Ryan Phillippe: I Had Marriage Trouble "Long Before" Abbie Cornish

"I had difficulties in my relationship, and in my marriage, long before I ever met her," he tells W magazine of the Australian actress reported to have been a factor in his 2006 split from wife Reese Witherspoon.

"She and I are close friends, and as far as if there is any future, that is not where we are at now," the 33-year-old says of Cornish, his costar in the forthcoming Stop-Loss.

"That is what other people like to say or like to assume," he added. "As far as I'm concerned, it's a friendship, and we are getting to know each other in a really difficult situation."

"I've had a lot of upheaval in my personal life," he says in the March issue of the magazine.

Phillippe describes his divorce from Witherspoon – finalized in October after seven years of marriage – as "the darkest, saddest place I had ever been."

The actor was especially concerned about their two children, Ava, 9, and Deacon, 4. "I wanted to take time to make sure that my kids were okay and to build a new life that was going to be suitable to being a single parent," he says.

"It was a struggle," he says. "There were a good four or five months of not being able to get out of bed. It was the worst time in my life."

"You get through it," he added. "It’s a process that’s not easy, but I get less and less sad about it every day."

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