Last year I began an affair. His marriage is over now, but how can I survive his separation?

‘The hurt of rejection didn’t need to be compounded by deceit, or the unfairness of keeping his wife in a relationship that he’d already left.’ Painting: The Secret (1858) by William Henry Fisk. Photograph: Alamy

Last year I began an affair with a man I’d met when we were in our late teens. Back then we’d had a fling, but were both getting ready to leave home to start work and uni, and the time wasn’t right for anything serious. Last year we reconnected, when he was 20 years into a marriage that he’d been miserable in for half that time (I wasn’t the first person he’d had an affair with).

His wife found out about us and their marriage is over for her now too. He’s moved in with me while they work their way through separating finances and assets – real estate is costly and hard to find here; a place of his own will take time to arrange.