Eva Longoria & Tony Parker: The Way They Were

Weeks before news of their split broke, Eva Longoria and Tony Parker couldn’t keep their hands off one another at a Hollywood benefit on Oct. 22. “He’s always telling me he’s never met anyone who loves the way I do,” the Desperate Housewives star once said of her husband of three years. “Wholly and freely and unconditionally.”

In the blossoming years of their romance, the San Antonio Spurs point guard swooped in to surprise his ladylove on the Los Angeles set of her comedy Over Her Dead Body. It was “lust at first sight,” Longoria said of her relationship with Parker, which began in 2004. “He’s very sweet.”

He put a ring on it! Reuniting after a brief split in the fall of 2006, Parker proposed to Longoria that November with a five-carat-plus diamond ring. “I cried my eyes out,” the bride-to-be gushed. “I knew it was right. We’ve been talking for months about it, and I just knew. It was time.”

The pint-sized beauty was Parker’s No. 1 cheerleader as he captured the title of Most Valuable Player after his Spurs won the NBA Finals in 2007. Two weeks later, the inseparable pair jetted to Saint-Tropez for a his-and-her bachelor party with a bevy of friends.

Here comes the bride! A beaming Longoria followed her leading man into a Parisian restaurant on July 6, 2007, moments after marrying in a low-key civil ceremony. But the fun was still to come: The next day, Longoria, 32, and Parker, 25, threw a star-studded bash in a 17th-century castle, capped off with fireworks in the French sky.

A year after their nuptials, Longoria and Parker presented a united – and PDA-filled – front in New York’s Central Park amid rumors alleging that the NBA star had cheated. “I love my wife. She’s the best thing in my life, and I have never been happier,” Parker told PEOPLE.

Celebrating her two-year anniversary in Paris, Longoria held on tight to her hubby while scooting through the City of Light in July 2009. Earlier that year, Parker purchased a French basketball club, and told reporters that he and his wife could see themselves living back in his native country.

With their third wedding anniversary on the horizon, the pair enjoyed a little fun in the Miami Beach sun in May 2010. “We always try to keep it special and make sure you don’t fall on your routine,” Parker told PEOPLE of their ever-exciting love life. Later in the summer, they toasted their special day with a trip to Croatia.

Weeks later, Longoria helped Parker lap up the attention on his 28th birthday at her Las Vegas club, Eve. The pair held additional parties in Los Angeles and Miami, and Longoria gifted her husband with a four-wheeler and cutting-edge computer. “Whatever she gives me I’m fine with it,” Parker said. “I’m happy.”

With one tiny twist, Longoria lovingly adjusted her hubby’s tie on the Emmy Awards red carpet in Los Angeles on Aug. 29. It would prove to be one of the couple’s last red carpet appearances together: Longoria filed for divorce on Nov. 17 amid rekindled rumors of infidelity.