Gwyneth Paltrow admits her ‘conscious breakup’ from Chris Martin was ‘brutal’

In 2014, Gwyneth Paltrow and Chris Martin announced that they were consciously separating. The couple had been married for over 10 years at the time and wanted to find a way out of their relationship that would allow them to remain friends. While Paltrow believes they achieved that goal, she admitted that it was not an easy time. This was due to the public reaction to the announcement of their separation.

Gwyneth Paltrow says people’s reaction to her split from Chris Martin has been painful for her

In 2014, Paltrow and Martin announced their decision to go private. Paltrow believed it was a good way to ease the pain of divorce for herself, Martin, and their two children.

“The most common hurt I’ve heard from children of divorce is, ‘My parents couldn’t be in the same room together and they couldn’t be friends. It took three years, it took 18 years, it took — God forbid — the death of a close family member for them to be able to sit at the same table,'” Paltrow said on Armchair Expertper People. “I thought to myself, ‘I wonder if there’s a way to bypass this and go straight to the point where we’re friends and we remember what we loved about each other and constantly acknowledge that together we created these amazing human beings.'”

Despite everything, Paltrow admitted that the breakup wasn’t easy for her.

“I think I was in so much pain at the time,” she said. “I felt like such a failure. It was so hard, and I was so worried about my kids.”

The public reaction to the conscious separation made matters worse. Paltrow felt that “part of the world was turning against us, saying that we basically want to be nice to each other and remain a family.”

“It was brutal,” she said. “I already felt like I had no skin.”

She shared this when she found out her marriage was over.

A few years earlier, Paltrow said she realized her marriage wouldn’t last. She was on a 38th birthday trip with Martin. Everything was perfect on the outside, but she felt something was wrong.

“I don’t remember exactly when it happened,” she wrote in an essay for Vogue UK. “I don’t remember what day of the weekend it was, or what time. But I knew—despite the long walks and the long standing, the big glasses of Barolo and the hand-holding—that my marriage was over.”

She tried to push the feeling away, but it only grew stronger.

“At first, I was moderately good at keeping the knowledge quiet,” she wrote. “It took years for us to say those words out loud. But that weekend, the dam burst just enough for me to hear the constant flood of truth. And it grew louder and louder until I couldn’t hear it anymore.”

Gwyneth Paltrow and Chris Martin remain friends after divorce

In the decade since their divorce, Lopez and Martin have remained close. They often spend time together as a family with their children, and Paltrow posted loving tributes to Martin on Instagram to mark his birthday. Paltrow and her current husband, Brad Falchuk, have also spent time with Martin and his girlfriend, Dakota Johnson.