Matthew McConaughey and Camila Alves Share the Sweet Way They Break the Ice in Disagreements
Matthew McConaughey and Camila Alves say the kitchen is the key to ending disputes in their home!
On Wednesday, the couple will appear on the Your Mama's Kitchen podcast and share how the kitchen played a part in constructive arguments.
In the sneak peek clip, the pair is asked by host Michele Norris, "What did you learn in the kitchen about how to have conflict and how to de-escalate that?"
"Pour another glass of tequila," Alves quips as McConaughey gathers his thoughts.
"Pour another glass of tequila is helpful," he adds. "Go and get something sweet. Sweet food can de-escalate some things. Even if it's a nice piece of chocolate or some ice cream. I've never been a big sweet eater, maybe that's why that milkshake on Sunday night meant so much. It was the grace part."
McConaughey reveals that he and Alves have had dinners where they started off really well, but the conversation turned into them butting heads.
"That never happens," the model jokes.
McConaughey then says that the simple gesture of service breaks the ice when there's tension.
"In the middle of the disagreement, if I was to cook that night and I was doing my steak sushi, if I'm going to slice you off another bite and then go serve you, there's an invisible dissipation to the disagreement that happens in my service to her that I handed her a gift of something that we already really were enjoying," he says. "That I continued. It's not like, 'Now we're disagreeing and I'm gonna quit serving you or you're gonna quit serving me.'"
McConaughey pulled the example of how every morning Alves makes tea for him, because according to him, she makes it the best, and that no matter how angry she may be at him in the moment, she always does it.
"The fact that you make my tea for me and serve me every morning, it just tastes better," he says. "Even if you and I are in a disagreement, the fact that you still make my tea and serve me my tea, it's the difference between being married and dating."
"Trust me, ladies, some mornings I do not want to serve that tea," Alves admits.
"But you still make it for me anyway," he says. "That's the difference between in marriage and dating. You dating somebody and you get into a disagreement, you're like, 'Uh oh, this is a sign of things to come, better get out now.' But you're married and you're disagreeing and you're like, 'Well I'm not pulling the parachute, we're gonna work through this. I'm gonna serve my man his tea, I'm gonna serve my lady her steak sushi because she loves it. Even though we may be in a disagreement.'"
Alves, 40, and McConaughey, 54, have been married since 2012. Together, they share three children -- Levi, 15, Vida, 13, and Livingston, 10.
This isn't the first time the couple has been open about family tiffs. Alves was candid about McConaughey's mother's treatment of her when they first began dating.
"She did all these things when I first came in the picture," Alves said to Southern Living's Biscuits & Jam podcast in August. "She was really testing me. I mean, really testing me. She would call me by all of Matthew's ex-girlfriends' names, she would start speaking Spanish with me in a very broken way, kind of putting down a bit. I mean, all kinds of stuff."
The Dallas Buyers Club actor confirmed his wife's story, telling ET Canada that it was a "rite of passage" and that his mother got over it, when Alves put her foot down.
In September, Alves opened up to ET about her mother-in-law's reaction to the story becoming public.
"Oh, she loves it! Ma Mac loves the limelight. She wants to be in the light," she said of Ma Mac's reaction to the story going public. "She loves it. And it's a true story. I wasn't making it up. I wasn't exaggerating. It's a real story. Things like that do happen. And I think the most important thing is not to be stuck on the story, but the fact that we got past it."
Your Mama's Kitchen available Wednesday, Jan 24., exclusively on Audible.
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