REUTERS

I think you do fall in and out of love and you just keep going, and every time you go through a really difficult phase, you rediscover something new and it just gets better."

New Yorl - Preaching about healthy eating and exercise has become something of a habit for Gwyneth Paltrow.

Now she’s turned her attention to explaining how best to run a family life.

Her advice, however, doesn’t take into account that most couples are not Hollywood stars married to rock singers who don’t have to worry where the next mortgage payment is coming from.

According to Paltrow, women who want to have children should seriously consider being stay-at-home mothers.

She said that even though it was not a “feminist” thing to say, she liked being at home with her two children and putting dinner on the table when her husband walked in after work.

In a stark contrast to recent comments by her close friend Madonna, Paltrow said marriage was all about “compromise” and just working through the hard times.

She also revealed she has begun archiving her wardrobe of designer gowns so that seven-year-old daughter Apple will one day be able to wear all her clothes.

In an interview with Harper’s Bazaar, the Sliding Doors star said she was the one who cooks dinner for husband Chris Martin, the singer with Coldplay, along with Apple and son Moses, five.

They put the children to bed at 8pm every night before spending time together at their £6-million home in London. Even Martin’s tour schedule has been adapted to make it “family friendly” with each three week block abroad interspersed with ten-day stints at home.

Paltrow, 39, said she is usually up at 7am with her children and while they are at school she works on her website or her second cook book.

The star said: “I have little kids in school. I want to maintain my marriage and my family, so I have to be here when he (Martin) comes home.”

Speaking of advice she gave to an unnamed friend, she said: “She is an actress and in a new relationship with someone else with a big career, and I said this may not be feminist, but you have to compromise.

“It’s been all about you and you’re a big deal. And if you want what you’re saying you want - a family - you have to be a wife, and that is part of the equation.”

In an interview this week Madonna, 53, gave an insight into her failed marriage to Guy Ritchie, 43, and made it seem inevitable that all couples eventually grow apart. She said by the end of her eight-year relationship she was left wondering what she would have to “sacrifice”.

Paltrow however took a different view, saying: “I think you do fall in and out of love and you just keep going, and every time you go through a really difficult phase, you rediscover something new and it just gets better.

“We’ve been married for more than eight years now, and we’re still into it.”

Miss Paltrow revealed that since before Apple was born she has been archiving her clothes for her to wear when she is older.

Among the items which have won Apple’s approval are the Ralph Lauren taffeta frock that her mother wore in 1999 to accept her Oscar for Shakespeare in Love. Paltrow said: “She likes anything that’s pretty, pretty, pretty or has a bow or a ruffle or is pink.”

Paltrow, who was born in LA, gives a withering verdict on British men by praising Martin, 34, as being “very communicative, which is rare for a British man”.

She also admitted she knew what it was like to be betrayed and said one of her previous boyfriends cheated on her “all the time”. Her lovers before Martin included actors Brad Pitt and Ben Affleck but she declined to reveal who it was.

Even though she will not tolerate infidelity herself, she has grown less judgemental with others.

She said: “I have friends who I love and admire who have had an affair. When I was younger, I would have said he’s a terrible person or she’s a terrible person. But who made these laws?” - Daily Mail