Courteney Cox says her split from Johnny McDaid was "brutal".
The couple ended their one-year engagement last year and Courteney, 52, admitted the heartbreaking split was extremely difficult, even though she and the 40-year-old Snow Patrol rocker have since reconciled.
She told Bear Grylls on his TV show ‘Running Wild’: "We were engaged for over a year and then we broke up. There’s something about … you know, he’s from Ireland. And the way he regards love is precious. We have to treat it in a different way. It’s more special – you coddle it. So I didn’t know how to regard love the way he does. And I definitely made a lot of mistakes that I see – whether it’s co-dependency or people-pleasing. I didn’t know how to bring it in. It was always external.
"I definitely have learned a lot, and no matter what, I will be a better person from that breakup, even though it was so brutal."
However, Courteney says her split from David Arquette in 2013, after 14 years of marriage, was much less dramatic.
She said: "We found ourselves living separate lives and just coexisting and being great friends, but not having the intimacy that is so important in a relationship. I think you really need to work in a relationship, and I think that we tried. We’re just really different, too. I’m the polar opposite of him. And that can be great for a lot of things, but I need this kind of real, one-on-one connection. And I don’t know – I don’t know.
"It wasn’t a dramatic ending. It was more of a … just, I don’t know. No one’s ever asked me in this way, so I haven’t really thought about it like this. I mean, as divorces go, I would say it’s one of the better ones, for sure. We’re good co-parents together.
"It’s just … everything’s new. And we have both really worked on ourselves on the parts that needed the most attention. And it feels really different."
Courteney Cox’s ‘brutal’ split
