Exact moment Gwyneth Paltrow knew her marriage to Coldplay’s Chris Martin was over

Gwyneth Paltrow and Chris Martin of Coldplay announced to the world in 2014 that they were “consciously separating.”

At that point, the couple had already been married for ten years and had two children together: their daughter Apple, now 20, and their son Moses, 18. And from the outside, everything seemed fine – until Gwyneth dropped the bombshell news on her Goop website that she and Chris had ended their marriage.

In a joint statement, they said: “It is with sad hearts that we have decided to separate. We have come to the conclusion that although we love each other very much, we will remain apart. However, we are and always will be family, and in many ways we are closer than ever.”

The former couple asked to keep their privacy from the public during “this difficult time” and went on to say that they are “parents first and foremost.” She added, coining the now-iconic separation term: “We have always conducted our relationship privately and we hope that when we consciously separate and become parents together, we can continue in the same way.”

Since their split and official divorce in 2015, Gwyneth and Chris have been photographed on holidays together, spending birthdays and Christmases as a family and meeting new partners. Gwyneth, 51, married 53-year-old film director Brad Falchuk – the man behind American Horror Story, Glee and Scream Queens – in 2018. Chris, 47, has found 34-year-old Fifty Shades of Grey actress Dakota Johnson and they even spend time with Gwyneth. In March, the Mirror exclusively revealed that Chris and Dakota had gotten engaged after six years of dating.

Although both are now happy in their new relationships – and with each other – Gwyneth has reflected on the moment she knew her marriage was over.

The actress described an idyllic day with her then-husband and said she knew deep down that she was not happy.

In a personal essay for British Vogue, she wrote: “It was my birthday, my 38th. My ex-husband (Chris) and I were tucked away in Tuscany, on a hill in a beautiful cottage overlooking the forest. Autumn was coming; the leaves were just releasing their grip on the brilliant green. Inside, the cottage was perfectly appointed, everything you’d dream of for a birthday getaway: cozy living room with fireplace, kitchen table laden with spoils from the local farm – peaches, tomatoes on the vine, basil, eggs. I can’t remember exactly when it happened. I can’t remember what day of the weekend it was or what time it was. But I knew – despite long walks and lying in, big glasses of Barolo and holding hands – that my marriage was over.”

Painfully, Gwyneth kept this grim realization to herself. She went on to reveal, “It would be years before we said the words out loud,” but that weekend, “a dam broke just enough to hear the relentless trickle of truth.” This was a truth that would grow louder and louder until it was “all I could hear.”

Gwyneth said she and Chris were “always friends” who laughed at the same things, shared the same “weird sense of humor” and “utter silliness,” and admitted: “We were close, although we never really settled in as a couple. We just weren’t quite right for each other. There was always a bit of unease and unrest. But man, did we love our kids.”

The Shallow Hal star said they both did everything they could before ending the relationship to keep the family together as a unit. She also said the only divorces she experienced growing up were “bitter, acrimonious and endless” and that she did not want this “with all my heart.”

But rather than the term being invented by Gwyneth and Chris—as initially believed—the concept of “conscious uncoupling” was actually suggested by their therapist and tried out privately by the two for a year before making their separation public.

Gwyneth further explained the logic behind it: “Was there a world where we could split up without losing everything? Could we be a family even though we weren’t a couple? We decided to give it a go.” Although her announcement caused a stir in the media, she said, “the public’s surprise gave way to a strange mixture of derision and anger that I had never experienced before.” But today, instead of being mocked, she is asked how she managed it.

She concluded: “It’s different for every couple, but for me it was mostly about taking responsibility for my own part in the end of the relationship. There were aspects of me that I wanted to heal through this relationship, but that I wasn’t honest with myself about. I was blind, withdrawn, invulnerable, intolerant. I had to admit that and have the courage to share it. I know that my ex-husband was destined to be the father of my children, and I know that my current husband is destined to be the person I grow very old with. A conscious separation allows us to see that these two different loves can coexist and feed each other.”

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