Kelly Ripa Reveals How She Wooed Husband Mark Consuelos and Got Him to Say ‘I Love You’ First

Kelly Ripa and Mark Consuelos are spilling the details of their sweet love story!

The Live with Kelly and Mark co-hosts, who have been married for nearly 30 years, discussed relationships on the March 6 episode of their morning talk show. After reading an article about how “the average man takes little over four weeks” to fall in love with a woman, the couple debated the definition of “love.”

“What is love? I mean, I guess the meaning of love for men and women should and probably is naturally something different,” Consuelos, 53, said. “I mean, just subtly different.”

When Ripa, 54, asked her husband what it meant to him, he joked: “Love for me now is spending a quiet afternoon with you just watching me watch sports.”

“No, I love being with my family. We didn’t have a family back then,” he noted of when they first met. “Love’s evolved.”

For Ripa, who shares three children with Consuelos, “love is too complicated to define.”

“I’ve been in love with you since the day I met you, and beyond loving you, I really like you a lot,” she gushed, calling Consuelos “my favorite person.”

The pair first met in 1995 when doing a screen test for All My Children. Consuelos went on to play Ripa’s love interest on the popular drama, and the following year, they eloped in Las Vegas. As for who confessed they loved the other first in the relationship, Ripa said she had a tactic that wooed Consuelos into saying it.

“This is old-fashion of me, so don’t get triggered, don’t get upset, I don’t need you to @ me. I don’t care what you think about what I think,” she prefaced her opinion to the audience. “What I think, is that men generally, and I’m going to speak in great generalizations, love the thrill of the hunt, and I certainly was not going to pursue you.”

“I think that made me interesting to you,” she added.

Consuelos then confirmed her belief: “It did.”

“I do find that early on, whether it be a really serious relationship or early in the marriage, it always feels like someone loves the other person more,” he continued. “It’s like 65/35, or 67/43.”

Ripa confessed that now, she thinks she loves Consuelos “a little bit more,” but insisted, “That’s okay. I’m fine with that. You don’t seem to know that, so it’s good. It’s all working.”

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Thinking back on dates she went on before meeting Consuelos, Ripa said the worst was when she would be “flooded” with too much information.

“You think this person is trying to be vulnerable, but really this person is an over-sharer,” she explained. “I dated this one guy that exclusively only talked about himself, and it was just, it was exhausting. It was just endless. I don’t think he ever once asked me what I thought. If he did, I think I’d be like, ‘I think you need to shut it.’”

When Consuelos said he couldn’t relate, Ripa offered a possible explanation.

“I think the women — we all knew that you were a little bit cagy,” she teased. “So we all are a little bit cagy around you. We don’t divulge too much information. I always say, you’ll really know me when I pass away and you inherit my journals.”