Jason Ritter and wife Melanie Lynskey have long been #couplegoals but their road to romance wasn't as smooth as it may seem.
In fact, at the beginning of their love story, the Parenthood actor didn't even think he deserved her.
"I knew how incredible Melanie was early on. It's not as cute as the story as you would like to think—it was messy and interesting and weird," Jason, 43, said on The Drew Barrymore Show March 28, sitting beside the Yellowjackets actress. "But mixed in the mix was dealing with some alcoholism issues. So there was a lot at us."
Getting teary-eyed, Jason recalled his initial feelings for the actress. "At a point, I knew how amazing she was and I thought she would be incredible for someone who deserved her, basically, and I didn't feel like I was that person. I felt a little bit too crazy," he said. "So it was only after like, maybe a year into not drinking where I started to go, oh, maybe I can promise some things to someone else. Maybe I can be this person."
Jason added, "I knew that she was incredible. It was working on myself enough to feel like maybe maybe I could be the one for her too."
Melanie, 45, also reflected on watching her husband's journey to sobriety. "It looked so hard," she told host Drew Barrymore. "He did so much work on himself. I'm so proud of him."
"I think, well, this is first of all, the best person in the world and I just knew it," the Candy actress continued. "Like, even though mistakes were made along the way, you had such a good heart. And also, he was always so willing like, every time I said, 'I really need to talk to you about something,' he would be like, 'What is it? What is it?' Like, so present, wanting to have the conversation and so willing to take responsibility. And we just kept growing."
The two even sought professional help early on in their relationship to boost their chances of success. "We were in couples therapy three weeks after we met each other," Melanie said. "Now we're like, 'Should we go back to therapy?' Like, probably. But this is how we're getting working on."
Melanie and Jason, who is set to make a guest appearance on her series Yellowjackets this season, began dating after working together on the 2013 movie The Big Ask, years after first meeting.
"We had met each other over the years in passing a few times, lots of mutual friends," Melanie said on The Drew Barrymore Show. "And he always forgot me and I would be reintroducing myself, like, is this guy for real? And then we got cast in a movie together and we were both going through very difficult times in our lives, both going through breakups. It was a very tumultuous time."
But amid the ups and downs, Melanie knew Jason was "the one."
"I had a very very old dog," she remembered, "and Mouse was so so old at this point in getting up in the night multiple times, needing to pee, and it was kind of driving me crazy and Jason would get up with her every single time and just take her outside and go back to sleep and get up and take her outside. And I think that was when I was like, oh, I could have a child with this man, like, I could really do this."
Now, they've been married for early three years and share a daughter, 4. And as Melanie put it, "He's really the infinite patience and kindness and love," the actress recalled, "and I was like, I think this is a good person."
And during their decade together, the couple have made it clear they're each other's no. 1 fan—both onscreen and off. In fact, Jason recently got candid about what it's been like seeing Melanie's career roar to new heights in recent years.
"She's just been so wonderful for so long and she never really put a lot of thought process into anything else aside from her work. That was always the most important thing to her," he exclusively told E! News earlier this month. "I hope that new fans of Melanie will go back and watch some of the independent movies and other shows that she's been a part of. She's just been doing incredible work since she was 15."