Over a span of 12 years and [Ep4] Secret Campussix kids, Brangelina kept a delicate balance between their personal and public lives -- but shared enough to paint a picture of a deep and loving relationship that seemed only to strengthen with time.

Now they are no more: Jolie filed for divorce after just two years of marriage. Here's the public story of their love, in their own words.

2004

"We were both living, I suppose, very full lives," Jolie told Vogueof meeting Pitt in 2004. At the time, she was a single mother and he was married to Jennifer Aniston. "I think we were the last two people who were looking for a relationship."

"We spent a lot of time contemplating and thinking and talking about what we both wanted in life and realized that we wanted very, very similar things," Jolie said in the same interview. "And then we just continued to take time. We remained very, very good friends – with this realization – for a long time. And then life developed in a way where we could be together, where it felt like something we would do, we shoulddo."

One day, "[Maddox] just out of the blue called him Dad. It was amazing ... we both heard it and didn't say anything and just looked at each other. So that was probably the most defining moment, when he decided that we would all be a family."

2007

When filming The Curious Case of Benjamin Buttonin 2007 Jolie's mother died, which found Pitt confronting mortality.

"Angie and I do not fight anymore," he told Rolling Stonein 2008. "What occurred to me on this film, and also with the passing of her mother, is that there's going to come a time when I'm not going to get to be with this person anymore. I'm not going to get to be with my children anymore ...This thing is fragile, and there's a ticking clock on it, and whether it be death or what, there's just going to come that time."

“People have made a lot out of it that we’re not [married],” Jolie told Vanity Fairthat year, “but we both have been married before, and it’s very easy to get married, but it’s not easy to build a family and be parents together. And maybe we’ve done it backwards, but we certainly feel married.”

Jolie told Vanity Fair how she and Pitt planned to raise their children; with books about every religion, with traveling the world, with art and theater.

“This was actually one of the things that brought us together,” she added. “I found him to be very aware of the world, very curious, very compassionate...We have similar interests but different approaches. He’s more involved in rebuilding New Orleans, environmental issues, green sustainability. I am more refugees. But when it comes to common goals—orphans, orphans’ rights, children—we support each other. It brings us together and makes our relationship work.”

2009

"We've put down roots together," Pitt told Paradein 2009. "As Angie and I carve out our time as a couple, we carve out our lives as individuals."

"One of the greatest, smartest things I ever did was give my kids Angie as their mom," Pitt told Parade in 2011. She's such a great mom. Oh, man, I'm so happy to have her. With a partner like Angie, I know that when I'm working, the kids are happy, safe, and prospering. And when Angie's working, she knows she has the same."

2012

"Brad has expanded my life in ways I never imagined. We built a family. He is not just the love of my life, he is my family. I hold that very dear. I suppose what I've learned from Brad is to be able to have the kind of family whose happiness and well-being comes before your own," Jolie told Marie Claire in 2012.

2014

The couple married in 2014 before heading to Gozo, a Maltese island, where they spent their honeymoon filming Jolie's By the Sea.

“We were allgoing to have a wedding,” Jolie explained. She described the wedding as a family event, for which the children made pillows for the rings and helped write the vows -- which included a promise to always say sorry after a fight.

“It doesfeel different,” Jolie said at the time. “It feels nice to be husband and wife.”

But the relationship was, from the beginning, about the children.

2015

“For me, the big moment was when [we] signed the [joint adoption] papers for Maddox and Zahara,” Jolie said in November 2015. “That was a decision to parent together, to commit to being a part of each other’s lives for the rest of my life. So [marriage] wasn’t close in comparison.”

Shortly before that, Jolie told Voguethat she and her husband had referred to By the Seaas "the crazy one" because it was a film about a couple in an extremely turbulent time in their relationship.

"We even called it ‘the worst idea’,” she said. “As artists we wanted something that took us out of our comfort zones,” she explains. “Just being raw actors. It’s not the safest idea. But life is short.”

“[It’s] surprising how much I enjoy the direction of my wife,” Pitt told V Magazine. “She’s decisive, incredibly intuitive, knife-sharp, and might I say, sexy at her post. I trust her with my life.”

2016

"I am very saddened by this, but what matters most now is the wellbeing of our kids," Pitt said in a statement after news broke of the divorce Tuesday. "I kindly ask the press to give them the space they deserve during this challenging time."