"I always say, 'Love is a contact sport’” - Kelsey Grammer talks about the secret to making his marriage with wife Kayte work

Kelsey Grammer's marriage to Kayte Walsh has lasted 14 years. They’ve been looking into the secret of a successful marriage, and for them it seems to be a guiding mantra that says: “Love is a contact sport.”

In a recent interview with PEOPLE, a 70 year old Grammer states that this phrase, which incidentally is also the title of a Whitney Houston song from 1987, encapsulates very well the degree of effort and emotional engagement that love in fact requires.

"Once in a while you got to back it up with some action," he says. "I just always try to say to myself, 'Remember the blushing that you had when you first met. Remember that energy, that circulation that dialed you up just a little bit.'"

Walsh, now 46, was a former flight attendant. The couple married in 2011, and they have three children: daughter Faith, 12, and sons Gabriel, 10, and James, 8.

Kelsey Grammer, who also had four older children from different relationships, explained that Walsh has been very helpful to him, and thanks to her support during some of the hardest times of his life while writing his memoir ‘Karen: A Brother Remembers’, he has managed to still be emotionally stable.

Kelsey Grammer talks about a devastating loss and a healing journey

Kelsey Grammer's book entitled Karen: A Brother Remembers released on May 6, describes the horrifying 1975 rape and homicide of his younger sister, which was deeply suffered by him.

Grammer was only twenty years old when she was murdered by Freddie Glenn in Colorado Springs, Colorado, shortly after she had relocated there to live with her boyfriend. The crime which involved kidnapping, sexual violence, and 42 stab wounds that nearly decapitated her left an enduring scar on Grammer's life, one he relives in his memoir 'painful'.

During the emotionally strenuous writing period Kayte Walsh helped and supported Grammer tremendously.

“When I finished the book, I turned her around and I said, ‘I'm finished.’ She said, ‘Well, I’ve missed you,’” he tells PEOPLE, tearing up. “I had to go away for a while — there were hours on end that I would just be staring off. But she was patient and loving through it.”

This particular tragedy needs not only to be told, but also to be told in a manner that returns Karen’s humanity and public memory.

“I wanted to breathe life into her and welcome her into the world,” Grammer says. “We were Kelsey and Karen, brother and sister.”

Lessons of forgiveness and fatherhood

Kelsey Grammer is thoughtful as he speaks about forgiveness in the book and the interview. He recounts that Glenn's forgiveness, reciprocal to Grammer's own, does not absolve any wrongdoing, emphasizing once more that forgiveness does not equal exoneration.

“You don’t want to eat yourself to pieces because you can’t forgive somebody,” Grammer reflects. “But it’s hard to forgive a person who consciously decided they wanted to murder somebody you love.”

Kelsey Grammer is also teaching his children the lessons of grace alongside emotional toughness. Glenn had shared her perspectives too, and she shared that with him.

“They say stuff all the time, like, ‘I want to kill [Freddie Glenn],’” he says. “I tell them, ‘I understand it and respect you for it, but you’re going to want more from life than that.’”

In the end, Karen: A Brother Remembers concludes with Kelsey Grammer recounting the journey of retracing Karen’s last steps in Colorado Springs, which he describes as offering him some level of closure.

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“I had to complete my farewell to her. I had to be there and hold her in the end,” he says.

Kelsey Grammer's enduring marriage, which deepens over time through love, warmth, and honesty, reflects the very values he writes about: connection, reminiscence, and empathy – all which, he willingly recognizes, “demand participation.” After all, he says, “Love is a contact sport.”

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