Joanna Page says she struggles with mum guilt and admits she and husband James Thornton are 'like passing ships in the night' as they juggle life with their four children: 'Life is tough!'

Joanna Page has said 'you will always get that mum guilt' as she attempts to balance her career with raising her four children with actor husband James Thornton.

The actress, 49, has been married to James for 23 years and shares children Eva, 13, Kitt, 11, Noah, nine and Boe, four. 

The Gavin & Stacey star praised husband James for 'doing a brilliant job' while she is away from home and revealed the secret to her successful marriage.

Joanna admitted she and former Emmerdale star James, 50, are 'like passing ships in the night' but they always find time to talk and 'the odd bit of romance'.

Speaking to The Daily Mail, she said: 'My husband is fantastic and he runs a tight ship, a perfect routine. But after a while, even if you were away from them for one day a week, you will always get that mum guilt because you want to be there with them. 

'For the last month and a bit, I've been working away and it's fine for a bit, but after a while, when I pop back home, you could see the wheels starting to fall off a bit and they're like, "Oh mummy, we're ready for you to come back now" and I think I'm ready to come back too.

'I do want to be there with them all the time, doing absolutely everything, and I never believe that anything is going to be done as well as if I'm doing it myself, even though my husband is brilliant.  

'But every now and then I do have to let him get on with it because I don't have the time to do this.'

Joanna, who has been with James after meeting in 1999, said married life is 'tough' and you have to work 'through hard times' sometimes as she revealed the secret to their 27-year relationship. 

She said: 'Doing our podcast Lush together, it's lovely because we'll be like passing ships in the night with the children.

'But then we get into the studio and we'll sit down and we'll just talk and talk and talk and it would be like when we went out on our 1st date.'

'I think [the secret] is realising that married life and living with somebody else is difficult. You go through hard times, you don't always get on with each other, you do end up annoying each other. 

'But don't give up. You just kind of go, well we are a team and ultimately our love is stronger than anything else.'

She continued: 'Life is tough. There are going to be times when you really get on my nerves or we fall out about certain things but you know, your not going to just walk away from it, you work through any problems you've got. 

'We've grown together and we're still ultimately kind of the same people, even after having four children. We just love each other. We talk a lot and it's really important to make each other laugh.   

'The stuff I liked in the beginning, the fact that he was really arrogant and quite confident and a bit cocky, and all of that stuff doesn't even really matter. I still fancy him and he makes me laugh and he is very kind and very thoughtful.' 

She also added that it's important to put your phones away and 'look each other in the eye and listen to each other' and 'the odd bit of romance from him' goes a long way. 

Joanna said the couple 'never go on dates' because they don't have the time or are too tired but James treats her to 'flowers and chocolates every now and then which are lovely'.  

The actress has teamed up with Smart Energy GB to encourage Brits to use their extra hour when the clocks go back as an opportunity to tick off things on their to-do list from bleeding radiators, defrosting the freezer to request a smart meter installation. 

Joanna said: 'General daily life is quite stressful because we've got so many things that we have to do that, doing all of this now with our power hour and then having a Smart Metre as well has lightened the load a bit.

'Having our smart metre installed was just basically a phone call and then when they came round to install it, it took all of 2 seconds and it was up and running. 

'My husband adores it, he loves to standing there looking at it and telling me how much things are going up if you do this or that. 

'It's nice because I feel like I've got a sense of control over our lives in some way because I turn the degree down a bit on the heating or if I make sure that I don't have the doors open and you actually can see the impact that it's having. 

'So I think it's made us all become much more energy efficient in the house. But yeah, normally day-to-day life is pretty full on so it's fantastic.'