Gwen Stefani didn't want her fans to "think she was a failure" when her marriage broke up.

Gwen Stefani

Gwen Stefani

The 'Used To Love You' hitmaker split from Gavin Rossdale in 2015 but says the pair "worked really hard" to try and save their relationship.

She said: "I don't think you'll talk to one person who didn't make it in a marriage who's not gonna feel that way. The intention of being married is the vow, right? You want to put everything into it to make it a success.

"[My parents] just had their 50th anniversary. I had to work really hard at marriage, all the time, like everybody, but ours was extra hard. When you add that we're from different countries, both of us being in music, and celebrity.

"[Marriage] was the one thing I didn't want to fail at. People can say whatever they want to about me ... and I don't get too affected. But I didn't want them to think I was a failure. There's nothing weird about how I felt."

And the 47-year-old singer - who is now dating Blake Shelton - feels she has been "woken up again" in the last year.

She shared: "Sometimes to be woken up again in life, you need to go through some really bad, hard times. I feel like I got woken up this year."

Asked about the past year, she added to the new issue of Glamour magazine: "Mind-blowing. I don't understand my journey. It's so crazy. But one thing I learned is, that's what life is. We all have to go through hard times. Tragedies. Those are given to us to see what we're going to do with them. How can we give back? How can we improve when we have these challenges?"

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