Leslie Cane Articles

By: Leslie Cane: I sometimes hear from people who are confused about the physical relationship that is still happening (and sometimes at a greater frequency) since they separated from their spouse. Some never anticipated continuing on with a sexual relationship once the separation began. And some are surprised to find that their sex life with their separated spouse is better (and more frequent) than ever. This can lead to questions such as what this might mean for the separation and the marriage and whether there are any moral implications of this.

A common comment in this situation is something like: “my husband and I separated about a month ago. The first weekend after my husband moved out, we started having sex. At first, it was just timid and awkward but we seemed to need each other in this way. Then a little while later, it started to become more intense and exciting. It’s been a couple of weeks, and now we are having more sex, and better sex, than we have had in a very long time. To be honest, I am really enjoying myself, at least physically. But emotionally, I am confused. If we are struggling in our marriage, why are we having such great sex? What does this mean for our separation? And is this wrong? Part of me thinks that perhaps we should stop, but I don’t really want to. What now?”

I can’t make marital decisions for anyone, but I can tell you my opinion on this, having been through a separation myself. I have no problem admitting that if I could have gotten my husband to have regular sex with me when we were separated, I would have not have had any problem with it. In fact, I would have embraced the opportunity. I understand that when you are separated, you are having serious marital issues. But to me, you are still married. I often feel that there’s a reason that no one has filed for a divorce. I believe it’s often because somewhere deep inside, you still harbor a desire that there’s a chance for your marriage.

And the fact that you still have the physical attraction and spark for one another is, at least to me, a good indication that perhaps your marriage isn’t over. Now, with this said, it’s not unheard of for separated couples to have casual sex and to still eventually end up divorced. Emotions can run high when you begin a separation. You miss one another. You feel very lonely. You want some assurance that you can feel something again. So it makes sense that you might reach out to one another. For many couples, this only happens once or twice and then they have closure and come to a natural end.

But when it’s happening over and over and has become routine, then you perhaps want to look at why both of you aren’t looking to get any distance. People often feel quite guilty and ashamed about this, but I believe that these are misplaced emotions. This person is your spouse. You aren’t divorced. You aren’t cheating on anyone else. I don’t think there’s anything wrong with this, on the condition that every one is being honest and no one is using the other. Obviously, you don’t want to be in a situation where one spouse is more than happy to continue to have sex while he doesn’t have any intention of ever trying to save the marriage. That wouldn’t be fair to either of you and that’s only assuring that someone is going to be hurt in the end.

I do think it’s important to eventually ask yourself why this is happening and what you want the result to be in the future. Are you hopeful this will lead to a reconciliation? Are you just having sex because you’re trying to ease into letting go? Are you confused and trying to sort out your feelings? Why this is happening is going to give you a lot of information about what happens next.

I don’t think it’s a bad idea to have a discussion about this. If you’re comfortable enough and getting along well enough to have sex, then your relationship is probably such that you can ask about the status. You don’t have to be argumentative. You don’t have to apply pressure. You can just say something like: “please don’t think I’m complaining because I’m definitely not. But I can’t help but notice that we’re having more sex than we had when we were living together. As far as you are concerned, do you think this is going to have any implications on our marriage going forward? Are we just having fun? Or are we moving toward something else? I don’t mean to put pressure on this situation. I know that we may have to just wait and see. But I just wanted to know how you view this situation.”

I can’t predict what he might say. He may tell you that he’s hopeful about your marriage because things are going so well. And he may say that he just doesn’t know. At that point, you’ll probably need to consider how you feel and what you want moving forward. You’ll want to ask yourself if you’re feeling used or if just the opposite is true.

I’d like to make one final point. This situation can really go either way. Some couples do eventually let go and end their relationship. Others use their physical relationship as the stimulus to work on and then save their marriage. But they go beyond the sex and they fix their relationship. I don’t think that this is wrong as long as you use it as the starting point to allow you to see that perhaps your marriage isn’t over and is worth saving.

As I alluded to, I would have considered it a bit of a victory to be having sex during our separation. But we rarely spoke, much less had physical contact. I think there’s definitely a way to use this as a starting point to saving your marriage if you handle it correctly. If it helps, you can read about the gradual process I used to save my marriage on my blog at http://isavedmymarriage.com

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