Michael Douglas reveals a 'time-out' with Catherine Zeta-Jones helped bring them back together after 2013 split

Absence really does make the heart grow fonder, at least for Michael Douglas and Catherine Zeta-Jones. 

The actor, 82, is revealing how a 'time-out' in their marriage helped bring them back together. 

The couple were married in 2000 but briefly split 13 years later - an action Douglas believes played a role in their rekindling. 

During a sit-down interview with Diane Sawyer on Nightline, Douglas said the space made him realize just how much he truly appreciated Jones, 57. 

'How much I loved her. How much I missed her. How much laughs we had together,' Douglas, who is promoting his new memoir One Helluva Ride, said of what he learned. 

'We both had to change,' he said. 'And sometimes I think it’s just good to kind of call time-out and just talk as two human beings.'

The couple wed in 2000 but their marriage was not without rough patches, particularly in the early 2010s as Douglas battled throat cancer and Zeta-Jones was diagnosed with bipolar II disorder. 

Douglas recounted their separation in his book and how he 'never gave up hope' that they would get back together. 

'As Catherine and I were seeing each other more surrounding the kids—school functions, drop-offs, extracurricular activities—we realized we both missed each other enormously,' he wrote. 'Taking time away helped reignite the spark that had brought us together.'

In an interview with the Sunday Times, Douglas insisted the split was 'mutual' and firmly shot down the suggestion that he 'won her back.'

'You know, we had our problems but I love her dearly and, 25 years, you know,' he said. 'I mean, I don't know about your marital status, but marriage is a lot of work, you know. And so, you know, we're good. We're in good shape. It's all I can say.'

Douglas wrote in his book that when he and Zeta-Jones first struck up their romance, she was frequently out of Los Angeles because of her film career, which saw her traveling to shoot Entrapment with Sean Connery and High Fidelity with John Cusack.

'I knew that routine well,' mused Douglas. 'But we started talking on the phone pretty regularly, until we could finally see each other again.'

Bemused by his notoriety as a lothario, Zeta-Jones is said to have made him wait nine months before she agreed to go to bed with him.

Although he 'was willing to take whatever time we both needed,' he did continue sleeping with five other women in separate cities during their initial courtship. 

Their first tryst occurred when he invited her to his holiday home in Mallorca and offered her a separate bedroom, while bringing along Miami Heat owner Pat Riley and his wife of 30 years so Zeta-Jones would see him with a 'normal, stable couple.'

'That, I hoped, would offset my "reputation" that Catherine had mentioned the first night we met,' he said. 'And I thought that having my treasured friends around would help Catherine feel comfortable. Turns out, I was right.'

Having taken their relationship to the next level, Zeta-Jones insisted on monogamy, whereupon Douglas made 'five quick calls.'

Douglas and Zeta-Jones welcomed their son Dylan in August 2000 and married at the iconic Plaza Hotel on New York's Fifth Avenue that November.

Their daughter Carys, whom Zeta-Jones was heavily pregnant with when she danced at the Oscars and won best supporting actress for Chicago, arrived in April 2003.

Douglas' first marriage to model Diandra Luker lasted from 1977 until 1995 and produced a son called Cameron, now 47, whose past struggles with addiction are detailed in his father's newly published autobiography.

Douglas characterized his marriage to Luker as a 'bumpy ride' punctuated by mutual infidelity and on-off splits so frequent he lost count of them.