Helena Bonham Carter 'could write a thesis' on what led to Tim Burton breakup

October 10, 2012. Film director Tim Burton and his wife actress Helena Bonham Carter arrive for the European premiere of his film "Frankenweenie 3D" at the Odeon Leicester Square in central London. (Reuters)

Plenty of fans were heartbroken when Helena Bonham Carter and her frequent collaborator, director Tim Burton, announced that they had split after 13 years together. Now, nine months later, the 49-year-old actress says her relationship with Burton will "always remain special."

"Our relationship was always somewhat special, and I think it'll always remain special," Carter tells Red magazine. "I could write a thesis on what's happened and it is all-absorbing when a relationship breaks down, but I think we're coming through it, and I think we'll have something very precious still."

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Carter and 57-year-old Burton never married, but have two children together, 12-year-old Billy and 7-year-old Nell.

"The mark of a successful relationship shouldn't be whether you're there forever after," Carter says. "Sometimes you're not meant to be forever together. Sometimes you have to come to terms with the fact that that was it."

Though the two didn't work out in the end, the "Suffragette" actress still calls their relationship "a massive gift." Burton and Carter first met on the set of 2001's "Planet of the Apes," and since then, have worked together on such films as "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory," "Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street," "Alice in Wonderland" and "Dark Shadows."

"We gave each other children and a lot more else," she explains. "And we might be better, and still be able to give to each other, but not necessarily living together. Which we did by the way, because everyone seemed to think we didn't, but that was a load of myth."