- Dax Shepard and Kristen Bell have been together for 12 years.
- The couple credits their success to regular therapy sessions and hard work.
- They believe that contempt is the number one reason for failed relationships.
Dax Shepard and Kristen Bell are an iconic Hollywood couple. From their cute Instagrams to their salient relationship advice, they're the couple we both want to be and want to hang out with. Shepard and Bellmet in 2007, got hitched in 2013, and now 12 years later are still happily married.
Here's how they say they make it work.
They never walk out during a fight.
Bell admitted that during their first year as a couple, the two had an admittedly "toxic" relationship.
"The first year, you are working out your kinks. I loved it,"Bell said on the talk show "Harry" in 2017. "We'd get in a fight, because we would fight a lot, and I'd, like, yell something then slam the bedroom door, then I'd slam the front door, then I'd get in my car and then I'd skid out the driveway and I would sit around the corner in my car and it felt so good and I realized how incredibly toxic it was only after he pointed it out."
Bell said they overcame this issue when Shepard put his foot down and told her she couldn't "leave" in the middle of a fight.
"Three months into our relationship he was like, 'You can't leave anymore during fights. I'm not going to do that,'" Bell added. "He has a very high standard and a strong code of ethics. He was like, 'No, I have more respect for myself, I love you but I'm not going to do that my whole life.'"
They remember that having a partner is a privilege.
Bell listed a series of marriage tips in an Instagram post on Valentine's Day 2018, one of which is to remember that having a life partner is a gift.
"In 10 years, when the dopamine has waned, remember: Life is a crazy ride,"Bell wrote in an Instagram post. "It's a privilege to go through it with a partner."
They prioritize vulnerability.
Open lines of communication is a tried and true recipe for relationship success, but Bell and Shepard take it up a notch by adding vulnerability into the mix.
"Vulnerability always begets connection and intimacy," Bell added in the same Instagram post. "Stay vulnerable with each other."
"If you're in a fight with your husband, just stop and be vulnerable," Bell said in an interview with Women's Health. "Say, 'I'm so scared this fight is going to lead to us breaking up and I don't want to break up with you.' Like, say that in the middle of a fight about the garbage and s--- is gonna change."
They make space to focus on their individuality.
Bell preaches the importance of remembering who you are as an individual, despite living every day as a pair.
"Take necessary separateness," she also wrote in that Valentine's Day post, while adding to "Rejoice in what makes the other person happy, and allow them their individual interests."
They work on their emotional intelligence.
It's not enough to exit a fight with "but that's just the way I am." Bell says that she works on expanding her "emotional toolbox."
"Know that everyone is doing the best they can with what they've got," Bell wrote on Instagram. "So get a bigger emotional toolbox to fix your problems."
They go to therapy.
"We have a very healthy marriage and we got there by doing therapy when we needed it, and constantly doing fierce moral inventories," Bell told People in 2017. "We both take responsibility when we are wrong."
Bell added to Good Housekeeping in 2015 that "therapy is not something to be embarrassed about … There may be something that really hurt your feelings that you're scared to bring up. Go talk about it with a therapist who can mediate. You'll walk out of the room feeling like you're [on the same] team."
They treat their relationship like a job.
Many people call relationships "work," and Shepard would agree with that. He and his wife deliberately put dates on the calendar and treat their marriage with the same respect that they would a work commitment.
"You do have to take it as seriously as you take your work commitments," he told People Now in 2017. "It has to be scheduled and you have to prioritize it or it doesn't happen."
They cut out contempt.
Occasionally rolling your eyes at your partner might feel like a fact of life, but this small action is actually a sign of contempt.
"If you have contempt for the other person — if you roll your eyes or you disregard something they said — your relationship will fail. You might as well get out of it now,"Bell told Women's Health in 2017. "We've made a commitment, a verbal commitment, and an active one, to never have contempt for each other."
"If I ever see you roll your eyes at me, we need to hit pause and figure out what's going on,"Shepard added in a separate interview with People.
They remember to be empathetic during arguments.
Bell told US Weekly in 2017 that she makes a huge effort to be empathetic and understand where her husband is coming from, especially when she doesn't agree with him.
"I do disagree with him on 90% of the issues on the planet," she told the magazine. "But we have really wonderful, intense valued conversations about things, and I always see his point, even if I disagree. It's hard to do."
"I have intense respect for his critical thinking skills and the fact that we were raised differently," she added. "I always see his point."
They choose to be happy.
Bell told Women's Health in 2017 that she and Shepard always remember that happiness is a choice, and that daily choice informs their relationship.
"We choose to be this happy. You can wake up in the morning and choose to be grumpy or you can choose to be happy. Loving him is a choice," Bell said.
Shepard works to keep a sense of newness in the relationship.
Shepard went on "The Ellen Show" and gave this advice to an audience member who wanted to know how to keep the intimacy alive in a relationship.
"Your lady wants to know that you're still very interested in her as a human being, that there are still questions that you haven't asked," Shepard said. "Go to dinner and ask questions and spend the time as if you just met this person at a bar. That's what's exciting I think."