Matthew McConaughey and Camila Alves’ Relationship Timeline

A match made over margaritas! Matthew McConaughey is known for playing a charmer in rom-coms, but his wife, Camila Alves, was initially resistant to his moves.

The duo first met in 2006 at a bar in Los Angeles where the Oscar winner was mixing up drinks for his friends. He invited the model and his friends to join his table, and she did — but by herself.

“That night I spoke 25 minutes of the best Spanish I’ve ever spoken in my life,” the How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days star recalled in a January 2017 interview with Howard Stern. “She spoke Portuguese. I don’t think I ever understood Portuguese as well as I did that night. I was focused. It worked.”

Alves eventually left the club with McConaughey, but she put her foot down when it came to sleeping over. “She’s like, ‘OK, I’m gonna go. I’m gonna get a cab.’ And I’m like, ‘Don’t do that. It’s way too late,’” the Greenlights author recalled. “’Take the guest bedroom.’”

The Brazil native did — and when her future husband checked on her later that night, she rebuffed his advances. She also said no when he asked her to go on a date the next day because it was her father’s birthday. After rejecting him two more times, she finally agreed to come over for dinner, and that — finally — won her over.

After the duo tied the knot in 2012, the Shear Genius alum revealed that the Texas native isn’t nearly as romantic as many of his fans believe.

“It’s very funny because people see him onscreen or out there in public in a certain way, and they have this vision of him being this romantic and so passionate,” she said during a February 2014 appearance on Inside the Actors Studio. “Just very romantic and grabs you and kisses you. And sometimes I’m like, ‘Who is this guy? Can you be a little bit of that?’”

McConaughey agreed with his wife’s assessment, but he later said that one of his favorite things about her is that she accepts him for who he is. When asked what he’s most thankful for at a 2018 event, the Gold star replied, “My life, three healthy children [and] my wife Camila, who doesn’t want to change me.”

The University of Texas at Austin graduate had two children together before walking down the aisle, which McConaughey said was mostly due to his own hesitancy about marriage. Alves, however, pushed him to take that step in their relationship.

“I had to get to the point where I saw it as more than just the thing to do,” he told GQ in October 2014. “I wanted to really want to. You know, I didn’t want it to be a destination; the fun is that we’re on the adventure together. And look, some of it had to do with her putting it on me. It took her going, ‘C’mon, Big Boy, Mr. Easygoing-We’ll-Get-to-It-When-We-Get-to-It. Either s–t or get off the pot.’”

Keep scrolling for a look back at McConaughey and Alves’ complete relationship timeline.