The 13 best pieces of advice Dax Shepard and Kristen Bell have for keeping a relationship thriving

Bell said that when they first met, 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 then 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.'"

Many people call relationships "work," and Shepard has agreed 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."

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 the post. "It's a privilege to go through it with a partner."

Maintaining 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 wrote 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 a 2017 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."

Bell has preached 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 Instagram post. "It will make your marriage better."

She also added, "Rejoice in what makes the other person happy, and allow them their individual interests."

It's not enough to exit a fight with "but that's just the way I am." Bell has said that she instead works on expanding her "emotional toolbox."

"Know that everyone is doing the best they can with what they've got," Bell wrote in the Instagram post. "So get a bigger emotional toolbox to fix your problems."

"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."

"Therapy is not something to be embarrassed about," Bell said in a 2015 interview with Good Housekeeping. "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."

In the same interview, Shepard added, "In my previous relationship, we went to couples' therapy at the end, and that's often too late. You can't go after nine years and start figuring out what patterns you're in."

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."

According to People, in 2015 Shepard said, "I said to Kristen, 'We should try hard to police ourselves about becoming contemptuous of each other.'"

He continued, "If I ever see you roll your eyes at me, we need to hit pause and figure out what's going on."

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 publication. "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 disagree with him on almost everything, but I have intense respect for his critical thinking skills and the fact that we were raised differently," she added. "I always see his point."

Bell told Women's Health in 2017 that she and Shepard try to remember that happiness can be 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 went on "The Ellen DeGeneres Show" in 2018 and gave this advice to an audience member who wanted to know how to keep the intimacy alive in a relationship.

"In my experience, your lady wants to know that you're still very interested in her as a human being," Shepard said. " ... You need to, you know, go to dinner and actually be interested in follow-up questions and spend the time as if you just met this person at a bar. That's what's exciting I think."

On a 2019 episode of "The View," Shepard and Bell opened up about their relationship and spoke about how they avoid jealousy.

"The least attractive thing for your partner is jealousy, so if what your goal is is to keep them interested — and not interested in other people — it's not an option," Shepard said. "You gotta go, 'No, that's actually a repellent.'"

Many people turn to celebrities who they think are "the perfect couple" for advice, but Bell told Men's Health in 2014 that all the imperfections are really what make a relationship great.

"We have a perfect relationship because we both aren't afraid to admit that we're not perfect," she told the publication. "Once you can admit that you're not perfect and you mess up all the time, it's so incredibly freeing."

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