Cynthia Nixon had never kissed a woman until she met her wife

She said: "I had never dated a woman before or even kissed a woman or anything.

"So when we started seeing each other, Christine kept waiting for the other shoe to drop, for me to panic about what this would mean -- to my career or to myself -- as if somehow I just hadn't noticed that she was a woman."

But after the 50-year-old star - who has children Samantha, 20, and Charles, 14, with ex-husband Danny Mozes and Max, six, with Christine - introduced her partner to her mother, the education activist's fears were soothed.

She added: "And then she met my mother and that was when she stopped worrying about it."

The couple married in 2012 after eight years together and Cynthia was far more comfortable being someone's "wife" than Christine was.

She told Radio Times magazine: "[Christine] protested a lot at the beginning and wanted a more gender-neutral term, like 'my spouse.'

"I said, 'You think I'm doing that, you're crazy!' "

But while the couple had a "lovely" wedding, the 'A Quiet Passion' star admits tying the knot was never her "goal".

She said: "Marriage was never a goal of mine ... But it seemed like Christine and I did fight really hard for it and we had a lovely wedding ... Why wouldn't I have done it?"

Cynthia, who split from Danny in 2003, previously insisted her sexuality never changed when she met Christine.

She said: "In terms of sexual orientation I don't really feel I've changed.

"I don't feel there was a hidden part of my sexuality that I wasn't aware of. I'd been with men all my life, and I'd never fallen in love with a woman. But when I did, it didn't seem so strange. I'm just a woman in love with another woman."