James Van Der Beek Pays Tribute To Wife Kimberly On Their 10th Anniversary

James Van Der Beek is the No. 1 Hollywood husband, and this sweet anniversary post is all the proof you need

If you were to ask us who our absolute favorite Hollywood husband/dad is, there’d be a lot of top contenders — Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson, Ryan Reynolds, and Lin Manuel-Miranda, just to name a few. But for today, at least, the top prize has to go to James Van Der Beek. On top of inspiring us with the way he’s raising his son to be the best kind of man, and how he and his wife, Kimberly, have been incredibly brave and open about the numerous heartbreaking miscarriages they’ve suffered, James just won the day for another reason: A touching, heart-melting post to Kimberly on their 10th anniversary.

The post tells the story about how the couple met — after Van Der Beek had already experienced quite a lot of life, including another marriage, and decided the one thing that was missing was his soulmate. In fact, he wrote, he was waxing poetic to a friend about this when a beautiful woman interrupted him, and after he was initially annoyed at the interruption, he realized this was someone he needed to get to know.

“Who the hell was stepping all over my moment?” he wrote. “I turned around… it was @vanderkimberly.”

Van Der Beek writes that although Kimberly at first said she wasn’t looking for a relationship, they moved in together just six months after they met, and two weeks after that, learned she was pregnant with their first child.

“And almost exactly one year to the date after she’d first interrupted me… we were married,” he wrote.

But what’s even sweeter than that love story is all that Van Der Beek says he’s gained from his marriage.

“This marriage has demanded I be more present, more honest, more authentic, more open, more patient, more passionate, daring, capable, fun, and vulnerable than I’ve ever been,” he wrote. “And I’m still earning her. We’ve been through joy and pain and everything in between, and even at the height of our most impassioned arguments… she’s who I want by my side.”

Van Der Beek continued, “Kimberly, you astound me. Your bravery, your tenderness, and your unwillingness to settle for anything less than what can and ought to be…. You’re the best human I know. I love you, and I look forward to earning your partnership for years to come.”

Yep, all those years we spent fawning over him on Dawson’s Creek made us pretty sure Van Der Beek was the man of our dreams, and this just proves it. Happy anniversary to him and his incredibly lucky wife, Kimberly.