Debra Messing has spoken for the first time about her marriage breakdown. The former Will and Grace star and her producer husband Daniel Zelman announced their 11-year marriage was over last December, bringing an end to a relationship that began in 1990 when they met at college.

The split coincided with Debra - who has a seven-year-old son Roman with Daniel - relocating from Los Angeles to New York to shoot new TV show Smash, and she admits the amount of changes in her life were tough for her to deal with.

"It's like 20 years. It's a very long time. When I say the move to New York was traumatic, it was traumatic because every aspect of my life was going through a huge change," she said in an interview in the June issue Ladies' Home Journal magazine.

Although when Debra said her vows she thought she was marrying for life, she thinks the concept of marriage is becoming outdated because of changes in modern society: "I think the idea of a partner for life is incredibly romantic. But now we're living to 100. A hundred years ago people were dying at age 37. Till death do us part was a much different deal."