For Tori Spelling and Dean McDermott, their fifth child (due next year) couldn’t have come at a better — or more fitting — time.
“We’re in such a good place going into this pregnancy,” Spelling tells PEOPLE of her 10-year marriage to McDermott. “We’re not just still here, but we’re bonded and solidified as a couple.”
A little more than three years ago, the pair almost lost it all. After McDermott admitted to cheating on Spelling, “everything crashed,” she says. “We had to start over. We had to completely rebuild.”
Over time, and thanks to intense couples therapy and individual personal healing, “we made the conscious decision based on our love for each other to tough it out and work through it,” says Spelling, 43. “It was one of the worst times in our lives, but it was also one of the best times. I wouldn’t change anything because if we hadn’t started talking and opened up those lines of communication, maybe we wouldn’t be here today.”
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WATCH: Story Behind the Story: Tori Spelling Becomes a Mom for the Fifth Time
Throughout all of the heartache, Spelling says she still never seriously considered divorce.
“I feel like people take marriage too lightly in this day and age,” she says. “Sometimes things happen in life and they’re mistakes, but love doesn’t just turn off. That’s not how our hearts work. I want our kids to know one day that we stuck it out and worked through it.”
Now she and McDermott, 49, are grateful for a second chance at their marriage — and to expand their ever-growing family.
“Everyone has ups and downs, but I’m so madly in love with my husband and our family,” says Spelling. “Adding to it is such a blessing.”