After dating for nearly 15 years, Jim Parsons and Todd Spiewak tied the knot in May. On Thursday's episode of The Late Show With Stephen Colbert, Stephen Colbert asked The Big Bang Theory star why he and Spiewak waited so long to get married—other than the fact that gay marriage wasn't legal during the early years of their relationship.
"We just didn't care about the act of it that much to be honest with you, and that sounds cold in a way," Parsons told the host. "But I finally thought, let's have a party then for the celebration of and we'll go ahead and legalize this thing. And I really thought it would kind of end at that—kind of a party feel."
However, the actor's feelings about marriage changed.
"But it was so much more meaningful in the moment to me than I predicted," he continued, "and it's been resonantly more meaningful to me afterward than I saw coming."
Parsons, who plays the character Sheldon on The Big Bang Theory, continued to dive deeper into his original feelings about marriage.
"You know, I had been an adult gay person for so long at a time where that wasn't possible—that life was ‘fine' in so many ways," he told the host. "You know, what I mean? Like, I got along fine and our relationship did."
When Colbert asked Parsons how his relationship with Spiewak is different now that they're married, Parsons couldn't pinpoint one thing.
"Well, I don't know in a specific day-to-day sense what it is. Like, I don't know that there is anything," he said. "There is an underlying thing—a little buzz of something—though that I know this now."
Parsons said he sometimes even forgets that Spiewak is now his husband.
"And I keep reminding myself of it," he continued. "Like, I kind of forget. And then I'm like, ‘We're a legal thing just like mom and dad were,' whatever."
Parsons also talked to Colbert about how his marriage to Spiewak makes him feel closer to God.
"There's this sense of divinity to be—I felt like this, I still feel like this—to be in love [and] to find a love in that way is as close to anything else I can imagine in doing in life that gives me the feeling of being close to God or whatever that is for you," he said.
The actor shared a personal story with Colbert about his father, who passed away before Parsons met Spiewak. Persons said he used to feel this "sensation of light" when he'd close his eyes to go to sleep and that he felt like it was his dad checking in on him and going "Hi! I see you. All good. This is a great thing." Parsons said he experienced the same sensation when he first started dating Spiewak.
"But I still feel that now—maybe not as often because life gets in the way—but sometimes that sensation of closing the eyes and going this is so close to God," he said.
Colbert also shared what marriage is like for him after 24 years.
"I've been married for 24 years now, and I gotta tell ya that that better or worse thing is fantastic," Colbert told his guest. "Because there are some worses. Nobody is at their best all their time. And you want to be the better in the relationship. But when you're at your worst to know that you're in a relationship with somebody who said 'I know this could be bad, but I love you and I'm with you forever,' there's this since of eternity that's very comforting."
Parsons was visiting The Late Show to promote CBS's new show Young Sheldon, which is a spinoff show about his current character that he executive produced with Spiewak.
Watch the video to see the interview.