General Hospital: The 8 Most Toxic Quartermaine Marriages, Ranked

The Quartermaine family on General Hospital has experienced marriages that ranged from epic love stories to explosive disasters. While Edward and Lila became the gold standard for lasting devotion in Port Charles, other Quartermaine unions were defined by betrayal, manipulation, revenge, and chaos. From the least toxic to the most toxic, here are eight of the most dysfunctional GH marriages connected to the Quartermaines.

8. Alan Quartermaine & Lucy Coe

After Monica (Leslie Charleson) divorced Alan (Stuart Damon) because of his affair with Lucy (Lynn Herring), the bad publicity generated by the scandal forced him to propose to his mistress and legitimize their relationship. For her part, Lucy had long wished to be part of the wealthy Quartermaine dynasty and was thrilled to see her dream coming true, so not even the dress shop mistakenly providing her with a scarlet bridal ensemble could dampen her joy on the big day.

But just one year after their unforgettable (for all the wrong reasons!) April 26, 1990, wedding, Alan cut his unfaithful wife loose upon discovering that the baby Lucy was carrying — and later tragically miscarried — was not his, but Scott Baldwin’s (Kin Shriner).

7. Ned Ashton & Katherine Bell

Being pressured into marriage is never the best start, and that’s exactly what happened when Katherine (Mary Beth Evans) got her hands on evidence the Quartermaines were hiding that implicated Alan’s involvement in Ray Conway’s death. Ned (Wally Kurth) turned down her first marriage proposal, so Katherine blackmailed Edward (John Ingle) into forcing Ned to say yes. Ned grit his teeth and got hitched to Katherine on July 5, 1994 — but as his rocker alter ego, Eddie Maine, he’d secretly eloped with Lois Cerullo (Rena Sofer) beforehand!

Eager to oust Katherine from his life, Ned he hired Mac (John J. York) to dig into her past. Mac turned up proof of Katherine’s history of embezzling, but before Ned had the chance to use this knowledge against her, Lois (furious upon learning of her hubby’s double life) popped out of the giant cake at Katherine’s birthday party to declare, “Happy birthday Mrs. Ned Ashton, from me — the other Mrs. Ned Ashton!”

Humiliated, Katherine refused to make a quiet exit from Ned’s life, demanding that he divorce Lois and marry her for real. When he threatened to expose her crimes, Katherine finally agreed to vacate the mansion, only to collapse and wind up in a coma! Turns out, the Quartermaines’ loyal butler, Reginald (Stephen Kay), had poisoned her. Katherine pulled through and granted Ned a divorce as he focused on winning Lois back.

6. Tracy Quartermaine & Anthony Zacchara

When mobster Anthony (Bruce Weitz) set his sights on ELQ, he decided to get his hands on the company by marrying Tracy (Jane Elliot). Naturally, she wasn’t interested, but he had proof that she had funneled some mob money into ELQ during her short-lived marriage to mafioso Gino Soleito (which took place on The City) and threatened to reveal that information if she didn’t tie the knot with him.

Tracy did everything in her power to stall the wedding, but he eventually forced her hand. On their wedding day, Tracy lost all hope of squirming out of saying “I do” when Luke (Anthony Geary) showed up not to stop the ceremony, but to attend as a guest. She and Anthony were pronounced husband and wife on January 23, 2012. Later, Tracy enlisted Luke’s help in getting rid of her unwanted spouse, but the marriage came to a sudden end all on its own when Anthony turned up dead. Tracy thought Luke had offed him, but it was actually his son, Johnny (Brandon Barash), who had done the honors.

5. Tracy Quartermaine and Paul Hornsby

Smitten Tracy was delighted when Paul (Paul Satterfield) popped the question, unaware that he was working for a dangerous cartel that was forcing him into the marriage to get control of her ELQ stock. The couple became husband and wife on October 28, 1991, with Paul trying to act the part of happy groom even though his heart belonged to another woman, Jenny Eckert (Cheryl Richardson).

When the cartel was finally brought down in 1992, Tracy was outraged to learn why Paul really married her and refused to give him a divorce. Not only that, but she hired shady Marco Dane (Gerald Anthony) to dredge up damaging info on Jenny, who remained the lady of Paul’s heart. That same year, Tracy gave birth to her son with Paul, Dillon. Tracy finally agreed to let Paul out of their marriage when Jenny and Paul got major leverage her: they discovered that she was the hit-and-run driver who had struck Jenny with her car.

4. AJ Quartermaine & Carly Benson

Carly (then-Sarah Brown) hid the truth about AJ (Billy Warlock) being her son Michael’s father for years. When he finally learned the truth, AJ persuaded Carly to marry him so that they could all live together with the rest of the Qs to please his grandfather, Edward. Carly, who longed for a future with Jason, entered the marriage on May 26, 1999 with the intention of making AJ miserable enough to relapse so she could have him declared an unfit parent.

The marriage was never a happy one, and Carly chafed under AJ’s attempts to keep her in line. Then, after seeing Jason and Elizabeth (Rebecca Herbst) together, Carly slept with Sonny (Maurice Benard) and became pregnant with his child, so she seduced AJ to try to pass off the baby as his. In the end, the truth came out, and Sonny forced AJ to grant Carly a divorce and give up his rights to Michael. But their twisted dynamic continued, and during a heated confrontation between Carly and a drunken AJ, she fell and lost the baby.

3. Alan Quartermaine & Monica Bard

Unlike the other sets of spouses on this list, Alan  and Monica genuinely loved each other — but their first marriage was anything but a fairy tale. The duo wed in 1978, and the next year, Monica fell into bed with her ex, Rick Webber (Chris Robinson). Monica discovered she was pregnant and believed Rick was the father of baby Alan, Jr. (AJ) — and so did Alan, who quietly began plotting to murder both Monica and Rick by rigging the nursery roof to collapse on them during AJ’s christening. The baby turned out to be Alan’s, but Monica tricked Alan into confessing on tape to trying to kill her and used it to force him into a divorce.

The pair eventually reconciled, but their toxic cycle continued. In 1982, Alan impregnated his mistress, Susan Moore (Gail Ramsey), who gave birth to Jason (Steve Burton) and, secretly, his twin, Drew (Cameron Mathison). Monica retaliated by trying to sell the Quartermaine mansion out from under Alan and having multiple affairs of her own. In 1986, Monica and her lover Sean Donely (John Reilly) schemed to bankrupt the Quartermaines, prompting Alan to fake his own death to frame them for his “murder.”

Yet Alan and Monica survived all of that (and Monica’s 1988 tryst with Ned!) and remained married — until Lucy came along (see No. 8). They remarried in 1991 and their second go-round, while far from perfect, was certainly less stormy.

2. Michael Corinthos & Nelle Benson

Michael (then-Chad Duell) married a pregnant Nelle (Chloe Lanier) on July 16, 2018. The bride wasted no time plotting with her ex-lover, cop Chase (Josh Swickard), to tamper with Michael’s car so it would crash and kill him (and she’d inherit his big bucks), unaware that Chase was actually working with Michael to trap her!

When Michael wouldn’t let her out of the booby-trapped vehicle, a panicked Nelle confessed to everything, including killing her former fiancé and angling to kill Michael. The car crashed, and Nelle left Michael to die (he didn’t), then later claimed that their baby, Jonah (later known as Wiley), had died at birth (he hadn’t). Michael had the last laugh when he informed Nelle that their union had never even been legitimate — he had arranged for the pen they used to sign their marriage license to be loaded with disappearing ink.

1. Drew Cain & Willow Tait

Drew was over the moon when Willow (Katelyn MacMullen) finally agreed to become his bride — but she only consented to becoming Mrs. Cain on December 2, 2025 as a means of regaining custody of Wiley and Amelia, her kids with ex-husband/Drew’s nephew Michael (Rory Gibson) — not to mention positioning herself better to beat the criminal trial in her near future on charges of having shot Drew. As it turned out, it was Willow who had pumped two bullets into her future husband’s back that dark and stormy night, but since the congressman survived and continued dominating her life, the wannabe widow decided to take things a step further and injected him with a drug that made it look as though he’d had a stroke, leaving him unable to move or talk for months while she taunted him at every opportunity.

Even while incapacitated, Drew tried to get revenge by communicating the only way he could (via blinking) to implicate Willow in Jordan’s (Tanisha Harper) near-fatal car crash. Finally, after a failed attempt by Willow’s mom, Nina (Cynthia Watros), to drown Drew in the Quartermaine lake, he revealed that he had regained his ability to walk and talk and threatened to expose her crimes. But she had leverage of her own — proof that he’d misappropriated congressional funds — so they agreed to keep each other’s secrets and secure a divorce. Their twisted union was definitely one for the books.