The breakdown of a relationship is never an easy thing to deal with, even more so when you are in the public eye, and now Gwyneth Paltrow has opened up about her marriage to Chris Martin.
The actress, 47, spoke about her marriage to the Coldplay frontman, 43, which lasted from 2003 to 2016, in an essay for British Vogue's September issue.
In the video below, Paltrow discusses redefining the meaning of a blended family:"We were close, though we had never fully settled into being a couple. We just didn't quite fit together. There was always a bit of unease and unrest. But man, did we love our children," the actress explained.
However, even though things didn't work out romantically between the pair, Paltrow said they have "always been good friends" and shared interests.
Gwyneth explained: "We laughed at the same things, shared a funny bones humor, impressions, utter silliness. We were moved by the same qualities in music: beautiful chords, innovation, harmonies.
"Peter Gabriel, Chopin, Sigur Rós - though I listened for pleasure and he like he was studying for an exam.
"We loved walking to and from Osteria Basilico through the park for pizza, especially on those British summer nights when the sun doesn't ever seem to set."
She said that a healthy co-parenting relationship was key, saying: "We loved road trips to the New Forest or to the seaside. But most of all, we loved our children."
At the time of her split from Martin, Paltrow left fans confused when she described their then shock divorce as a "conscious uncoupling".
This term was initially coined by author Katherine Woodward Thomas as a five-step program to promote a 'calmer alternative' to divorces that were amicable, per the Daily Mail.
Explaining what she thinks of the term six years later, Paltrow said: "I had never heard of the phrase 'conscious uncoupling'. Frankly, the term sounded a bit full of itself, painfully progressive and hard to swallow."
"It was an idea introduced to us by our therapist, the man who helped us architect our new future. I was intrigued, less by the phrase, but by the sentiment.
"Was there a world where we could break up and not lose everything? Could we be a family, even though we were not a couple?"
However, despite the fact that the pair separated in 2014, she said that she and Martin did everything in their power to save their marriage.
She shared: "Between the day that I knew and the day we finally relented to the truth, we tried everything. We did not want to fail. We didn't want to let anyone down.
"We desperately didn't want to hurt our children. We didn't want to lose our family. The questions both philosophical and tactical, seemed unfathomable: who sleeps where, how does bath time work, what do we say to the kids?"
"I bent myself into every imaginable shape to avoid answering them. But one day, despite all our efforts, I found that I was not at a fork in the road. I was well down a path.
"Almost without realizing it, we had diverged. We'd never find ourselves together in that way again."
Since the pair's divorce in 2016, Paltrow has moved on with Brad Falchuk, 49, who she married in September 2018, and Martin has been dating Dakota Johnson since October 2017.
