Gwyneth Paltrow and Chris Martin have called an amicable end (now infamously termed a “conscious uncoupling”) to their ten year marriage. Sad news for a pair with two young children, but instead of mourning the end of their relationship, we thought that we’d celebrate the years that they did spend together.

chris martin divorceIt always seemed as though Paltrow and Martin were from totally different worlds

The world was surprised when rumours that young Hollywood starlet, Gwyneth Paltrow, ex-fiancee of Brad Pitt and ex-girlfriend of Ben Affleck, and Coldplay lead vocalist, Chris Martin, then in his mid-twenties, were an item. Gwyneth was an Oscar winning actress, while Chris was the alternative rock star from Devon, who hadn’t lost his virginity until he was 22. The pair hit it off when Paltrow attended a Coldplay gig in 2002, three weeks after the death of her father. They both felt a spark after meeting backstage, and Martin helped Paltrow deal with her grief. He even wrote her a song, a little ditty you may have heard of, called, ‘Fix You’ as well as the heartbreaking ‘Swallowed in the Sea’, which contains the lyrics ‘And I could write a song a hundred miles long, Well that’s where I belong and you belong with me.’

After just a year of dating, in 2003 the pair married in a secret ceremony in California. Not even Paltrow’s mother, Blythe Danner, attended the ultra secret wedding. Two days before the December 5th wedding Paltrow had announced she was pregnant with their first child, we wonder if that influenced the swift nuptials?

Their first daughter, Apple, was born in 2004, followed by a son, Moses, in 2006. Paltrow suffered with postnatal depression after the birth of Moses, and while she cut down on work after the birth of her children she continued to star in some of the biggest roles of her career, including Pepper Potts in the Iron Man trilogy. Martin’s band Coldplay also went from strength to strength, producing album Viva La Vida in 2009.

As early as 2009 rumors began to circulate that the couples marriage was in trouble. Their decision to avoid being photographed together in order to maintain privacy added fuel to the fire, although Paltrow always maintained that the pair were stable. “It doesn’t behoove us to be a public couple”, Paltrow admitted, adding, “He certainly doesn’t want to be that. We’ve never ever walked down a red carpet together, we never will.”

gwyneth paltrow divorcePaltrow and Martin were married for over 10 years

Well, they certainly won’t now since their announcement yesterday to “consciously uncouple”; however, they will continue to “coparent”. Their relationship has always been a mystery to us, although their decision to separate comes not long after Vanity Fair’s threat to write a tell-all piece on Gwyneth, a threat she vehemently opposed until they backed down and cancelled the piece. It seems as though there is plenty beneath the surface that we’ll never learn, but that’s always been exactly how they wanted it.

MORE: Gwyneth Paltrow vs. Vanity Fair: The War Rages On

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Watch a video of Gwyneth Paltrow filming in New York: