Lisa Wilkinson says Peter FitzSimons quitting drinking revived their marriage.

When Peter FitzSimons spoke to Mia Freedman earlier this year on Mamamia’s No Filter podcast, he was impressively candid about the transformative effect his sobriety had on his health and mental wellbeing.

Now Lisa Wilkinson has revealed her husband’s decision to stop drinking in December 2014 also overhauled their 24-year marriage.

Speaking to the Australian Women’s Weekly, the Today host said after years of coming home to find FitzSimons sleeping off long lunches, of conflicts and steely silences, both he and their relationship are healthy.

“I feel like I have my husband back,” she said.

While FitzSimons chose to back away from booze mostly for the sake of his physical health, he’s the first to admit his heavy drinking negatively impacted his mood.

So much so that Wilkinson says he began to transform into a darker version of himself; someone vastly different from the man she married.

“He stopped caring when he had alcohol. He wouldn’t care too much what he’d say to me, he’d be careless, he might upset me — and it actually takes a lot to upset me,” the 56-year-old told the magazine.

Their precious time together became more scarce, their fights more frequent.

“Either an argument would start and I’d extricate myself, or I’d think, ‘this is probably going to end in an argument so I’ll extricate myself’.”

So honoured to be on the cover of the brand new issue of @womensweeklymag on sale tomorrow! For a sneak peek at the fun of what went on behind the scenes at the shoot (at my house) tune into @thetodayshow tomorrow. Huge thanks to the AWW team led by the fabulous Kim Doherty. Photo: @brewbevanphoto Hair & makeup: @maxmade Styling: @mattiecronan Dress: @matchesfashion @preenbythorntonbregazzi #theweeklyau #9today #cover #covergirl

A photo posted by Lisa Wilkinson (@lisa_wilkinson) on Oct 26, 2016 at 1:11am PDT

But two years on, things are different. To start with, FitzSimons has shed 40kg by quitting alcohol and sugar, weight he’s been trying to shift for a long time.

“Every year I’d say, ‘Good on you, darling – this year you’re going to do it’, hoping he’d do it for himself and for his relationship with everybody else,” Wilkinson told the Women’s Weekly, “but this time he has.”

And both believe their marriage is better off as a result. While neither professes to have the perfect union (if that’s even a thing), FitzSimons earlier told Mamamia that he and Wilkinson have “a bloody good relationship”.

“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.”

Three out of 365? We’ll take those odds.