Hubby sent me several articles to review on a variety of topics and while I was working through the list, I bumped into a partial interview by Harper's Bazaar with award-winning actress Gwyneth Paltrow. She's married to music sensation Coldplay's frontman, Chris Martin, so she lives a big, busy life.

I found it interesting that her parents, Blythe Danner and Bruce Paltrow, (Blythe is an actress and her late father a director-producer), enjoyed a long marriage. I appreciated her remarks about a woman's role in marriage, and I wanted to share them with you...

She cites her father's practical advice on the secret to a long-lasting marriage. "My parents (Bruce Paltrow and Blythe Danner) were married for 30-something years and he said it was because they never wanted to get divorced at the same time."

She seems to take the ups and downs in stride. "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."

Paltrow says it's about compromise, recently giving advice to a girlfriend along those lines. "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. Gloria Steinem may string me up by my toes, but all I can do is my best, and I can do only what works for me and my family."

When Coldplay goes on its upcoming world tour, it will incorporate 10-day spans at home interspersed with three-week blocks of traveling. And Paltrow will plan for that. "I have little kids in school. I want to maintain my marriage and my family, so I have to be here when he comes home."

So much of the celebrity swirl on relationships is ridiculous, nonsensical and dooming, utter foolishness. But I think there's some value in what this gal's got to say.