Amy Dickinson Husband History: Anthony Mason, Bruno Schickel, and Her Private Life
If you’re searching for amy dickinson husband, you’re trying to connect the dots on the personal life of the “Ask Amy” advice columnist—someone who has spent decades guiding other people through marriage, divorce, and family dynamics while keeping much of her own story relatively low-key. Amy Dickinson has been married twice. Her first husband was journalist Anthony Mason, and her current husband is Bruno Schickel, a builder from upstate New York. The timeline is straightforward, but the more interesting part is how her relationships—and the way they changed—shaped the voice readers came to trust.
Who is Amy Dickinson’s husband now?
Amy Dickinson’s current husband is Bruno Schickel. The two married in 2008. Unlike Amy’s first marriage, which was tied to a prominent TV news career and life in major cities, her marriage to Bruno is closely associated with a quieter, more rooted lifestyle in upstate New York—near the town where she grew up.
Bruno Schickel isn’t a celebrity spouse and doesn’t appear to chase attention. That’s one reason people keep searching: in a world where public figures often overshare, the absence of constant personal updates can feel like a mystery. In reality, it’s usually just a boundary—and Amy has always seemed like someone who understands boundaries better than most.
Amy Dickinson’s first husband: Anthony Mason
Amy Dickinson’s first husband was Anthony Mason, a journalist known for his work as a correspondent. They married in 1986 and later lived in London during that period. Their marriage ended in divorce in 1990.
For people who only know Amy as the steady, empathetic voice behind an advice column, her early divorce can be surprising. But if you’ve read her work closely, it also makes sense: her advice often carries the tone of someone who understands what it feels like to have life pivot sharply, and to rebuild when you didn’t plan on rebuilding.
It’s also worth noting how different the environments were. That first marriage unfolded during a phase of travel and career movement—an exciting setup on paper that can still feel lonely in real life when one partner’s work dominates the schedule and the other is left trying to build a sense of home in unfamiliar places.
Did Amy Dickinson have children with her first husband?
Yes. Amy Dickinson and Anthony Mason share a daughter, Emily, who was born in 1988. Amy has spoken over the years about her experience of being a single mother, and you can feel that perspective in her writing. She doesn’t romanticize parenting, but she also doesn’t talk about it like it’s purely burden or purely blessing. Her voice tends to land in the real world: complicated, loving, exhausting, meaningful.
When people look up “Amy Dickinson husband,” they’re often surprised to learn that she has a daughter because Amy’s public image is so tied to giving advice rather than sharing her own family story. But the fact that she raised a child while building a career helps explain why her column resonated for so long—she wasn’t writing about relationships from an ivory tower. She was writing from inside real life.
Her second marriage: Bruno Schickel and a different kind of chapter
Amy Dickinson married Bruno Schickel in August 2008. This marriage is often described in a quieter tone than her first, not because it matters less, but because it seems to align with a more grounded phase of her life. By that point, Amy’s public career was well established, and she had already lived through the kind of upheaval that can either harden a person or deepen them.
There’s something fitting about an advice columnist finding a later-life partnership after years of experiencing, observing, and writing about what makes relationships work—and what makes them fall apart. It also challenges a common cultural myth: that the “main love story” must happen early, or that a major relationship ending means you missed your chance. Amy’s life suggests the opposite. Sometimes the second act is steadier precisely because you’ve already learned what you need.
Why Amy Dickinson’s relationships feel “private” compared to other public figures
Amy Dickinson is well known, but she isn’t famous in the influencer sense. She built her career through writing—daily and weekly columns, books, public commentary—not through inviting the public into her living room. That creates a different relationship with the audience. Readers may feel close to her because her advice is intimate, but that intimacy doesn’t automatically mean access to her personal life.
There are a few reasons her husband and marriage aren’t discussed like celebrity gossip:
- Her work isn’t built on personal exposure. She’s known for what she does, not what she shares.
- Her husband is not a public personality. Bruno Schickel appears to live outside the spotlight.
- Advice columnists often protect their private lives. The work involves handling sensitive topics; privacy can be a form of professional hygiene.
- She’s lived through divorce. People who have been through a public-facing life change often learn to guard what matters.
So if you’re expecting a steady stream of “couple content,” you won’t find it—not because anything is being hidden, but because her life has never been designed as entertainment.
How her husband story connects to “Ask Amy”
It’s hard to separate Amy Dickinson’s personal experiences from the emotional intelligence of her column, even if she rarely centers herself. The best advice-givers tend to have three qualities:
- They’ve been humbled by real life. They know what it is to be wrong-footed.
- They’ve rebuilt. They understand resilience, not just theory.
- They’ve observed patterns for years. They can spot what people miss in the moment.
Amy’s husband timeline—first marriage, divorce, single parenthood, later marriage—lines up with those qualities. She’s not a person who only talks about commitment; she’s someone who has had to practice it, redefine it, and find it again in a different form.
That’s one reason readers often describe her advice as practical rather than preachy. Even when she takes a firm stance, she tends to write like someone who knows how life can change and how people can surprise you—sometimes in the worst ways, sometimes in the best.
Common misconceptions people have about Amy Dickinson’s husband
When you search “Amy Dickinson husband,” you’ll sometimes bump into confusing or incomplete summaries. Here are the most common misunderstandings people run into:
- Misconception: She’s still married to Anthony Mason.
No—Anthony Mason is her ex-husband. They divorced in 1990. - Misconception: She never remarried.
She did—she married Bruno Schickel in 2008. - Misconception: If she’s private, she must be hiding drama.
Privacy is often just a preference, especially for someone whose job involves other people’s personal drama every day. - Misconception: Her advice must be “academic.”
Her life history suggests she’s lived through the kinds of turning points she writes about.
Once you know the basics, the confusion usually clears up quickly. The problem isn’t that her story is complicated—it’s that the internet often repeats outdated details without context.
The bigger picture: why her marriages matter to readers
People don’t only search for “Amy Dickinson husband” out of idle curiosity. They search because advice columnists become emotional landmarks. You read someone for years, sometimes decades. You turn to them during breakups, family fights, grief, and uncertainty. Eventually, you want to know: who is this person outside the column?
Amy Dickinson’s husband story matters because it quietly reinforces what her work has always suggested: life is rarely linear. You can marry, divorce, raise a child, reinvent yourself, find love again, and still become a steady voice for millions of strangers. Her relationship history isn’t a scandalous footnote—it’s a human arc that helps explain why her writing has felt grounded for so long.
The takeaway
Amy Dickinson has been married twice. Her first husband was Anthony Mason (married in 1986, divorced in 1990), and they share a daughter named Emily. Her current husband is Bruno Schickel, whom she married in 2008. If you came looking for a single name, Bruno Schickel is the answer today. If you came looking for the fuller context, her story is a reminder that love and stability can show up in more than one chapter—and sometimes the later chapters are the ones that fit best.
image source: https://www.denverpost.com/2024/04/14/ask-amy-wife-isnt-proving-to-be-a-good-roommate/
