With a country star Keith Urban as husband and their two kids, Nicole Kidman has never been happier.

But she said that it's not fate that brought them together, but she allowed herself to open up more after a bitter divorce with Tom Cruise on Aug. 8, 2001.

"To be completely honest, I was running away from my life at that time. I wasn't able to handle the reality of my life," she recounted in Women in the World gab at Cadogan Hall in London last Friday.

"As an actor, the wonderful thing is you can become something else for a time. Out of that came work that was applauded so that was an interesting thing for me," she added. "I embraced my own life, which took a number of years... That culminated in winning an Oscar and that caused an epiphany - this is not the answer."

So Nicole Kidman was sitting in Beverly Hills Hotel with an Oscar in one hand but she wasn't happy. In fact, she said that "I was the loneliest I'd ever been." It was also then that she realized that getting the recognition of her peers was going to heal the pain in her heart.

"I slowed down. I did a lot of reading and a lot of talking, I managed through about five or six years and then I stumbled into Keith," she added.

"We got married very quickly and we got to know each other when we were married," Nicole Kidman added of husband Keith Urban. "I wanted a partner and someone to share my life. I wanted more children. That's happened for me. It's not through just luck. I was open to it and willing to change and welcome the change I got to have a child when I was 41 and then we had a surrogate."