Jon Bon Jovi Says ‘Mutual Respect’ Is The Secret To His 40-Year Relationship With Wife Dorothea Bongiovi

Jon Bon Jovi and Dorothea Bongiovi are a high school romance for the ages.

The couple are on the cover of the new People, and in the issue they open up about their 40-year relationship.

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Sharing the secret to making their relationship work for four decades, Bon Jovi says simply, ″Mutual respect.″

The couple started out as high school sweethearts in 1980, getting married 31 years ago and having four children together.

″Having grown up together and grown together. And we really like each other. We want to hang out,” the rocker says.

″I always said I was good at spotting potential, too. I have a gift,” Dorothea ads.

″She let me cheat off her in history!″ Bon Jovi remembers. ″I was immediately drawn to her from the minute I saw her — and that’s never changed — 40 years ago.″

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The musician also talks about his band’s new album Bon Jovi 2020, out Oct. 2, which features two new tracks about the pandemic and the Black Lives Matter movement.

“She said, ‘You can do better,’” he says of his wife’s response to early drafts of the songs. “I grew up in a wonderfully middle-class, suburban New Jersey town where everyone’s parents worked to try to achieve the American dream, so I couldn’t write anything other than ‘You Give Love a Bad Name’. But at 58, if I tried to rewrite ’Bad Name’? I would say, ‘Yuck.’”