what she had once believed the marriage would be.

Still, the couple did not disappear from each other’s lives.

That became crucial.

They Never Stopped Being a Family

During their time apart, Taylor and Stiller remained in regular contact.

They continued co-parenting Ella and Quinlin and spent time together as a family.

The relationship had changed, but the connection had not been completely severed.

That created a very different foundation from one in which two former partners build entirely separate lives.

Years later, circumstances would unexpectedly bring all four members of the family together for an extended period.

The COVID-19 pandemic changed daily life around the world.

For Taylor and Stiller, it also changed the trajectory of their marriage.

Their daughter was graduating from high school around that time, while their son was finishing eighth grade.

The family ended up staying together in the same home.

There were few places to go and few distractions available.

What they suddenly had was time.

A lot of it.

Therapy Became Part of Their Way Back

Taylor says she and Stiller used that period to focus directly on their relationship.

They began attending therapy together through Zoom.

Instead of avoiding the problems that had led them to separate, they spent time examining them.

The enforced closeness of pandemic life might have created even more tension.

Instead, Taylor describes it as an unexpected gift.

The couple had an opportunity to slow down, talk and reassess what their relationship might still become.

There was no immediate announcement that they had reconciled.

From the outside, the public still largely knew them as a separated couple.

Inside the family, however, something was changing.

Taylor and Stiller were gradually finding their way back toward one another.

In February 2022, Stiller finally confirmed publicly that they were together again.

By then, the process had been years in the making.

Taylor Says Separation Can Feel Like “Failure”

Part of why Taylor now speaks openly about the experience is because she believes people often avoid discussing marital separation honestly.

It can feel like an admission that something has gone wrong.

For a couple who had spent nearly two decades married, stepping away from that relationship could easily be viewed as failure.

Taylor understands that feeling because she experienced it herself.

But the outcome changed the meaning of that chapter.

Instead of ending the marriage, the separation became a period that allowed both of them to grow and eventually return to each other with a different understanding of what the relationship required.

Taylor now says they emerged from the experience stronger and better.

That does not erase how painful 2017 was.

It changes what came after.

They Now Make Time for Each Other Deliberately

One lesson appears to have remained especially important since their reconciliation: time together cannot simply be assumed.

Taylor said she and Stiller now make a conscious effort to prioritize each other.

She offered one recent example.

While Taylor was working on a project in Montreal, Stiller drove roughly five hours to visit her on set.

The gesture may sound simple, but it reflected something she believes is essential to their marriage now — actively choosing to show up.

Stiller has also spoken publicly about what has helped sustain their relationship.

In a 2025 interview, he pointed to their shared sense of humor as one of the most important parts of their bond.

After years together, he said, being able to laugh with the person beside you and still genuinely enjoy spending time together matters enormously.

He also recalled recognizing very early in their romance that being with Taylor simply felt right.

Nearly Three Decades After Meeting, They Chose Each Other Again

Taylor and Stiller’s relationship has now lasted through far more than its original romantic beginning.

They have moved through marriage, parenthood, changing careers, separation and reconciliation.

Their children are now adults.

Ella is 24 and Quinlin is 20.

The couple who once reached a point where they could no longer make the pieces fit is now publicly together again, appearing side by side at events including the 2025 Vanity Fair Oscar Party and the 2026 Met Gala.

For Taylor, however, the most meaningful part of their story does not appear to be simply that they reunited.

It is that reunion was not automatic.

They had to work for it.

They had to accept a period when the marriage was not working, remain connected as parents, confront difficult questions and eventually make room for therapy and change.

The separation once felt like the opposite of the life Taylor thought she was supposed to have.

Now she views it as part of the path that brought them to a stronger place.

After years of uncertainty, she says she feels fortunate that she and Stiller were able to find their way back — not to the marriage exactly as it had been before, but to a version shaped by everything they had survived in between.