A Complete Timeline Of Dr. Phil's Relationship With His Wife Robin

Since 1976, talk show host Dr. Phil McGraw has been married to Robin McGraw. Though they have proved to be a strong marital unit time and time again, Dr. Phil and Robin have faced their fair share of divorce rumors over the years. And yet, they are still going strong, as Dr. Phil and Robin have kept their spark alive after decades of marriage.

Sometimes in a relationship, it is not the problem itself, but how you deal with it that shapes where the relationship goes. During a 2023 "Dr. Phil" episode, Dr. Phil asked Robin, "How many times has the D word come up in our relationship?" Without hesitation, she responded, "Not one time." Evidently, when Dr. Phil and his wife Robin face conflict in their marriage, they make a point of not opening any cans of divorce worms.

"We made a decision real early on that no matter what we're discussing, no matter what argument we may be having, no matter what disagreement we're talking about, the relationship is never the stakes for which we're playing. That's just off the table," Dr. Phil stated in the aforementioned episode. "If you mean it, do it, and if you don't, you don't ever threaten somebody with that." Through thick and thin, they have stood by each other's side. If Dr. Phil McGraw and Robin McGraw's relationship timeline proves one thing, it's that avoiding the "D word" sure has worked in their favor.

Though Dr. Phil McGraw has been married to Robin McGraw for a long time, their wedding was not his first trip down the aisle. The TV star married a woman named Debbie Higgins McCall back in 1970. Over the years, details about Dr. Phil's marriage and divorce from his first wife have come to light. Reflecting on his first marriage, Dr. Phil told Newsweek in 2002, "I was the big football player, and she was the cheerleader. This was just the next thing to do." The two remained married for three years.

Dr. Phil opened up about how they decided to call it quits, and from his description it sounds like a mutual realization. As he told Newsweek, "We never had a cross word. We just sat down and said, 'Why did we do this?'" 

In 2002, Dr. Phil's ex-wife offered her take on why their marriage ended. She claimed to Recordnet.com that Dr. Phil was unfaithful to her. ”When I confronted him about his infidelities, he didn't deny these girls and told me that it had nothing to do with his feelings toward me, to grow up, that's the way it was in the world,” she alleged.

In the 1970s, long before dating apps existed, Dr. Phil McGraw met Robin McGraw (née Jameson) in a family room. However, things got off to a slightly awkward start. As Robin recalled on a 2019 episode of Yahoo! Life's "It's Love" series, the two first crossed paths at his parents' house when she was hanging out with his sister. "I walk into the room and there he is. He looked up and the first thing he said was, 'Who are you?'" As far as she was concerned, he did not exactly have, as she put it, "great game."

In a 2019 chat with People, Robin said that the man who would become her husband did not seem excited to meet her initially, noting that he "wasn't really friendly that first evening." At the time, he was not only under the weather, but fresh off of his split from his first wife. As Robin told him on a 2024 episode of "Phil in the Blanks," "You were really kind of grouchy and you were really kind of not warm and fuzzy."

However, after Dr. Phil and Robin got to chatting a bit, they decided to go on a date the next day. "I actually knew that first evening I sat and visited with him that he was The One," Robin gushed to Closer. As she said on the aforementioned "Phil in the Blanks" episode, "I fell in love with you that first night."

Both Robin McGraw and Dr. Phil McGraw's fathers struggled with alcoholism, and they immediately connected over this shared experience. "We both say that we grew up in a home, in a life of uncertainty," Robin told People in 2016. "Because when you have an alcoholic parent who goes on binges, you never know what life is going to be like that day. It changed who we were." Robin shared that this shaped who she was in a major way, especially with regards to finding a partner. For starters, she was not interested in striking up a serious relationship with someone who drinks. "When we first met, I asked [Dr. Phil], 'Do you drink alcohol?' ... he said, 'I actually think that I'm allergic to alcohol.' And I said, 'Oh, I think I love you,'" she recalled.

Though they are well off now, neither Dr. Phil nor Robin had a lot of money growing up. On a 2016 episode of the "Behind the Brand" podcast, Robin told host Bryan Elliott about her humble beginnings. After high school, Robin immediately entered the workforce. "I grew up very poor. ... There was no such thing as taking out loans or anything like that, so I worked full time and went to school at night," she said. 

Financial instability also played a significant role in Dr. Phil's own upbringing. "When I was growing up, my family was often dirt poor. At times we were living hand-to-mouth," he wrote in a 2014 issue of O, The Oprah Magazine. Dr. Phil has also shared that he experienced homelessness. 

If you or anyone you know needs help with addiction issues, help is available. Visit the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration website or contact SAMHSA's National Helpline at 1-800-662-HELP (4357).

Following their fateful family room meeting, Dr. Phil McGraw and Robin McGraw went on their first date. While most first dates involve classic outings like dinner and a movie, Dr. Phil instead reached for the sky. As Robin shared in a 2019 interview with People, one of the first things she learned about Dr. Phil was that he got his pilot license when he was a teenager and had a small airplane. After she told him that she'd never been on a plane, he decided to change that. "I grew up really poor, so our first date was the next night and he took me up in his airplane," Robin said. So, he swept her off her feet both literally and figuratively. 

In the 2019 episode of Yahoo! Entertainment's "It's Love" series, Robin shared that she had a good feeling about Dr. Phil right away. She said, "I knew I'd be safe with this man." Dr. Phil's thoughtful, albeit unconventional, first date sure made a lasting impression.

While grand gestures are fun and all, those can only take a relationship so far. Dr. Phil and Robin established a strong foundation for their own relationship early on. "I always tell people that the formula for a good relationship is that it's based on a solid friendship," Dr. Phil told Us Weekly in 2018. "We're really good friends."

After they'd been dating for a little while, Dr. Phil McGraw and Robin McGraw's relationship faced a trial of sorts. Robin wanted to settle down and get married; Dr. Phil, on the other hand, was not rushing to tie the knot again. On a 2006 episode of CBS News' "The Early Show," the McGraws shared that there was a point where they almost called things off for good. "She [Robin] kicked me out," Dr. Phil said. "She said, 'Bye, don't let the door hit you in the butt, buddy.'" 

In the same interview, Robin expressed that, at that time, she did not want to spend more time or energy on a relationship with someone whose timeline did not line up with hers. "I knew what I wanted," she said. "I knew what he needed. He just didn't know it right then." And so, they stepped back from the relationship.

This cooling off period did not last forever, however. After a few months, the two reconnected. "We went out to dinner, and he said, 'I miss you, and I love you. I want to marry you. I don't want to lose you,'" Robin told Closer.  Shortly after, he popped the question. "I was really very surprised. I was the happiest woman in the world," she said in Yahoo! Entertainment's "It's Love" series. The two got married six months after the engagement at Wichita Falls' Baptist Church in 1976.

Nowadays, Dr. Phil McGraw and Robin McGraw are an incredibly wealthy couple; as of 2026, Celebrity Net Worth estimates Dr. Phil is worth $400 million. But it was not always like that for them.

When they got married in 1976, their nuptials were anything but over the top. In a 2019 Yahoo! Entertainment's "It's Love" video Dr. Phil noted how simple the wedding planning process was, joking, "You want cookies and punch or would you like cookies and punch?" He also shared that Robin wore a $100 wedding dress. "She put it in layaway, paid five dollars a week on it or something," he said.

In recent years, Dr. Phil and Robin have made major real estate moves, as they have called multiple sprawling properties home — including a Beverly Hills mansion that they sold in 2011 for $12 million. But again, it was not always like that for them. In a 2019 interview with People, Robin shared that when Dr. Phil was still in college working toward earning his doctorate in clinical psychology, they shared a small apartment. "[W]e were just as happy then as we are now," she said, noting that he found creative ways to be "romantic" even when they did not have all of the money in the world. "He went out to the park out near our little complex and took a knife to a tree trunk and carved a heart and wrote, 'PM heart RM,' and took a picture of it and had it developed and framed it," she said. "I thought it was so sweet. It was the most precious gift ever." 

Dr. Phil McGraw and Robin McGraw entered a new phase of their lives when they became parents. Their first son, Jay McGraw, was born in 1979, and their second son, Jordan McGraw, followed seven years later. 

In a 2014 interview with New You, Robin said that after she found out she was pregnant with their first son, she made a point of letting Dr. Phil know that their own bond would not fall to the wayside after they became parents. "To this day, he remembers me looking him in the eye and saying that," she continued. "I've stood by that early promise over the 40 years of marriage."

While it's no secret Dr. Phil loves being a dad to his sons, he was not always sure he was cut out for fatherhood. On a 2019 episode of Dr. Phil's podcast "Phil In The Blanks," Robin pointed out that there was a time when having kids was not even close to a top priority for him. "I thought, 'He strives so hard to convince me he's fine all by himself, he doesn't need to be married, he doesn't need children,'" she recalled. Dr. Phil backed this assessment up, stating, "I was okay with not having children." Robin went on to tease him about some of the bold statements he made before they became parents. "If we ever have [children], don't expect me to take them anywhere with me," she remembered him saying. "I won't babysit ... I'm not ever going to change a diaper." After the birth of his sons, however, that all changed and he embraced fatherhood with open arms. "He's like putty in their hands," she said.

Dr. Phil McGraw pursued a number of professional endeavors before becoming famous, including practicing clinical psychology and co-founding Courtroom Sciences Inc. There have long been questions about whether or not Dr. Phil is a real doctor; while he does have a doctorate in clinical psychology, he no longer has a license to practice psychology.

Dr. Phil's entire career trajectory changed forever after Oprah Winfrey brought him on her show for the first time in 1998. After that fateful appearance, he became a regular guest, hosting a weekly segment on the hit daytime talk show. In 2002, his very own talk show, "Dr. Phil," debuted, and it ran until 2023. He has also released books that would go on to become bestsellers.

Robin McGraw also paved an impressive path for herself. She became a bestselling author and launched a skincare brand called Robin McGraw Revelation. She has also used her platform to advocate for causes near to her heart. In 2013, she launched When Georgia Smiled: The Robin McGraw and Dr. Phil Foundation, a nonprofit that offers support to women and kids in abusive circumstances. Dr. Phil sure is proud of his wife's accomplishments, and he made that crystal clear on a 2023 episode of "Dr. Phil": "Robin is a very successful woman. She doesn't need me for a d*** thing. She's entrepreneurial."

Dr. Phil McGraw and Robin McGraw are each other's biggest cheerleaders. While reflecting on their enduring relationship for Yahoo! Entertainment's "It's Love" series, Robin shared that she made a point of watching every episode of her husband's talk show — and no, not at home. "I have been to every taping for 17 years now of the 'Dr. Phil' show," she said in the 2019 video. "I wouldn't miss a show." Robin, as any regular "Dr. Phil" viewer certainly knows, became a fixture of the series' studio audience who regularly chimed in to offer her own perspective. As Dr. Phil quipped in the "It's Love" video, "She has to be here now, she worked herself into a job." 

They are indeed a dynamic duo. "Robin is, in my opinion, a very critical part of the 'Dr. Phil' team and the brand because most of my viewers are women," Dr. Phil told Us Weekly in 2018. "She's a great balancing force for me." Though he is the TV star, the true star in Dr. Phil's world is Robin. As he wrote on their wedding anniversary on Instagram in 2024, "Marriage, family, life. All shared, all made possible by a powerful partner in life." 

Robin may have been happy to sit on the sidelines of Dr. Phil's talk show for years, but she is very much her own person. As Dr. Phil said on a 2023 episode of "Dr. Phil, "She doesn't need me to buy her a new car, she doesn't need me to buy her a house, she doesn't need me to do the things. ... If she wants to go to Hong Kong tomorrow, she doesn't need me to make the arrangements." 

In 2010, Dr. Phil McGraw and Robin McGraw became grandparents for the first time. That year, Jay McGraw's wife, Erica Dahm, gave birth to their daughter, Avery Elizabeth McGraw. In 2011, their son, London Phillip McGraw, was born. About a decade later, Dr. Phil and Robin's younger son also became a dad: Jordan McGraw and his wife, Morgan Stewart McGraw, welcomed daughter Row Renggli McGraw in 2021, and son Grey Oliver McGraw the following year.

In 2014, Robin told Closer about the new kind of happiness becoming a grandparent brought into her life. "[Parenting] is a heavy job and it's an important job," she said. "But when you are a grandparent, you don't have to worry about any of that — it's all reward." Dr. Phil seems to be on the same page. As he said on "The Jenny McCarthy Show," "[Being a grandparent] is everything that you hear where you have none of the responsibility and all of the fun. You can spoil them, they can have as many popsicles as they want."

Of course, being a grandparent isn't only about unlimited popsicles. It sounds like Jay and Jordan lean on Dr. Phil and Robin for parenting advice, too. As Dr. Phil told Today Parents in 2021, he had to assure Jordan that it was not okay, but important, that he and Morgan still make time to go out on dates after having a baby. "I don't care how much you love your kid. You gotta take a break and recharge your batteries," Dr. Phil said. "It's important for the child, too, because they learn, 'Hey, Mom and Dad went away, but they came back!' That's how you get away from separation anxiety."