Matt LeBlanc

LeBlanc’s split from his wife of three years, Melissa, came as a surprise to the public – and to Melissa herself. The trouble started in January when LeBlanc, 38, unexpectedly announced that he was moving out of the Encino, Calif., home he shared with Melissa, 41, and their 2-year-old daughter Marina. “It was very sudden,” Melissa’s longtime friend Kelly Phillips tells PEOPLE. “She was absolutely blindsided by what transpired.”

Then in March, Melissa accused her husband of being involved with another woman. LeBlanc, who had moved into an L.A. apartment near the studio where he tapes Joey, admitted he was. Still, friends say, Melissa hoped for a reconciliation – and was stunned when, on March 30, an attorney for her husband called with the news that LeBlanc was about to file for divorce.

“She wanted to do counseling or therapy,” a pal tells PEOPLE. “But Matt just didn’t want to work it out.” After the divorce announcement was made, LeBlanc even brought the Wisconsin-born Anders – who recently shot a pilot for Friends producer David Crane – to the ranch house north of Los Angeles that he and Melissa had shared.

Former Friends star Matt LeBlanc is filing for divorce later today from Melissa, his wife of three years. The National Enquirer has learned exclusively that the couple split up in January, soon after LeBlanc’s NBC sitcom Joey was cancelled.

Divorce papers are expected to be filed at Los Angeles Superior Court today.

The couple have a two-year-old daughter, Marina, who suffers from a rare brain disorder, and LeBlanc is stepfather to his wife’s two older children from an earlier marriage, Tyler, 13, and Jacquelyn, 10.

LeBlanc, 38, and former model Melissa “Missie” McKnight, 41, were married in a romantic beachfront ceremony in Hawaii on May 3, 2003.

Their daughter, born on February 8, 2004, has a neurological condition, called cortical dysplasia, which can cause seizures.