Former presidential candidate John Edwards said Wednesday he still cares deeply about his wife despite the couple's separation.
"It is an extraordinarily sad moment, but I love my children more than anything and still care deeply about Elizabeth," Edwards said in a statement to The Associated Press.
A friend of Elizabeth Edwards confirmed Wednesday that the couple is separated. Elizabeth's sister, Nancy Anania, told the AP that she remains strong.
"She's doing as well as you could expect," Anania said. "I'm really proud of her that, somehow, she's got strength that you rarely see in a person."
In PEOPLE's latest cover story, Anania said Elizabeth Edwards has had enough.
"She said, 'I've had it. I can't do this. I want my life back,' " she said.
The statements come as a former aide to Edwards prepares to release a tell-all book that gives an unflattering portrait of the couple and the tumultuous relationship they tried to maintain after he first acknowledged his affair on the campaign trail. It also comes one week after John Edwards finally made a public declaration that he fathered a child, now almost 2 years old, with his mistress.
It's another wrenching twist for a couple that had previously weathered the death of a 16-year-old son and her ongoing battle with incurable cancer.
They were law school sweethearts who got married just days after they took the bar exam together in the summer of 1977. Though John Edwards later went on to make millions as a trial lawyer, the couple had humble beginnings: He had to borrow money from her parents for a one-night honeymoon. She always wore her $11 wedding ring. For years they spent their anniversaries going to Wendy's, just as they did on their first one.
'Unconscionable, hurtful, patently false'
Former aide Andrew Young initially claimed that he fathered the child with John Edwards' mistress in the weeks leading up to the crucial presidential primaries. John Edwards publicly declared last week that he was the father of the child with Rielle Hunter, who worked as a videographer before his second presidential campaign in 2008.
Young's upcoming book details how Edwards went to great lengths to hide the affair. In excerpts from an ABC News interview, Young said that Edwards asked him to find a doctor who might fake a paternity test and asked him to steal a diaper from the baby to determine whether it was really his. He also claims that the Edwardses sought to politicize Elizabeth's cancer diagnosis.
The statement released on behalf of Elizabeth Edwards said she will not engage in a dialogue on "false charges" in the book.
"Based on the limited portions of the book that have been made available, it is clear it contains many falsehoods and exaggerations," she said. She responded to one point, saying the suggestion that she capitalized on her cancer is "unconscionable, hurtful and patently false."
The PEOPLE story describes a meeting between Elizabeth Edwards and 23-month-old Frances Quinn Hunter — the baby John fathered with Hunter — in a mediated visit at a North Carolina hotel.