Samantha Womack and her husband Mark Womack have split up after 11 years of marriage.
The former ‘EastEnders’ actress has confirmed she and the ‘Emmerdale’ actor are no longer a couple, but the pair – who met on the set of TV drama ‘Liverpool 1’ in the late 90s – remain living together with their children Benjamin, 19, and Lili Rose, 15, because they are "co-existing happily".
She said: "Our family home is big enough and we’re co-existing happily. There’s no rush to change things.
"But now feels like the right time to be honest and admit we’re no longer together."
Sam – who played Ronnie Mitchell on the BBC One soap – admitted she would love to be "best friends" with someone Mark goes on to date, because she "loves him deeply".
She said: "It would be naive to say that moving on has been easy for us both. It’s not an easy route but we’ve always been honest with each other about everything.
"I want to be best friends with anyone Mark dates because I love him deeply and want him to be happy."
The former ‘Mount Pleasant’ actress admitted she and Mark – who joined ‘Emmerdale’ this year as DI Mark Malone – decided to end their marriage two years ago after realising they wanted "different things" from life.
Speaking to OK! magazine, she added: "Mark and I have always been great friends and have raised a family for 19 years. But we both realised about three or four years ago that we wanted different things from the next chapter of our lives and we actually made the decision to end our marriage two years ago.
"We suddenly realised that when we came back together to spend time with the family, we wanted to do different things.
"I think for a long time we felt guilty about this and just didn’t communicate. And then about two years ago, I brought up how different we’d both become and Mark said it was something we really needed to think about and consider."