#PowerCouple! Here's Everything Ruth Bader Ginsburg Has Ever Said About Her Super Supportive Marriage to Marty Ginsburg

Ruth Bader Ginsburgpassed away Sept. 18, 2020 after an incredibly influential and revolutionary 87 years on Earth. She spent most of those years with her beloved husband, Martin "Marty" D. Ginsburg, who supported her in her glass ceiling-shattering efforts from the time they first met as college students until his death. They shared daughter Jane and son James and were pretty much the definition of #relationshipgoals: At a time when women weren't even close to having equal rights, Marty treated Ruth as an equal, if not a superior, and their love stood the test of time. Until her own death, Ruth spoke of how Marty had been her inspiration, her rock and the love of her life. Read on to see what she had to say about her marriage—and why we should all learn a thing or two from the Ginsburgs on how to keep love alive.

How did Ruth Bader Ginsburg meet Marty Ginsburg?

Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Marty Ginsburg met when they both studied at Cornell University in the 1950s after a classmate set the pair up on a blind date. The couple's son, James, later told PEOPLEthat Marty was immediately smitten with Ruth, noting that she was "awfully cute" before realizing she was also "awfully smart."

Ruth said of Marty, "Marty was most unusual. He was the first boy I ever met who cared that I had a brain. And he always thought I was better than I thought I really was." She was also impressed with his brain as well, and he captured her attention in a European literature class taught by none other than Lolita author Vladimir Nabokov.

They followed each other in their career paths

They married in 1954 after graduating from Cornell. The Ginsburgs then moved to Fort Sill, Oklahoma, where Marty was set to complete his ROTC assignment.

They went on to study at Harvard Law School together. When Marty graduated and got a job in New York City, Ruth finished her own degree at Columbia University. While Ruth was teaching and practicing constitutional law, and Marty was doing the same for tax law.

When she eventually was appointed to the Washington, D.C. Federal Court of Appeals, Marty returned the favor and they moved to accommodate her career.

Ruth and Marty were a marriage of equals

Ruth and Marty promised one another early in their romance that they would be supportive of one another's careers. "If you have a caring life partner, you help the other person when that person needs it. I had a life partner who thought my work was as important as his, and I think that made all the difference for me," Ruth told The Washington Post.

In 2015, she said on The Rachel Maddow Show, "In the course of a marriage, one accommodates the other. So, for example, when Marty was intent on becoming a partner in a New York law firm in five years, during that time, I was the major caretaker of our home and child. But when I started up the ACLU Women's Rights Project, Marty realized how important that work was."

Related: In Her Own Words: Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s Most Powerful and Truly Supreme Quotes

Marty didn't let Ruth cook

"I have had more than a little bit of luck in life, but nothing equals in magnitude my marriage to Martin D. Ginsburg. I do not have words adequate to describe my supersmart, exuberant, ever-loving spouse," Ruth wrote in The New York Times. "Early on in our marriage, it became clear to him that cooking was not my strong suit. To the eternal appreciation of our food-loving children (we became four in 1965, when our son, James, was born), Marty made the kitchen his domain and became chef supreme in our home."

Marty concurred, once famously saying, "As a general rule, my wife does not give me any advice about cooking, and I do not give her advice about the law. This seems to work quite well on both sides."

Ruth and Marty shared parenting duties

The pair had two kids—Jane, born in 1955 and James, born in 1965. In an interview with NPR, Ruth revealed that when her and Marty's children's schools called them to report of misbehavior, they often just called Ruth—until she set them straight with a pointed remark: "This child has two parents. Please alternate calls." She added with a rueful chuckle, "The calls came barely once a semester and the reason was they had to think long and hard before asking a man to take time out of his work day to come to the school."

They also had four grandchildren, two step-grandchildren and one great-grandchild.

Ruth Bader Ginsburg's mother-in-law gave her great marriage advice

Ruth recalled that on her wedding day in 1954, Marty's mother gave her a gift of earplugs and sage wisdom: "I am going to give you some advice that will serve you well: In every good marriage, it pays sometimes to be a little deaf." Ruth would later share that marital advice with none other than Jennifer Lopezand Alex Rodriguez.

Related: Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg Celebrates 25 Years on the Bench

Marty helped Ruth become a Supreme Court Justice

Ruth credits Marty with getting her on the Supreme Court, as well as with simply making her entire life and career better. When accepting her Supreme Court nomination from then-President Bill Clinton in 1993, she said, "Most closely, I have been aided by my life’s partner, Martin D. Ginsburg, who has been, since our teenage years, my best friend and biggest booster."

"Marty coached me through the birth of our son, he was the first reader and critic of articles, speeches and briefs I drafted, and he was at my side constantly, in and out of the hospital, during two long bouts with cancer. And I betray no secret in reporting that, without him, I would not have gained a seat on the Supreme Court," she wrote in The New York Times.

She continued, "Ron Klain, then associate White House counsel, said of my 1993 nomination: 'I would say definitely and for the record, though Ruth Bader Ginsburg should have been picked for the Supreme Court anyway, she would not have been picked for the Supreme Court if her husband had not done everything he did to make it happen.' That 'everything' included gaining the unqualified support of my home state senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan and enlisting the aid of many members of the legal academy and practicing bar familiar with work I had done."

How long were Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Marty Ginsburg married?

The Ginsburgs remained happy together until Marty's death from cancer in 2010. Ruth found a note that Marty had written her when she went to the hospital to make arrangements for his memorial services and funeral. The letter reads:

6/17/10

My dearest Ruth –

You are the only person I have loved in my life, setting aside, a bit, parents and kids and their kids, and I have admired and loved you almost since the day we first met at Cornell some 56 years ago.

What a treat it has been to watch you progress to the very top of the legal world!!

I will be in JH Medical Center until Friday, June 25, I believe, and between then and now I shall think hard on my remaining health and life, and whether on balance the time has come for me to tough it out or to take leave of life because the loss of quality now simply overwhelms. I hope you will support where I come out, but I understand you may not. I will not love you a jot less.

Marty

Ruth presided over a Supreme Court case the very day following Marty's passing, explaining simply to The New Yorker, "That’s because he would have wanted it."

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