Actress Alexa PenaVega wants singles to look beyond the easy days when choosing a spouse — and she pointed to her own marriage to actor and singer Carlos PenaVega to explain why.
“…it was so nice to have a husband who was just equally in this place where we just like linked arms and we moved forward,” she said on the “Heart of Dating” podcast, reflecting on her and Carlos’ relationship after their daughter Indy was stillborn.
“When you’re dating, you want to pick a spouse that in that time you both go, ‘Let’s go to war together,'” Alexa encouraged.
Her point comes with an important bit of grace. Marriage will not always mean two people feeling equally strong at exactly the same moment; sometimes, one spouse will need the other to carry more of the weight.
For the SPY KIDS actress and the BIG TIME RUSH performer, faith was part of the relationship long before this latest dating conversation. In an October 2020 interview, Alexa said they met through a mutual friend at a Bible study in California.
Related: Alexa PenaVega Has ‘So Much Peace’ After Daughter’s Stillbirth
“Bible study and church were two things that were very important to both of us and that really paved the way for us in the starting point of our relationship,” she told The War Cry.
That same interview offered a less polished — and much more familiar — picture of togetherness. Alexa recalled a work trip to Vancouver when their two children were upset, the couple had little sleep and a long day on set added to the exhaustion.
In the middle of the kitchen chaos, she said, she and Carlos stopped and held each other. She remembered that hug as one of her favorite moments in their marriage, not because anything about the circumstances looked romantic, but because they still felt like a team.
“It didn’t have to be this crazy, romantic moment,” she said.
They also acknowledged that teamwork takes practice. Alexa explained in that earlier interview that she sometimes wanted time alone to pray after an argument, while Carlos wanted to apologize and resolve things right away; learning to respect those differences meant working on communication.
More recently, the couple has addressed marriage and hardship in their book Joy Isn’t Canceled: What Grief Taught Us About Pain, Peace, and Purpose. Publisher Nelson Books describes their account of Indy’s death and exploring how grief affected their faith, family and marriage, with both spouses contributing their perspectives.
The PenaVegas’ story is a reminder that who you date and eventually marry is one of the most important decisions.
Read Next: Alexa and Carlos PenaVega Have ‘So Much Fun’ Making Movies Together
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