Melanie Lynskey is “so grateful” to her husband, Jason Ritter, for getting sober.
In a touching post via Instagram on Thursday, October 16, Lynskey, 48, commended Ritter, 45, for being 12 years sober after a battle with alcohol addiction.
Alongside a photograph of the actor camping with their 6-year-old daughter, Lynskey wrote, “12 years of accountability, of showing up, of answering the phone, of driving home safely, of quiet nights, of loud fun nights, of laughing and laughing, of having the ability to talk things through, of finding solutions, of me having the ability to sleep while you’re away and never be up all night worrying, of constructing this life together.”
She continued, “And 6 years of you being the dad who gets as much as make her lunch, knows how you can do her hair, is there to cuddle and be regular and listen, is capable of be present in an emergency, and is all the time the one who gets asked to play with all the youngsters or push our daughter and her cousins within the hammock. I’m so grateful for the alternative you made twelve years ago, because we’d have none of this without it. And I’m in awe of your strength dring. I like you.”
Ritter reacted to his wife’s post within the comments section, sharing that the considered losing her was the last word motivator to get sober.
“Dring this made me so emotional!!” he shared. “Thanks for being so good together with your boundaries! The one thing scarier and more confronting than giving up drinking was the thought I could lose you, and I’m so glad I made the alternative I did. You and smoosh have allowed me to experience a joy and a love that 12 years ago I might not have believed was possible for me. Alcohol had me believing that my flaws were too big to coexist with anyone, meanwhile, seems it’s easier to work on yourself and your flaws when alcohol isn’t magnifying all of them exponentially.”
Ritter added that he’s “so grateful to be where I’m now” but that he has “further to go.”
“Thanks in your patience, your empathy, your kindness, and your strength, and the room you gave me to grow,” he concluded. “I like you ceaselessly, thanks for all you’ve done and for who you might be. Most incredible person on this planet.”
Jason Ritter along with his daughter. Courtesy of Melanie Lynskey/Instagram
Lynskey and Ritter met in 2013, welcomed their daughter in 2018 and tied the knot in a small ceremony in 2020. Ritter said he was scuffling with alcoholism when he met Lynskey, and shortly realized that he needed to straighten out his act if he desired to be the person who deserved her.
“At some extent, I knew how amazing she was and I assumed she can be incredible for somebody who deserved her, mainly. And I didn’t feel like I used to be that person. I felt somewhat bit too crazy,” Ritter told Drew Barrymore in 2023 during a joint appearance along with his wife.
“It was only after, like, possibly a 12 months into not drinking where I began to go, ‘Oh, possibly I can promise some things to another person. Perhaps I might be this person.’ It’s been like a slow burn. I knew that she was incredible. It was working on myself enough to feel like possibly I might be the one for her, too,” Ritter added, getting emotional.
“He worked so hard,” Lynskey tearfully chimed in. “He did a lot work on himself, I’m so happy with him.”
Their story led Barrymore, 50, to open up about her own yearslong sobriety and share that alcohol was her “poison.”
“The narrative that one creates is that, ‘I can’t be with someone,’” she told the couple. “And I haven’t been in a relationship since I ended drinking, and I’m really looking forward to in the future not having that bad girl narrative, the instability, the ‘I’m not someone who’s right to be with anyone, for his or her sake.’”
On karaoke nights, Jason Ritter likes to get in his feelings. The Parenthood alum says he typically goes for a Miley Cyrus song, but when wife Melanie Lynskey is around, he turns to Queen Bey. “My go-to karaoke song is ‘Wrecking Ball’ by Miley Cyrus,” Ritter, 44, reveals exclusively in the newest edition of Us […]
Ritter later thanked Barrymore for providing “the space to speak about things like this.”
The Matlock star, whose parents are actors Nancy Morgan and the late John Ritter, has been open about his journey with addiction, recently telling recovery advocate Wealthy Walters in June that “the more time that goes by, the simpler [staying sober] is.”
“All that stuff that was fun — that’s all inside you. It’s not like alcohol’s some magic potion that brings something out of you that’s not there. For higher or for worse,” he said of rediscovering who he was in sobriety. “But yeah, you begin to get that back and begin to feel more like yourself.”