Gwyneth Paltrow Recalls 'Unease and Unrest' in Marriage to Chris Martin: 'We Just Didn’t Quite Fit'

Nicholas Hunt/Getty Images for Dior; Evan Agostini/Invision/AP/REX/Shutterstock Gwyneth Paltrow, Chris Martin

Gwyneth Paltrow is looking back on her decade-long marriage to Chris Martin.

In a new essay for British Vogue, the Goop founder, 47, wrote there was "always a bit of unease and unrest" while she was married to the 43-year-old Coldplay frontman from 2003 to 2014.

"We just didn’t quite fit together. But man, did we love our children," wrote Paltrow, who shares daughter Apple, 16, and son Moses, 14, with Martin.

"Between the day that I knew and the day we finally relented to the truth, we tried everything," she explained. "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 Avengers actress said that the questions regarding her and Martin's split — such as where their kids would sleep and how they would explain it to them — "seemed unfathomable" to her at the time.

"I bent myself into every imaginable shape to avoid answering them," she recalled. "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."

RELATED: Gwyneth Paltrow Says She and Ex Chris Martin Were 'Meant to Be Together and Have Our Kids'

Colin Young-Wolff /Invision/AP Gwyneth Paltrow and Chris Martin

In 2014, Paltrow and Martin announced their split as "conscious uncoupling" — a term the actress says was introduced to them by their therapist.

"I was intrigued, less by the phrase, but by the sentiment," Paltrow said. "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? We decided to try."

She continued, "When we made a commitment to approach our separation this way, and about a year before we introduced the phrase to the world, we put it to the test. It was hit and miss."

"We had great days and terrible days," the mother of two said. "Days when we couldn’t stand each other, but forced ourselves to remember what we were aiming for. Somehow finding a way to smile and hug, and take the kids out for brunch like we had planned."

Christopher Polk/NBC Chris Martin and Gwyneth Paltrow

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Now four years since their divorce was finalized, Paltrow and Martin have remained on good terms while co-parenting. The exes have even found new love: Paltrow got married in 2018 to TV writer and producer Brad Falchuk, while Martin has been dating actress Dakota Johnson since 2017.

Last October, the group celebrated Johnson's 30th birthday together, with both Martin and Paltrow attending. The trio and Falchuk have all even gone on vacations together.

"I know my ex-husband was meant to be the father of my children," Paltrow told British Vogue, "and I know my current husband is meant to be the person I grow very old with."