Kristen Bell says her one wish for Mother’s Day is to relax, and she says Dax Shepard has made sure she gets exactly that. In an Instagram post on Sunday, May 10, Bell said her husband asked her six years ago what she actually wanted for the holiday, and then turned her answer into a yearly ritual.

Bell said Shepard told her to close her eyes and picture what she would want if she could have anything. Her answer was simple: a spa day at home with her mom friends, with no logistics, no set up and no clean up. “Got it,” she said he replied, and she added that he has delivered every year since.

This year, Bell said the dads were taking the kids and the masseuse was already on her way. She also shared a video montage of the day, including friends such as Justine Lupe, as she enjoyed what she described as a rare stretch of quiet. Bell said the setup was especially meaningful because it let her spend Mother’s Day the way she wanted, not the way she felt she was supposed to.

Her post leaned into the contrast between the holiday’s usual expectations and the break she wanted instead. Bell said Father’s Day tends to carry an accepted “See you later, I’m golfing” spirit, while Mother’s Day often comes with homemade breakfast and a performance of gratitude that can leave mothers still doing the work. She said that was lovely, but not quite a day off, and that Shepard’s gift gave her the one thing she wanted most: time to sit still.

Bell and Shepard tied the knot in 2013 and share daughters Lincoln and Delta. Their relationship has often played out in public, including an anniversary tribute in which Bell quoted Shepard joking that he would never kill her, a line that drew criticism from the National Network to End Domestic Violence. In April, Shepard said on his Armchair Expert podcast that he did not know about the controversy for “a week and a half,” saying, “I had no clue.”

The Mother’s Day post put the focus back on the couple’s private routine rather than the backlash around the earlier tribute. Bell framed the day as a simple arrangement that Shepard has kept for six years: the children are out of the house, the massage table is set, and she gets to spend the holiday horizontal. For Bell, that appears to be the point. Her ideal Mother’s Day is not a public show of appreciation. It is a day at home, exactly as she asked for it, and she says Shepard has made sure it happens every year.