Lisa Wilkinson opens up about marriage struggles with husband Peter FitzSimons

TODAY co-host Lisa Wilkinson has opened up about the problem that plagued her marriage to former rugby star Peter FitzSimons.

MEDIA power couple Lisa Wilkinson and Peter FitzSimons have opened up in a new interview, offering a rare insight into a time when their seemingly perfect marriage hit a rough patch.

Earlier this year, Fitzsimons, 55, revealed in Mia Freedman’s No Filter podcast that although his marriage isn’t perfect, they have “a bloody good relationship” that “just felt right.”

But that hasn’t always been the case.

In the new issue of Australian Women’s Weekly, the Today co-host and her former football star husband candidly discuss the alcohol issues that once cast a shadow over their happy home.

FitzSimons insists he was never an alcoholic, but that the pressures of work and parenting made it easy for him to start downing more and more drinks on corporate long lunches — and that his wife would regularly come home and find him in a darker mood as a result.

“Either an argument would start and I’d extricate myself, or I’d think, ‘this is probably going to end in an argument so I’ll extricate myself,’” Wilkinson told the publication.

“He stopped caring when he had alcohol. He wouldn’t care too much what he’d say to me, he’d be careless he might upset me — and it actually takes a lot to upset me.”

The 56-year-old journalist explained that at one point, she felt like he had become an entirely different person.

“He just wasn’t the man I married. We were missing out on time spent together, which we love,” she revealed.

The pair on their wedding day.

“There’s never been silence between Pete and me, unless I’m pissed off about something — and that usually followed an alcoholic lunch.”

Eventually, it was a comment by a friend that forced FitzSimons to make a change.

Out with a friend, he knocked back a bottle of wine before noticing he was the only one drinking. When he questioned why, his companion replied that he wanted to bring his “A-game” to his job — and it struck a chord in FitzSimons.

He overhauled his lifestyle — cutting the alcohol and eventually losing an impressive 40kg.

And Wilkinson is clearly pleased with the results.

“I feel like I have my husband back,” she told the magazine.

To prove anyone can do it with the right tools, FitzSimons has now penned a diet guide — The Great Aussie Bloke Slim-Down — and he insists the formula is very simple.

“Stop the sugar, stop the hunger,” he said.

“As for alcohol, just give it a go for a month and see if your life is not better without it.”