Former German president Christian Wulff and his wife Bettina have separated, lawyers said Monday, almost a year after he stepped down over corruption allegations.
Wulff's fall from grace captivated Germany for much of 2012, with reports in September focussing on his wife's tell-all memoir in which she discussed their marital problems.
The top-selling Bild daily reported that lawyers in Hanover, where the couple lived, had arranged the separation. The estranged couple's lawyer confirmed to dpa that they had split up.
The couple "at the weekend spatially separated by mutual consent, will share responsibility for their son, and will make no further statements about their private lives," said the lawyer, Gernot Lehr.
Wulff, 53, stepped down from the largely ceremonial post on February 17, after 598 days in office. He was brought down by a scandal over a cheap home loan and holidays paid for by wealthy business friends.
He also drew fire for trying to threaten a newspaper editor into killing reports on the allegations, which were centred on his time as conservative state premier of Lower Saxony.
Wulff was replaced as president by Joachim Gauck, a Lutheran pastor who was a human rights activist in the former East Germany.
Bettina Wulff, 39, wrote about their life as Germany's first couple and the strain it put on their marriage in a memoir published in September, entitled Beyond the Protocol.
In a series of interviews, the young wife with a tattoo on her arm also complained about her husband's lack of understanding for her emotional problems during their time in the media spotlight.
She also took action against rumours, never substantiated, that she once worked as an escort and targeted Google because its search results for her name suggested added phrases such as "red light."
The PR consultant will stay in the marital house together with her two sons, one of whom is from a previous marriage, while Christian Wulff has moved into a rental apartment in Hannover, reports said.