Sienna Miller is glad she gave Jude Law a second chance in 2009 after their initial "awful" split because she now has a wonderful friendship with him and his children.
Miller 32 broke off her engagement to the 'Alfie' actor in 2005 after it emerged he had been having an affair with the nanny of his children, but is glad she gave him a second chance in 2009 and was able "heal" their friendship before calling it quits for good.
Discussing their second shot at love, she told Esquire magazine: "Had to do it. A huge part of my life and his life and it ended in a way that was awful. When something ends in a way like that, it's important if you can, in a way, go back and revisit it and either shut that door or create a new room. So it was a very healthy, cathartic experience.
"And I think it paved the way for both of us to have great futures with no animosity or drama. Such a huge relief, to heal that. And I'm great friends with him and with his children. I love them, madly. Just huge love and respect for all of them."
Sienna - who has 18-month-old daughter, Marlowe, with her fiancé, Tom Sturridge - is happy to live her life out of the limelight these days, and says her partner complements her "lunacy" perfectly.
She enthused: "What's lovely is how protected it is. It's a totally novel experience, to be party of something that does not belong to anyone but me and my man and my baby. He's the antithesis of me, really. And that's a first for me, to be in a relationship with someone who's in a lot of respects very different.
"He's the perfect balance to my lunacy, which makes him sounds really boring but he's not, at all. It's good, it works. It's not easy, of course, but we're a family and I love that. I wake up and I'm like, 'I'm a family, I'm a grown up!' I still can't believe that."
Tagged in Jude Law Sienna Miller Tom Sturridge