In March 2014, actress Gwyneth Paltrow and her husband, Coldplay front man Chris Martin, announced their split after more than 10 years of marriage. At the time, the pair issued a joint statement, which famously described their separation as a "conscious uncoupling." A year later, Gwyneth officially filed for divorce.
Chris and Gwyneth have two children together, Apple and Moses, and have always kept details of their relationship private. However, Gwyneth recently opened up about her divorce during Pearl xChange, a daylong women's empowerment conference founded by Nicole Richie, who also served as host of the event.
During a Q&A with Gwyneth, the 43-year-old Oscar® winner was asked what in her life didn't turn out the way she thought it would. "My marriage," Gwyneth answered. "I am from a tribe of people who stay married. My parents stayed married until my dad died."
Like her parents, who were married for 32 years, most of Gwyneth's family members and close friends are still married. "I really don't come from a culture of divorce at all, and I had very high hopes for what my life would be like," she said. "I absolutely assumed that I would be in a long, successful marriage, which is happy and sad and hard and all that."
Gwyneth told the audience that it was very difficult to come to terms with the fact that she and Chris couldn't make it work. "And [that] I wouldn't be able to be married to the father of my children for the rest of my life," she said. "It was very challenging for me in terms of having to reassess what that said to me about me, these ideas that I had about that kind of failure and how, you know, I could process through it and, ultimately, really embed myself with myself. And my real self couldn't be married."
Although Gwyneth admitted that she never thought this is how her life would turn out, she said the experience taught her a lot about acceptance. Watch as Gwyneth reveals the lessons she's learned and shares how she and her ex-husband have collaborated as co-parents.
Published 11/11/2015