Based on how they interact today, one might assume that Dax Shepard and Kristen Bell are annoying love-at-first-sight types. Remember when Shepard surprised his wife with sloths? And how they refused to get married until DOMA was struck down? (They married in 2013 in what was — and we could have predicted this — the cutest wedding ever.) The couple has always verged on too cute to be true.
But things were not always so blissful — once upon a time, Dax Shepard thought Kristen Bell was...strange. The Parenthood actor told Good Housekeeping that he was initially suspicious of Bell's optimism.
"When I met her and her friends, I was suspicious of their unbridled happiness,” the actor said. “I thought, ‘Something stinks here; they’re in a cult.'”
Which, to be fair, is kind of how I feel about the two of them now. Like, really? You're a couple in Hollywood — shouldn't you be busy breaking up on Snapchat or subtweeting each other?
But the duo is quite open about their long road to romantic bliss. Apparently, it wasn't all smiles. In the same interview, Shepard and Bell share how they've managed to cultivate such a lovely relationship despite some pretty intimidating obstacles, like Shepard's history as an addict. They attribute their healthy coupledom to therapy.
"There were hurdles, things she didn't trust about me, things I didn't trust about her. I just kept going back to, 'This person has the thing I want, and I have to figure out how we can exist peacefully.' So we started [seeing a therapist together] right away," Shepard said.
Bell added, "You do better in the gym with a trainer; you don't figure out how to cook without reading a recipe. Therapy is not something to be embarrassed about."
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