Justin Baldoni Reveals Secret to His 13-Year Relationship with Wife Emily: 'We View Marriage as a Fortress' (Exclusive)

"We always try to ground ourselves and humble ourselves and remember the why behind everything that we do," Justin tells PEOPLE exclusively

Justin Baldoni is opening up about how he and his wife Emily continue to prioritize each other after more than a decade of marriage.

The couple began dating in 2011, and Justin tells PEOPLE exclusively that the key to their longevity as a couple lies in how they view their marriage.

"For my family, we view marriage as a fortress," said Justin, 40, during a conversation about his partnership with Purina Dog Chow for this year's NY Dog Film Festival. "And a fortress is something that you build yourself, that protects you from the winds of the world, and then the trials and the tests that come your way."

Related: Justin Baldoni Celebrates Wedding Anniversary with Wife Emily: 'Happy 11 Years My Love'

As parents of two — they share Maiya, 9, and Maxwell, 7 — the couple's physical environment outside of the glare of Hollywood has been just as crucial.

"It's also more about creating that space at home," Justin says. "We live in a beautiful place out of L.A. We have land and put our feet in the dirt and we can be reminded of how small we are."

He continues, "We look up at mountains and we can be reminded of how small we are and in some ways, how insignificant the things that we're going through, or the projects that we've released are. Because it can be so easy to think — you have a big hit movie that's around the world, and it could be easy to have a moment where you maybe are full of yourself. But we always try to ground ourselves and humble ourselves and remember the why behind everything that we do."

Summing up what he says "keeps us sane," Justin says of his and Emily's view of their lives in a broader sense: "We're just people in this big, massive floating rock in the middle of a universe that is constantly expanding that doesn't have a beginning or an end. And then you're like, oh, okay, well..."

Related: Meet the Hero Pups Hoping to Win the N.Y. Dog Film Festival's First 'Service Dog Salute' Honor

Similar to his perspective on marriage, Justin says that he's "always trying to figure out, in everything that I do, how can I actually help people? How can I be of service with my work?"

He cites his production company, Wayfarer Studios, as an example of that, but so, too, is his partnership with Dog Chow, which he says is "really special for a lot of reasons."

He worked with the brand to select the winner of the new "Service Dog Salute" category for this year's festival, and is helping to spotlight powerful stories of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) service dogs and the positive impact they've made on veterans' lives.

"For one, I care deeply about mental health and destigmatizing mental health. And I've worked with men for so long and have been trying to advocate for healthy masculinity and for us to know the true power of emotional bravery — versus just the notion of us as men needing to be physically brave. And one of the things that's not talked about very often is what happens to our veterans when they come back — both men and women. They've seen horrific things in war and they come back and I don't believe we do a very good job taking care of them as a country."

"My grandfather was a veteran. My uncle left me his purple heart when he died, my Uncle Sid," Justin continues, further highlighting how personal the cause is to him.

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"I just think we could do a better job [helping veterans] in general as a country. So when Purina reached out and they were specifically making a campaign to advocate for more service dogs for veterans with PTSD — at first I didn't know all the stats, but then as I dug in and I learned more, I said, 'This is a no-brainer. I want to do this.'"

He adds, "A service dog can do so many things that medicine can't. What I've learned is — it's heartbreaking and it's also so affirming that these animals exist, and they exist for our benefit, if they're trained the right way. We just need access. So that's why the Purina Service Dog Salute program I just think is so beautiful and it's why I wanted to be a part of it."

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