We Can't Ignore These Strange Things About Joanna & Chip Gaines' Relationship

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Chip Gaines and Joanna Gaines were dangerously close to ending up with different people. In the fall 2017 issue of The Magnolia Journal, Chip shared that before he met his future wife, he had gone to great lengths to convince a woman named Amy, whom he dated for over two years, to marry him. The contractor was so adamant about tying the knot with his now-ex-girlfriend that he had even asked her father's permission to propose, which was awkwardly denied. He ultimately only gave up on the idea when Amy's father wrote him a letter urging him to cool off on his attempts.

As for Joanna, she recalled during a February 2023 appearance on "The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon" how her colleagues at her dad's tire shop had encouraged her to strike a conversation with a customer called "Hot John," who just so happened to be Chip's roommate. Although she did make brief eye contact with "Hot John," her introverted nature prevented her from approaching him. While Joanna was trying to awkwardly exit the room he was in, she ran into her future husband, who wasted no time in chatting her up. 

Chip would pop the question in 2002, only a year after that meet-cute. Joanna Gaines had a complete transformation into a bride in 2003 and welcomed five children with her husband in the following years. While their love story seems fated, a closer look hints that everything may not be as it seems. To better understand the weirder aspects of Chip and Joanna's relationship, we chatted with Susan Winter, relationship expert and bestselling author of "Breakup Triage; The Cure for Heartache," who tells us exclusively that their first date may have included some potential red flags. 

In Chip and Joanna Gaines' 2016 memoir "The Magnolia Story," they walked down memory lane to their less-than-romantic first date, which began with him showing up an hour and a half late. By the time Chip arrived at his future wife's home, she naturally wanted nothing to do with him. However, her friends encouraged her to answer the door because they were curious to see what her mystery date looked like. To make matters worse, Chip didn't even bother to apologize for the heavy delay and walked into her apartment with no plans for that night. 

Instead, he rather unceremoniously asked Joanna to decide on a place where they could grab dinner. According to Susan Winter, Chip displayed "textbook bad behavior" on their first date. The relationship expert notes, "Waiting an hour and a half for a date to arrive indicates an excess of patience that could tolerate that type of personality. In that moment, a dispositional pattern was established." However, Winter exclusively tells Glam that the odd pattern seemed to have worked for the couple.

What made their first date even weirder was that Joanna's annoyance about his tardiness melted away in no time. "He had so much confidence," Joanna wrote in "The Magnolia Story," per Today. "I don't know. I can't explain it. Only Chip could be an hour and a half late and have no one mad about it." In fact, in a March 2023 interview with People, the reality TV star shared that she knew she would spend the rest of her life with Chip on that strange first date: "... I heard this voice say, 'This is who you're going to marry.'"

In the summer 2020 issue of The Magnolia Journal, Joanna Gaines admitted that Chip Gaines wasn't her type at all. After writing that she tended to go for quieter men, she recalled how her future husband endlessly talked about his risky ambitions on their first date, barely leaving any room for her to jump into the conversation. "In my mind, I somewhat instinctively checked his penchant for risk and chatty nature as two reasons we probably wouldn't go on a second date," Joanna wrote (via Today). 

Meanwhile, in a June 2019 interview with People, Chip made an eyebrow-raising revelation by sharing that around the time he met Joanna, he would go on dates with women who were serious about settling down, even though he had no intention of marrying. "I dated girls whose goal in life was to get married and have kids," he said. "They had it all planned out, but I was too selfish. It was about me and what I wanted to do, and I didn't have anything tying me down." According to the contractor, he only began to mature after he met his future wife. However, some HGTV fans found Chip more juvenile than ever in the later seasons of "Fixer Upper." 

In fact, one Redditor went so far as to suggest that Joanna seemed to have grown weary of her husband's "infantile" antics as time went by. Many commenters were also in agreement that the husband and wife seemed to lack chemistry in the later seasons. Notably, in her October 2016 People interview, Joanna acknowledged, "Match made in heaven is not the term you would use to describe us." However, she insisted that their conflicting personalities only made them get on like a house fire.

Speaking to People in March 2023, Joanna Gaines recalled how Chip Gaines had tried to take their relationship to the next level after a few months of dating by saying, "I love you." Unfortunately, the move didn't go as planned, as Joanna responded with, "Oh, thank you." According to the contractor, his future wife seemed tense and awkward when he uttered those important words. However, Joanna insisted that she had only acted out of the ordinary because she had never professed her love to anyone before and had also envisioned that significant moment vastly differently. 

Ultimately, the interior designer's strange reaction prompted them to put their relationship on ice and reconsider if they were a right fit for each other. However, they reconciled less than a week later. In Chip's 2017 book "Capital Gaines," he revealed that their relationship had endured another major hiccup when he was in his mid 20s. The reality TV star recalled how he had decided to enrol in a three-month program in Mexico to learn Spanish and improve his overall bonding with the Mexican employees. 

However, he hadn't adequately briefed Joanna on how to handle his strange business practices, and she had ultimately ended up screaming at him over the phone two weeks into the program. "'Your business is a joke!'" Chip recalled Joanna saying on the call, per People. "'All these people are coming to my dad's shop demanding to be paid, and there's no money! Lucky for you, your dad is bailing your sorry butt out. You have three days to get back to Texas, or this relationship is over.'" Naturally, he wasted no time in returning. 

For Chip and Joanna Gaines, establishing a good work-life balance to maintain a healthy relationship is easier said than done. In June 2024, an insider informed Closer Weekly that the former HGTV couple's union had turned into a "business." They shared that their work was impacting their personal lives. "Joanna is pushing shows that focus on luxury renovation," they added. "Chip wants to focus on renovating modest homes. This business conflict has had a major impact on their marriage."

Notably, in Joanna's 2022 memoir "The Stories We Tell," she admitted that the lines of their brand and themselves had become "intertwined" (via Today). Additionally, when Joanna spoke to People in March 2023, she shared that although she and her hubby tried their best to make work an off-limits topic during their romantic dinners, it somehow always weaseled its way back into the discussion, so at times there was "no clocking out." During Susan Winter's exclusive chat with Glam, she professes, "The biggest red flag I see in Chip and Joanna Gaines' marriage is the need to refocus on the romantic partnership. Having secured tremendous success as business partners, the pivot they need now is to reinvest in the relationship itself."

Winter further explains that it's normal for people to put their romance on the back burner to focus on building a solid financial foundation in the early years of their relationship. However, she believes that it's vital for couples like Chip and Joanna to reprioritize their relationship after finding their footing. Suffice it to say, they could make good use of a psychologist's best tips for separating your work and home life.

In an October 2017 interview with People, Chip and Joanna Gaines insisted that they had decided to walk away from "Fixer Upper" after five seasons to take a breather and focus on their family life. "Regardless of what the future holds, we are hopeful for what God has for us and our family in this next season," Joanna said. However, many HGTV fans didn't buy that explanation and speculated that they had ended their show due to an imminent divorce. During a September 2017 appearance on "Today," Joanna and Chip confessed that they never expected that their relationship would become the subject of so many unsavory rumors. While Chip was able to laugh off gossip about their marital troubles, his wife admitted that she didn't "do great with seeing that kind of stuff."

The interior decorator shared that she didn't dig too deep into the social media rabbit hole because she didn't want to come across such headlines. Unfortunately, that approach hadn't stopped her from encountering speculation, as someone had once approached her and openly asked if they were divorcing. Joanna elaborated on her feelings about the rumor mill in a 2021 blog post for Magnolia, writing, "Every now and then, a headline or story will strike a nerve regardless of how off the mark it may be. Those times are harder to reconcile because we're human, and the idea that 'it's just part of the territory' doesn't make untrue accusations any less painful." However, in a July 2021 Access Hollywood interview, the reality TV stars stated that divorce was "not really an option" for them. So, their relationship ultimately won't be joining the list of celebrity couples who are likely to split in 2026.