Goldie Hawn Reflects on Her ‘Wonderful Life’ with Partner of 43 Years, Kurt Russell: ‘The Right Match’ (Exclusive)

NEED TO KNOW

• Goldie Hawn tells PEOPLE about her 43-year relationship with Kurt Russell and why they’re ‘the right match’

• The couple, who share a blended family of four children, have famously never married

• Hawn is releasing her first children’s book, inspired by her MindUP mental health program, on May 5

Goldie Hawn says she and Kurt Russell, her partner of 43 years, are “the right match.”

In the new issue of PEOPLE, the Oscar winner, 80, reflects on her relationship with the 75-year-old Tombstone actor.

After more than four decades together, Hawn still appreciates the “freedom” she feels with Russell.

“When I say freedom, it means liberation. I don’t feel penned in,” explains Hawn, who shares four children with Russell in their blended family: actors Oliver Hudson, 49, Kate Hudson, 47, and Wyatt Russell, 39, as well as psychotherapist Boston Russell, 46.

“We don’t always agree on stuff, which is fine. We’re both very spontaneous. [Our relationship] fed on a lot of goodness, a lot of wonderful life together,” says the grandmother of eight.

Part of that wonderful life was on display when Hawn opened her home to PEOPLE for the cover shoot and interview in April.

Hawn and Russell’s son Wyatt was on hand with his two sons, Buddy, 5, and Boone, 2, playing catch in the yard, while Hawn’s dogs, English Labrador Roy and Rocky, a Korean Village Dog, scampered about. “We’re a close family,” says Hawn.

Of Russell, she adds, “Kurt and I are just living our life together. We’ve got great kids. It’s the right match.”

The pair first crossed paths in the 1960s when they both appeared in the movie The One and Only, Genuine, Original Family Band. But they didn’t truly connect until 1983, when actress-producer Hawn and director Jonathan Demme were casting their movie Swing Shift and Russell read for a part.

In fact, Hawn didn’t even remember Russell from The One and Only, Genuine, Original Family Band — a fact she recalled in her 2005 memoir A Lotus Grows in the Mud.

“Do you remember you were lost when you arrived for the audition? And you asked a woman for directions?…Well, that was my mom,’” she recalled him saying to her.

“I can feel light beaming out of my body. When he gets up to leave, I don’t want him to go. As he reaches the door, he looks at me and says, ‘You know, if I don’t get this part I’d still like to take you out for coffee sometime.’”

By then, Hawn had split from ex-husband Bill Hudson, with whom she had Oliver and Kate. Russell was a dad to Boston with his ex, Season Hubley.

Hawn and Russell have been a couple ever since. “Kurt Russell was sent to us by God,” she wrote. “Here was a grown man who was capable of loving fully, with all of his heart. He drew a circle around us in the sand, and its powerful alchemy has protected us ever since.”

The two — who went on to co-star in movies like Overboard and The Christmas Chronicles — have famously never wed, a fact Hawn has addressed over and over through the years.

“I laugh it off and say, ‘Been there, done that,’” she wrote in her memoir. “And if that sounds like an excuse not to work at the relationship, it isn’t. If anything, it makes us work harder. I try to remind myself each morning why I am in love.”

Take PEOPLE with you! Subscribe to PEOPLE magazine to get the latest details on celebrity news, exclusive royal updates, how-it-happened true crime stories and more — right to your mailbox.

Twenty-one years after publishing A Lotus Grows in the Mud, Hawn is releasing her first children’s book, The After-School Kindness Crew: Pooch on the Loose #1. Co-written with veteran author Lin Oliver, the book incorporates the tools of MindUP, Hawn’s mental health program, which teaches students about their brains and how to regulate emotions.

The After-School Kindness Crew: Pooch on the Loose #1 is available May 5.

For more on Goldie Hawn, pick up the new issue of PEOPLE.

Read the original article on People