For 15 years, I've been learning tap dancing and go to a dancing school, which puts on shows I don't watch make-over shows like Changing Rooms They make me cringe I prefer action programmes: Silent Witness and Star Trek Our house is in desperate need of decoration. The dining room has never been done, even though I've lived here 13 years. Darren says decoration is my job, but he will do DIY jobs.What's the first thing you do when you get home?Think about what I'm having for tea.How do you feel on a Sunday night?Think: "Oh, work tomorrow" It makes me sound like I don't enjoy it, but I do.. Gemma Craven not only has to live with the knowledge that her husband is unfaithful, she has to live with the man himself. A year after the actress discovered his long-running affair, it was revealed last week that he refuses to budge from the attic bedroom of their London house until their finances are sorted out.

In turn, Ms Craven has started legal proceedings to end their marriage and reclaim her home It's a situation that friends of Craven say is intolerable. How can she come to terms with the failure of her marriage if she has to face her husband every morning? But a surprising number of people know the situation only too well. For them the film The War of the Roses, a black comedy in which Kathleen Turner and Michael Douglas loathe each but remain wedded to their house, has a horribly familiar ring. Whatever the reason, they found themselves trapped behind four walls with a partner they had grown to hate. Rachel, in her 40s with two children, one from a previous relationship, had no idea that the end of her marriage would leave her a virtual prisoner in the family home for two years.The house was in her husband's name, while she paid the housekeeping bills. Negotiations proved impossible while they were still living there together."My husband refused to move out but would not let me leave with our son, who was a few months old. I came back one weekend to find all my clothes moved to the small study, where there was only a camp bed He also barred me from the sitting room. I was only allowed to use the children's rooms and the kitchen.

When I heard his key in the lock it sent a shiver through me: the whole atmosphere changed at once."By the second year, Rachel says, their home was a battleground in the fight for their son, and moving out would have seemed like deserting him. Her post was opened and she found her phone calls were recorded. She describes it as living in enemy territory: "Once a week we met in the sitting room to try to sort things out I would go with my heart in my mouth like a schoolgirl. We had mediators, lawyers and social workers, but it was his word against mine I felt as though I was being driven insane. I wanted to run out into the street and yell."Rachel, now divorced and living on the outskirts of London with her son (he shares residency with the father) in a house bought by her husband, is one of thousands whose situation is lucrative for lawyers and estate agents: from one broken marriage could come three transactions.The West Sussex estate agency, Henry Adams and Partners, says it is their biggest sector and growing. FPD Savills, property consultants, has a litigation support department almost entirely for sorting out the divorces of the wealthy.Second homes come into their own during domestic strife.