It wasn’t meant to be though, as Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol saw the couple splitting up, complete with a faked death and new identity for Julia.
Introduced in Mission: Impossible III, Julia Meade eventually became Julia Meade-Hunt, as she married Ethan in a quickie ceremony during the mission that saw him chasing down arms dealer Owen Davian and the fabled Rabbit’s Foot.
So through all of this trouble of coupling the characters, and splitting them apart, seeing Ethan and Julia together again needed some vital story work.