After enduring a storm of heartbreak, Gwen Stefani found a new love that blossomed.

The pop icon releases her fourth solo album, Bouqueton Friday, November 15. Naturally, matters of the heart inspired her latest record.

“The last four years of my life I got engaged, then got married and started my life over,” says Stefani, 55, who tied the knot with country superstar Blake Shelton, 48, in 2021 after nearly six years together.

On Bouquet the three-time Grammy winner opens up about the aftermath of her 2016 divorce from Bush rocker Gavin Rossdale, 59, and shares the joy she’s found building a new world with their three sons Kingston, 18, Zuma, 16, and Apollo, 10, and with Shelton.

“Something I wanted since I was a little girl was getting married and having the love that I saw my parents have and having children. That dream was completely ruined; it was crushed, and I had to figure out how to move on and achieve a new dream,” she says, “and God putting Blake in my life was just that miracle.”

Stefani and Rossdale split in 2015 after 20 years together, and their split was devastating.

“Especially growing up with this perfect example of love between my parents. They met when they were 15, and they fell in love, and then they had us (kids), and they made us feel like we were everything to them” , Stefani says. “And when you have a family and it’s the opposite of that, it falls apart… I didn’t know what to do or how to protect my children. And I’m still working on that.”

On her new single “Somebody Else’s,” Stefani seemingly references her and Rossdale’s rift, singing, “Now that I’ve found the real thing / You don’t compare / And I don’t care that you belong to someone else / And it doesn’t even break my heart / You belong to someone else / And I pray for them, whoever they are.”

Stefani acknowledges that she’s “putting a lot out there” with the record and that she feels protective of her children, but she also feels a duty as an artist to share her truth with her fans.

“I got the songs. Do I sit there in the studio and work on them? I do. But it’s like, where does that come from? Where does the inspiration come from? Where do these words come from? They come, they come for me, but they are given to me,” she says. “So I feel like it’s my responsibility, whether I have children or not, to share that with people share. And I definitely think that there are certain songs that don’t mean the same thing to me that they would mean to someone else, because there’s no one in my head, in my heart, or in my soul. They’re going to have a different experience because of the song to have.

Ultimately, her children know “what’s going on in their own families and their own lives,” Stefani adds, “and what’s real and what’s true.”

For more on Gwen Stefani, pick up the new issue of PEOPLE, on newsstands everywhere this Friday.