Despite splitting just as their son Bear reached his first birthday, Liam Payne and Cheryl have now shared how they have a 'very healthy good relationship'.
Since their break-up in 2018, announced via a statement, they have managed to assess what went wrong and build a better relationship from it. Cheryl, 39, has explained that the former One Direction star's solo career played a big factor in the split.
As reported by The Mirror, Liam, 28, had dreamed of becoming a dad since he was 16. He was determined to settled down with Cheryl and their son Bear, five, but things didn't work out.
READ MORE: Taylor Swift's new 'fiance' Joe Alwyn went to Bristol University
Cheryl told the Sunday Times Magazine: "So he wanted to settle down and have a family and not do the solo thing. Then we encouraged him to do that. And then it didn't work out."
Admitting Liam may have felt somewhat excluded by her intense bond with the baby, when asked if Liam changed his mind about wanting domestic bliss, she responded, "You'll have to ask him that."
For Liam's part, he recently claimed that Bear's arrival 'ruined' their relationship, but for 'all the right reasons', and has said the first problems arose when the pressure of fatherhood knocked him for six.
"Becoming a dad at such a young age, it's such a difficult thing," he said in his documentary, Ant Middleton and Liam Payne: Straight Talking. And I think I built fatherhood up so much in my head that it kind of messed me up to start with. I started in a bad place with it," he continued.
"I think it spooked me out early on, and I was just worried I would not be enough to look after the both of them. They're so important to me - Cheryl as well."
The second issue, he said, was that he didn't "understand" what Cheryl was going through as a new mum. The one thing I was missing as a man in the relationship I had, was a level understanding about what she was feeling about stuff," he admitted.
"I think I learnt through being away that, while I want to protect her, there's a big part of her that wants to protect me."
Liam has recently been linked to his ex, Danielle Peazer, but has insisted that Cheryl remains the number one person in his life.
"She's one of the most, if not the most, important people in my life. I'm lucky I have someone who understands what I'm going through," he added. Like Liam, Cheryl was just a teenager when she found fame on a reality show, winning a place in Girls Aloud on Popstars: The Rivals in 2002.
She first met Liam in 2008 when he was a 14-year-old hopeful on The X Factor and she was a judge. Their paths crossed again in 2015 when he returned to perform with One Direction.
