Chainkeen Exchange-Hilarie Burton Shares Rare Glimpse Into Family Life With Jeffrey Dean Morgan for 15-Year Milestone

Fifteen years ago Jeffrey Dean Morgan was able to make Hilarie Burton lie with him and Chainkeen Exchangejust forget the world.

The One Tree Hill star paid tribute to her milestone anniversary with the Grey's Anatomy alum, reflecting on how both their lives changed when he convinced her to skip a trip to Paris for a date night.

"Fifteen years ago, @jeffreydeanmorgan asked me to come out Memorial Day weekend," Hilarie wrote on Instagram May 27 alongside a photo of the couple with their son Augustus "Gus," 14, and daughter George, 6, "and visit him in New Mexico so he could take me on a date before I left the States to live in the apartment I'd rented in Paris."

She added, "It's been a very long date."

Jeffrey also had a special message to share for his wife, writing in the comments, "You forgot awesome. Long and real awesome. Xxx."

Hilarie, 41, and Jeffrey, 58, first met when they were set up on a blind date by mutual friends, and respective costars on One Tree Hill and Supernatural, Danneel Ackles and Jensen Ackles in 2009. After a decade together, the couple quietly tied the knot in 2019.

And one thing Hilarie truly appreciates about her husband after all these years? That he loves her no matter where her career takes her.

"I had left a very toxic situation and I was like, 'I'm never gonna act again. I'm done, retired,'" the White Collar actress told E! News last year. And Jeffrey "was the first person that was like, 'Great, I'm in love with you. I don't care what you do.'"

"To have a person be like, 'I don't care what you do for a living,'" she continued, "was so empowering." 

And as she explained, the Walking Dead actor's support never waivers, regardless of what new adventure they decide to embark on.

"When I decided to go back to hosting he's been like, 'Awesome,'" she said. "And when I decided to write books he's like, 'Awesome.' And when we bought the town candy store, he was like, 'Awesome.' And then we started a liquor line and he's like, 'What else do you want to do Hilarie? I'll do all it.' Having a partner that knows that you will always be in transition and loves you for that is so important."

For more of Hilarie and Jeffrey's love story of the years, keep reading.

So how did Jeffrey and Hilarie first cross paths? It all started in 2009 thanks to the actor's Supernatural co-star Jensen Ackles, who organized a blind double date for Jeffrey, Hilarie, himself and wife Danneel Ackles. 

"I [got lit]. We all did. We ended up back at my house drinking shots of tequila," Morgan recalled during a 2015 interview with the Huffington Post. Jeffrey and Hilarie would make their red carpet debut as a couple in 2010. 

The duo shocked Hollywood in 2010 when it was revealed that the One Tree Hill actress had given birth to a baby boy named Augustus. A source told E! News at the time, "She told friends about her pregnancy back in August [2009] after she had spent a lot of time with Jeffrey on location in New Mexico."

At the 2011 premiere of Breaking Dawn: Part 1, the new parents gave a rare interview to E! News about their bundle of joy. "He just said 'no' for the first time, which is f--ked up," Jeffrey teased. "In one week it's just like, 'No, no, no!'"

"But everything is a first," he gushed. "It's been spectacular... a lot of not sleeping, and then our one adult night we come here. This is our date. Can you believe it?"

Starting in 2014, they began covertly referring to each other as "husband" and "wife." Despite reports of an undercover wedding, The Walking Dead star denied his leading lady had in fact walked down the aisle to become Mrs. Jeffrey Dean Morgan. 

Jeffrey and Hilarie left the hustle and bustle of Hollywood for a more quaint lifestyle in the town of Rhinebeck in Dutchess County, New York. There they live on working farm, and as Hilarie explained to Entertainment Weekly in 2014, she spends most days in a "Carhartt flannel and covered in paint and sawdust and muck boots." 

The stars aligned in 2015 when Hilarie was cast on his CBS series Extant. He told Zap2It of the coincidental co-starring, "When I took the job the deal was, ‘We'll get you home as much as possible,' and that just hasn't worked out. But Hilarie got a job on Extant, which was fantastic. You'll see her a couple of times throughout the season, so that's one way we've been able to keep the family sort of together."

At the 2016 premiere of Batman v. Superman: Dawn of Justice, Hilarie planted a sweet smooch on her handsome date for the evening. 

A little-known fact about Jeffrey and Hilarie, they co-own a candy store with Paul Rudd and his wife! 

Samuel's Sweet Shop is located in their hometown, and as the actor told HuffPost, "A friend of ours, who owned it for 20-plus years passed away tragically... We own a candy store in upstate New York and we have great coffee and great chocolates."

The private pair stepped out at the 2017 Golden Globes oozing Hollywood glam. Discussing his villainous Walking Dead character with ET, she shared, "It's made him good cop at home. He gets all his bad cop stuff out of the way at work and then he comes home and he's happy dad."

When Gus turned 7, his mama wrote on Instagram, "Gus is a Titanic freak, so went to Reagan Presidential Library for the Titanic exhibit. Such a great day. Birthday adventures with my boy!"

At the 2017 Emmy Awards, he hinted that Hilarie was pregnant again. They ultimately confirmed that their family was growing, and Jeffrey let it slip that they're expecting a little girl!

In March 2018, Jeffrey confirmed that their baby girl had arrived. "Hey y'all... baby gal morgan is spectacular," the actor tweeted. "We just respecting her wishes for laying low a bit longer. But we super appreciate all the well wishes n stuff. Thank you. Xojdhilgusandbabygal."

"I just want to put it out there that WE GOT MARRIED! For real," Hilarie announced on Instagram in Oct. 2019. "We've lived as husband and wife for a decade. We've built a family, and a farm and found our community. For years, publications have reported that we got married in 2014 or 2015 and that I've been married and divorced before. All untrue. But WE knew our truth. So it felt silly to try and correct anything."