Dolly Parton has achieved countless things in the country music world, but one of her greatest achievement continues to be her 54 year marriage to her husband Carl Dean. In a new interview, Parton opened up about how she’s kept her marriage alive.

“My husband and I, we’ve been together 56 years,” Parton, who met Dean when she was 18, told PEOPLE magazine. “We still have our little times, like in the springtime when the first yellow daffodils come out. Even if there’s still some snow around it, my husband always brings me a bouquet. And he’ll usually write me a little poem. Which to me, that’s priceless. That’s like a date in itself.”

One of their first dates was at McDonald’s, but these days, Parton is the one doing the cooking.

“I’ll cook the stuff that I know we love,” she said. “And I pack it up in a picnic basket. And then we’ll go find some riverbank somewhere with our little camper, park, have a picnic. Or we’ll pull up to some little Days Inn motel, go in as long as the bed’s clean and there’s a bathroom. We just do our little things like that. Or I’ll do a candlelight dinner. We don’t make an issue of it. It’s like certain days, you feel a certain way. And I’ll say, ‘I’m going to surprise him. And we’re going to have real cloth napkins and real crystal. I’m going to put the real china out instead of the paper plates we usually eat on because we don’t want to have to wash dishes.’”

Parton, 74, revealed that one of the main secrets to her long-lasting marriage is that she’s comfortable in her own skin.

“And that’s sexy. You may not want to dress or look like me, you can take from that to be yourself. I’m a very passionate person in everything that I do, and I think passion has great sex appeal. I think people are drawn to that because it’s a magic. It’s an energy. And I’ve always been a great lover because I’m passionate. I just feel my sensuality, my sexuality, my passion, and I don’t have to apologize for any of that,” she said. “I’ve never been offensive in any way, never tried to be. Or I’ve never tried to be anything other than just what I am.”

This piece originally appeared in UpliftingToday.com and is used by permission.

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