Catherine Zeta-Jones and husband Michael Douglas are back together again following a split that took place last August. The Wall Street actor admits he took his wife for granted in the years prior to their split. He says he learned from his mistakes, however, and has re-evaluated his relationship with Zeta-Jones.

“When you are younger you care what other people think. And you take the person closest to you for granted. You waste a lot of energy on strangers to make a good impression. When you’re older you focus that energy on the people closest to you, on your family. And you’re courteous,” Michael Douglas said in a recent interview.

Catherine Zeta-Jones and Douglas have two children together–son Dylan is 13 and daughter Carys is 11. Douglas has children from a previous marriage as well.

Zeta-Jones made headlines several months prior to the couple’s split for her diagnosis of bipolar disorder. She spent some time in a rehab facility following her diagnosis which was largely overplayed by the media.

Michael Douglas suffered from cancer a while back but is said to have a clean bill of health these days. The 69-year-old actor claims he is more comfortable in his own skin today more so than ever before.

Hopefully Catherine Zeta-Jones and Michael Douglas have salvaged their almost 14-year marriage. When a couple has two children and nearly 14 years invested in one another and in their family it’s sometimes good to take a step back before immediately filing for divorce when things go wrong. Perhaps with Douglas’s admission of having taken his wife for granted the two can begin anew with a better feeling about their relationship. No one wants to feel taken for granted. It’s as if they don’t matter. If Michael Douglas has truly learned his lesson it will show in the way he treats his wife. These two have been through way too much together to simply throw in that proverbial towel. Zeta-Jones and Douglas maintained from the start of their separation that they would work things out. It seems as though they’ve managed to do just that.

Image via Wikimedia Commons