Lisa Wilkinson and Peter FitzSimons will celebrate their 25th anniversary next year. Picture: Supplied.

In an interview with Mamamia’s Mia Freedman on her No Filter podcast, the 54-year-old former rugby player now author said that although his marriage isn’t perfect, they have “a bloody good relationship” that “just felt right.”

“We don’t have 365 blissful days a year. I say we have 50 blissful days a year, 300 pretty good days and 15 shockers,” he said.

“But as we have got older, no joke, 15 shockers are now down to three shockers.”

Peter FitzSimons and wife Lisa Wilkinson were married six months after meeting. Picture: News Corp Australia.Source:News Corp Australia

Meeting Wilkinson in his early 30s after being introduced by 60 minutes journalist Liz Hayes, FitzSimons said he fell in love with Lisa “very fast.”

“We met on a Sunday afternoon on the 13th of December, I think from memory,” he said.

“We were engaged by the 16th of March the following year, and married by the 26th of September and had our first child on the way within three months of being married.”

While marriage was never really part of the plan for the pair, with both recognising how “crazy it was to presume to get married” or engaged within three months of dating, FitzSimons said his proposal was quite simple, and happened while they were sitting in his Annandale home one evening.

“It was a Sunday night, and I said: ‘I’m tired of this, will you marry me?

“And she said: ‘Yes, I will marry you, and we had a fabulous wedding.

“We didn’t muck around … it just felt right. It didn’t feel hard.”

Peter admits that his marriage with Lisa ‘’just felt right’’. Picture: News Corp AustraliaSource:News Limited

Speaking of the advice he had received from his older brother Andrew, FitzSimons said he kept two love lessons very close to his heart, and felt both applied to his blossoming relationship with Wilkinson.

“For it to really work, you’ve both got to be nesting at the same time and you have both got to be ready,” he said.

“The second one Andrew said was that a good relationship has to be like an onion.

“Peeling an onion ... you never want to get to the centre of the onion and feel ‘I understand this person.’

“I still don’t understand this person [Lisa],” he laughed.

As a father of three children, FitzSimons spoke of stepping away from his breakfast radio show at 2UE in 2007, and why his decision was for the sake of his family, and so Lisa could pursue “the opportunity of a lifetime” as co-host on Channel 9’s Today Show.

“There’s no job on earth she wants to do more. It’s made for her, but my god she works at it,” he said.

“I was doing radio at the time, and it had a big impact on our family because, not her fault, we had two parents getting out of bed at 3.30 in the morning.

“I discovered that a family can cope with having two parents out of bed at 3.30am, but it cannot flourish. And we as a family, no fault of my kids, we weren’t flourishing, we were coping.

“So from the moment that I stopped, suddenly you’ve got a parent on deck in the morning, not a nanny, and I suppose I had energy at night,” he said.

FitzSimons stepped back from his radio hosting at 2UE so his family could “flourish.” Picture: Supplied.Source:News Corp Australia

FitzSimons, who is a columnist for The Sydney Morning Herald and the author of 27 books, said he admires his wife’s passion and work ethic, and ability to run on just hours of sleep each night.

“If she’s got the treasurer Scott Morrison, or she’s got Malcolm Turnbull the following day ... she works at it for a five or six-minute interview, she will put in three or four hours that night,” he said.

“[She’s] frequently finishing at 11.30pm getting her head around the issues.

“Her ability to survive on little sleep is staggering.

“I must say in recent times, there’s been a surge around her. I see there’s a sort of craziness around her and it’s interesting.

“She has worked very hard for her success and I think she is only just breaking in to stride and she’s really eager to not just get to the top of the tree just for the sake of getting to the top of the tree, but she wants to do stuff,” he added.