Justin Hartley Recalls Protecting Sofia Pernas Marriage From Other People

Tracker‘s Justin Hartley is getting brutally honest about the need to protect his relationship with wife Sofia Pernas from people who may not have the best intentions.

"I heard this from my stepdad where he said to me a long time ago, ‘You got to take care of your relationship and be very protective of who you surround yourself with and what relationships you surround yourself with,'" Hartley, 49, recalled on the Tuesday, May 5, episode of Tommy DiDario‘s "I've Never Said This Before" podcast.

"Because there will be people that are in your life right now that you think are your friends and they simply cannot handle your relationship. They can't handle it," Hartley continued. "It's not necessarily sad but it is just true that when you have a relationship that you really care about [and] it could be a friendship, it could be with your mom or your dad or it could be with your dog.

He added, "Any relationship that you have with yourself, there are going to be people that you have to be careful with."

Hartley clarified that the problem isn't always that about a loved one "trying to sabotage" a situation or relationship. In fact, he argued, they might not know they're being harmful at all.

"They're not bad people," he said. "They just can't handle it. And you don't need to be hearing things like that. I'm not saying that you should be surrounded by sycophants and that's healthy. But there's certainly a difference between someone rooting for your love and rooting for your relationship vs. something who is jealous of what you have."

Hartley recalled being in a similar situation in the past.

"I've certainly in my life been jealous before, no question," he added. "It's never once serviced me in any way positively at all - ever - to be envious or anything like that. I now can look at someone and really be encouraged by that. … But if you don't feel that way, there's a difference between being competitive and being envious."

Hartley and Pernas, 36, first worked together in 2015 on The Young and The Restless. Years later, they reconnected away from the cameras and exchanged vows in 2021.

"People write songs about [this kind of love]. People talk about it and I think you want to believe that everyone has that in their life," Hartley added on Tuesday. "You want to believe that everyone gets to a point where they meet their soulmate or whatever you want to call it.

It's unfortunate that I think a lot of people don't. That's sad."

Hartley has made it a priority to appreciate Pernas, saying, "When you do have it, you got to just hold on to it. It's so special and fragile and in some ways rare, unfortunately. She's everything and she's fantastic."

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This story was originally published May 6, 2026 at 3:00 PM.