Little House On The Prairie's Bonnie Bartlett 'Never Felt Guilty' Cheating On Her Real-Life Husband

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Bonnie Bartlett didn't think twice when she became attracted to a fellow actor in 1959, even though she had been married to "Boy Meets World" star William Daniels since June 1951. The "Little House on the Prairie" alum didn't see her eight-year marriage as an impediment because she and Daniels had a pretty modern view on their relationship. "I never felt guilty because I never felt tied to fidelity, and neither did Bill," she revealed in her 2023 memoir, "Middle of the Rainbow" (via Page Six).

Eventually, her fling with the "slightly boring"-but-good-in-the-bedroom actor fizzled out after a few months, and she moved on with her life. And then Bartlett got a taste of what being on the other side felt like. When Daniels had an affair with a producer more than a decade later in the '70s, she was heartbroken. "[I] could no longer tolerate any kind of open marriage," she penned. In hindsight, Bartlett and Daniels, who were also fellow cast members on "St. Elsewhere" and "Boy Meets World," probably felt pressured to be in an open marriage.

The early years of their marriage took place amid the liberation movements of the 1960s. "It was at a time in New York when there was a lot of sex and a lot of people doing all kinds of things, you know — very free," she told Fox News in 2023. But they eventually learned it wasn't for them. In fact, the extramarital relationships became a real problem that put their marriage to the test. 

Bonnie Bartlett and William Daniels didn't handle each other's extramarital relationships with the ease they thought they would. "It was a little bit of an open marriage at first, but that was very painful," she said in the Fox News interview. There may have been a few reasons for that. Firstly, Bartlett and Daniels' approach to flings may have stemmed from an issue in their own relationship. "I don't know if there was a lack of commitment a little bit, and that's not good. So there was a lot of pain connected with any transgression, with any extramarital thing," she said.

Additionally, their open marriage wasn't something previously agreed upon. They just decided that was the expected deal. "There was never any discussion as to what we were going to do," she told the Daily Mail in May 2026. Even though that go-with-the-flow approach didn't work when it came to affairs, they continued to implement it in other ways.

As actors, it was inevitable that their lives would pull them apart at times, and they just rolled with it. "We just live our lives. And if he's away for a year, he's away for a year," she said. It may not have been perfect, but it definitely worked. In 2025, the pair were in their 90s when they celebrated being married for a whopping 74 years. And that's how they like it. "I wouldn't be with anyone else in my life than this woman sitting next to me," Daniels gushed.