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• Susanna and Dominic Cotton split a year ago but continue to share a home
• Dominic already has a new girlfriend called Adela Straughan
• Susanna claims the arrangement is best for their three children

IN LESS than a year, she has endured a very public break-up with the father of her three sons and watched him find love with someone new.

So you might expect Susanna Reid to put as much distance between herself and her ex as possible.

But the Good Morning Britain presenter has said she and Dominic Cotton are going through a ‘good divorce’ – which entails living ‘separately but together’ in the same house.

Happy: Susanna Reid has opened up about her relationship with her estranged husband Dominic Cotton, revealing they still live under the same roof for the sake of their three sons

And despite admitting it ‘might seem unusual’, Miss Reid insisted her children were ‘fully sorted’ and understand their very modern arrangement.

Three weeks ago, Mr Cotton, 48, was seen outside their south London home with new girlfriend Adela Straughan while Miss Reid was on holiday.

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But instead of feeling jealous, Miss Reid, 43, insists she is ‘really happy he’s met a lovely woman’.

The former Strictly star told Fabulous magazine: ‘We still get on so well, Dom is still such a hands-on dad and we really co-parent. So we live separately but together and happily in the same house. I’m not saying everybody can do it and I definitely think people are surprised that we can do it this way.

Split: Dominic and Susanna, pictured together in December 2013, split in February after 16 years as a couple

‘But it’s nice for the children that they know mum and dad are still there. I’m privileged to have a great relationship with my ex, to the point where we can live together comfortably and he can have a new relationship.’

Miss Reid insisted her ‘absolute priority’ is that Mr Cotton, who she was with for 16 years, is around to help raise Sam, 12, Finn, ten, and Jack, nine.

Even though the pair never married, she said: ‘What I’m trying to do is have as good a “divorce” as possible. But I do understand … it might seem unusual.’

News of the split emerged in February, when Mr Cotton posted a profile on a dating website.

Miss Reid said: ‘We’d already split up, so he was entitled to start meeting new people.

‘There have been feelings hurt along the way, obviously, but Dom and I had a takeaway together last night, a good chat and he’s a great friend of mine.

‘You don’t throw 16 years away.’

When BBC Breakfast moved to Salford in Manchester, Susanna praised her husband Dominic for for stepping up at home with the children

Susanna first met Dominic, who now works as a communications director for a children’s charity, when they worked together on BBC Breakfast.

The pair hit it off while on a night out with colleagues more than a decade ago at a pub near the old television studios in west London.

She told The Times magazine last year: ‘Suddenly everyone disappeared and I said to him, “You know what? I think that we’re going to end up together and have children together.”

‘And he looked at me and went , “We had better go out on a date then, hadn’t we?” And (several) years later, here we are with three children. I knew. I just knew.”’

When BBC Breakfast moved to Salford in Manchester a few years ago, Susanna followed the programme, waking up at 3.30am every day to commute up north from her home in London.

At the time, she credited her husband’s supportive nature for making the job possible.

She said: ‘I am hugely lucky and blessed that I have a partner who is incredibly supportive.”

‘He himself has a very demanding job, but a very supportive employer and he was able to step in.

‘He has always been brilliant and we’ve shared the parenting, but he just took over.’

But the relationship was unable to survive the Strictly Come Dancing curse and just a couple of months after Susanna appeared on the 2013 series of the dancing competition, the couple announced that they had broken up.

Their choice to stay living together is reminiscent of Gwyneth Paltrow and Chris Martin’s recent decision to ‘consciously uncouple’ – the Hollywood stars are regularly pictured together despite splitting in March.

MailOnline’s relationship expert Tracey Cox applauds the couples’ mature attitude to breaking up, but warns that emotions can get in the way if partners try and stay too close.

She said: ‘It’s always preferable to end a relationship on friendly terms than acrimoniously.

‘But there does need to be a separation – both physically and emotionally – for both partners to regain the individuality and independence that’s needed to form a new relationship.

‘It’s great to stay friends with exes but when they’re very, very good friends it’s extremely difficult for new partners.

‘There’s a shared history and past that the new person will never be part of and that’s tough to cope with!’