Joey Fatone has learned to "give the other person a break" in his relationships.
The former NSYNC star split from his wife Kelly Baldwin in 2019 after 15 years of marriage, and has said one of the biggest lessons he’s learned following his divorce is the importance of giving his partner "a chance to recharge their batteries".
Joey – who has daughters Briahna, 19, and Kloey, 10, with Kelly – said: "Something that I have learned over the years later on, especially being in a divorced family, and even if you’re not divorced and you’re still obviously with your spouse and everything is going great, give the time for your spouse – whether it be the male or female or whatever under your roof is – give that time to say, ‘Hey, you know what? I’m gonna take the kids or the kid or whatever for the weekend,’ or ‘You know what? You go somewhere.’ Give each spouse a chance to kind of recharge their batteries. Because nobody’s perfect. We get angry, we do this, we do that."
The 43-year-old singer admitted he didn’t understand Kelly’s point of view in the early days of their co-parenting journey, but now knows he needs to do more to help her with their daughters.
He added: "We all need downtime to ourselves, whether that be either watching TiVo all day, going to play golf, going to a hotel and reading a book.
"Whatever in that sense may be your Zen, I think it does give the other person a break, and I never noticed that when I was younger because I was always traveling with NSYNC. My ex was always with the kids, and it was always, ‘Well, the kids did this and this and that,’ and [I was] always like, ‘Yeah, yeah, but you can deal with it.’ It’s not that easy."
And Joey now realises how much pressure Kelly was under to raise their children whilst he was on tour.
Speaking during an appearance on the ‘How Men Think’ podcast, he said: "Especially when I got divorced, I became Mom and Dad when I got home, so when I’m home by myself, legit, pardon my French, but I’m like, ‘Oh s***. I gotta cook, I’ve gotta get them ready for school, I have to make sure the house is liveable.’ "