After celebrating her 10th wedding anniversary to Justin Timberlake on Oct. 19, Jessica Biel says balancing work, two kids, and a marriage is a full-time job. During an interview on “Today With Hoda and Jenna” with hosts Hoda Kotb and Jenna Bush Hager, Biel explained that “you have to keep working hard to make [your marriage] fresh.” The couple — who dressed up as the “Home Alone” antagonists for Halloween — celebrated their romance by secretly renewing their vows during a PDA-filled trip to Italy over the summer.
“It was very intimate. It was very small,” Biel told Kotb and Hager on Nov. 15. “[We had] a couple of our friends, and we literally, barely put this thing together. We almost canceled it. We thought, ‘Oh, this is silly. Are we going to feel goofy doing this?’ And, actually, it was so moving. I felt like, ‘Wow, we’re going to keep doing this. Look at us.'”
“You have to go on date nights. You have to take that time for yourself.”
Since they first began dating in 2007, Biel and Timberlake have split up, gotten back together, gotten married, and welcomed two children: their sons, Silas and Phineas. While Biel admits that being a mom isn’t always the sexiest job in the world, she adds that raising children together has pushed her and Timberlake to prioritize their relationship in new ways.
“[Being a mom] is probably the number one most unsexy job in the world, for the most part. It’s the best job, most days, and then it can be such a challenging job,” she said. “But I think it is important to — you have to go on date nights. You have to take that time for yourself. It’s so hard. I’m trying to take my own advice. I’m not good at it, and I’m still working on finding that balance in my life . . . Justin always says, ‘We cannot stop dating, we have to keep dating,’ and he’s right.”
Finding that balance isn’t easy, but Biel adds that, after 10 years of marriage to Timberlake, she’s grateful for the safety and sense of adventure that their marriage provides her. “It feels so, I don’t know, a combination of incredibly safe, and deep understanding of another person,” Biel said. “But then also just, I guess, the safety to adventure again and sort of be curious about the world again as a couple and as individuals.”