He battles the gruesome world he inhabits as Elliot Stabler in ways that, at age 44, he can count off like rosary beads. Working out, for one: "I get my frustrations out physically."

Friends: "They give me peace of mind and a lot of laughs."

Learning how to pace himself: "De Niro was a hero of mine. And Sean Penn. But I've realized I can't operate at that level of intensity. That's okay for movies. On TV, when you live with horror day in and day out, you have to protect yourself."

Most of all, there's Sherman, as wife and mother: "She isn't demanding. And she's totally calm. The most she says is, 'I really need you to do this … .'"

The comedian Martin Shortt once told Chris Meloni that he could probably have been married three or four times. "It just didn't work out that way," said Short, who has been married to the same woman for 25 years.

Why does the Meloni marriage, now in its tenth year, look so good? Some of it is chemistry (when I floated the theory that "once the sex goes, it's over," Chris didn't disagree), and some of it is luck. But a lot of it has to do with the choices a woman and a man make, and how much drama they like in their lives.

The male star of a show that's a cornerstone of the greatest cops-and-crooks franchise in the history of television is a man who does not lack for opportunities to stray. And Chris Meloni appreciates beauty as much as the next guy. But he already has everything he wants.

"Affairs, drama—that's complicated stuff," he says. "I'm not a fan of complicated. There's so much energy expended in personal drama, in having a dramatic life. People get addicted to the drama."

Domestic drama, for Chris Meloni, means the little plays produced and orchestrated by his daughter. The problem, he says, is that he can't satisfy his young director: "My choices are always wrong. I have never second-guessed myself [as an actor], but with my daughter, I do."

Sherman, too, tries to protect herself from the harshness of the world, real and imagined. "The show takes a toll; it's hard for me to watch it," she admits. "If Chris wasn't on it, I don't know that I'd watch. I turn off a lot of news and don't read many newspaper articles."

Aside from the crucial fact that "we just like each other," Sherman says, the strength of their marriage lies in another rosary: "Space, respect, trust, and freedom." And, she adds, "We laugh a lot." 

They've got much to be happy about. Law & Order is a ninemonth job; the Melonis spent last summer in Connecticut, hanging out with their kids. This summer, Chris will be in a play (Arthur Miller's A View From the Bridge) in Dublin, so the family will join him. "They have to come over," he says. "You know how it is with kids—you don't see them for two weeks, you're looking at a different person."