Chip Gaines confesses to being 'selfish' in his dating life before meeting wife Joanna Gaines

Chip Gaines made "a lot of changes" to make his relationship with his wife, Joanna, work.

When the former "Fixer Upper" stars met back in 2001, Chip says that he was a "selfish" single guy who was dating around and not looking to settle down, unlike all of the women that he had been seeing around that time.

"I really wasn't that guy," Chip told People for its latest cover story. "I dated girls whose goal in life was to get married and have kids. They had it all planned out, but I was too selfish. It was about me and what I wanted to do, and I didn’t have anything tying me down."

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Chip and Jo met one another while she was working at her father's Firestone automotive shop in Waco, Texas. While she was raised in Texas, Chip is originally from Albuquerque, New Mexico. The beloved red-headed TV personality credits his then-future wife as sparking an intrinsic change in him.

"It felt like there was this real transition. I matured and grew up," he explained. "It just kind of clicked in my brain: 'This is going to work.'"

The couple wed two years later, in 2003. It was their wedding that Chip says really enabled him to picture his future life with Joanna and see all that they could accomplish together.

"I had to make a lot of changes," he said. "I had to be a better person. But when I thought about the idea of being an 80-year-old man sitting on a rocking chair with my beautiful wife, and for she and I to have made it [that far], I got really excited."

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Fast-forward 16 years, and Chip and Joanna have certainly made a name for themselves. In addition to having five seasons of their highly-rated HGTV hit, "Fixer Upper," under their belt, the couple has multiple businesses, including their Magnolia empire that includes a market, magazine, a construction business, home goods line and more.

Not to mention, they also have five children: Drake, 14, Ella, 12, Duke, 10, Emmie, 9, and Crew, 11 months.

Next on the list for Chip and Joanna? Their own television network launching in the summer of 2020.