Following a difficult divorce and deep need for some soul-searching, Elizabeth Gilbert embarked on a journey of self-discovery that she later chronicled in her best-selling book Eat, Pray, Love. During her trek, the author met and fell in love with a Brazilian-born man named José Nunes, who she married less than a year after her memoir became a best-seller. Eat, Pray, Love fans read intimate details of their romance, but what many don’t know is how a single comment made Gilbert even more excited to marry her husband.
“My husband has a line that I always quote. It’s not all why I married him, but it’s a lot of why I married him,” Gilbert says in the above video. “He said, ‘A woman’s place is in the kitchen…with her feet up, drinking a glass of wine, watching her husband cook her a meal.'”
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“I love it so much, because he’s not denying that the world is a ruthless furnace. But he’s saying if you’re stubborn enough, you hold onto your gladness, even in the furnace,” Gilbert explains. “That’s beyond happiness… The stubborn gladness that he refers to is the sort of gratitude that I aim for.”
Related: Gilbert also shares the true definition of a soul mate — and it’s not someone who is your “perfect fit.”
