Chip and Joanna Gaines’ Marriage Under Pressure As They ‘Struggle’ to Balance Their Demanding Empire

They seem like the perfect couple. He’s the handsome and outgoing contractor, she’s the gorgeous and reserved interior designer. Together, Chip and Joanna Gaines — who celebrated their 22nd wedding anniversary in May — have built beautiful houses, a big family (they share kids Drake, 20, Ella, 18, Duke, 17, Emmie, 15, and Crew, 7) and a massive empire that includes their long-running hit HGTV show Fixer Upper and its spinoffs, a new HBO Max show, Back to the Frontier, product lines, books and their own Magnolia television network.

But behind the flawless facade, some cracks are showing for the Texas-based pair. While talking to celebrity trainer Don Saladino on the July 29 episode of his Stronger podcast, Joanna, 47, opened up about how difficult it’s been for her and Chip, 50, to find balance in their hectic schedules, which are packed to the gills with work commitments and parenthood. “It is hard to do all of it,” Joanna confessed.

According to a source, the pressure of juggling their lucrative brand (together, the power couple is worth an estimated $50 million) with family life is getting to them. “It’s a struggle for Chip and Joanna to juggle everything,” the source tells Star. As their business continues to grow (Joanna’s new cooking show Magnolia Table: At the Farm debuts Sept. 7), romance tends to be put on the back burner. “They find it hard to sit together and talk about stuff that’s not business-related,” adds the source. “It’s something they continue to have trouble with.”

Fully Gutted

It’s not the first time they’ve faced hardships as a couple. “[We] were struggling for the first 12 years of marriage,” Joanna confessed to Saladino, noting that when they were building their business, she and Chip were in a constant state of fear of losing their original Magnolia Market shop in Waco, Texas. As Chip put it in a 2023 interview with People, “We’ve had our challenges, I don’t want to belittle that piece of the equation.” At the time, they were both working together and quickly growing their family. “In their early years as a married couple, life was a blur,” says the source. “They were doing so much and raising babies. It was really hard.”

Tension can boil over, sometimes publicly. “Chip and Jo bicker — that’s become their trademark,” says the source. “Jo is a control freak while Chip likes to be silly and that often leads to friction.”

And they’re not always on the same page when it comes to work and the future of their brand. “Jo has so many great ideas,” says the source. “She’s into expanding and moving in all these different directions, while Chip would be content just flipping houses.”

As longtime business partners, it can be difficult to keep romance at the forefront. “It’s hard to figure out the line of ‘Oh, that’s business. OK, this is marriage,’” Joanna explained to Today. “We’ve tried to be like, ‘Let’s go on a date and not talk about business.’ So we’d sit there and be like, ‘The garden is doing great today…’ When we go on dates, sometimes we get energized by talking about how to problem-solve. So I don’t know.” While the source says neither one is good “at shutting off” work talk, the pair revealed on the podcast that they have started working out together as a means of improving their wellness.

Blueprint For The Future

It’s a constant work in progress. “They had to learn how to iron out issues as they arose,” says the source, adding that as the kids get older, Joanna is learning to slow down. She told US Weekly this spring that after the birth of “surprise” baby Crew, she took her foot “off the gas for the first time in what felt like forever,” adding, “He is constantly reminding me to look up.”

At the end of the day, they know what matters most — their family. On Aug. 10, Joanna shared an emotional post on Instagram showing her final day with her two eldest children at their farmhouse before they headed off to college. “Thankful for the group hug and all the puppies to help me work through my wide range of emotions,” she wrote. Of fame, Chip said on the podcast, “[If] all of this would instantly go away, and my wife and kids would be back on the farm, raising animals,” he wouldn’t have a problem. But, he added, “Jo and I believe we can have our cake and eat it too, in the sense that I can be successful, and I can have a healthy marriage and family.”