In the most recent edition of PEOPLE, Gwyneth Paltrow, 51, shared candid photos of her blended family with husband Brad Falchuk, 52. It’s challenging, non-intuitive, and no one can teach you how to do it. “You just have to persevere,” she stated in the November 14 internet interview. It’s currently among the things that make me happiest in my life.

With her ex-husband, Coldplay vocalist Chris Martin, 46, the Oscar winner has two children, Apple, 19, and Moses, 17. She also has two stepchildren, Isabella, 19, and Brody, 17, from Brad’s previous marriage to Suzanne Bukinik. With son Moses in his senior year of high school and daughter Apple in college, Gwyneth stated she prefers the term “free birds” over “empty nester” when referring to her impending parenthood.

“I’m attempting to reinterpret things in order to try and persuade myself that there is, at the very least, a bright side. She remarked, “Empty nest seems so lonely and depressing. “I believe that life, especially for women, comes in chapters,” the founder of Goop continued.

When Gwyneth was a guest star on Glee in 2010 and Brad was a writer and producer for the show, they got to know each other on the set. The pair went public with their romance in 2015 following their separate divorces, and two years later, they discreetly became engaged. In a small ceremony held at Gwyneth’s Hamptons, New York residence in September 2018, they exchanged vows. Brad had been separated from his first wife, the mother of his two children, for five years at that point.