Leslie Cane Articles

By: Leslie Cane: Regardless of who initiated the separation, both spouses can deep down wonder if there is still love between them. And even if you never wanted the separation in the first place, you can figure that the least that you can do is to use the separation as a way to gage if you still  truly love your spouse. To that end, many people consider dating or seeing other people as way to give them a concrete answer to this question.

Someone might say: “I honestly never wanted to separate. I agreed with my husband that our marriage had become stale and that the feelings between us seemed to be fading, but I wanted to give it a few months to see if things would improve if we gave ourselves time to work on our marriage. My husband didn’t agree with this thinking so he is staying with friends. I’m very angry that he could just walk away like this. He says that if in a couple of months we both miss another, then at that time we can think about trying to save our marriage. So it is not for certain that we are getting a divorce, but I’m still disappointed in him. And, because of this, I’ve been considering seeing other people during my separation. It’s not that I am absolutely sure that don’t love my husband anymore.  It’s just that this is probably a good opportunity to see how I really feel about him. I figure if I am attracted to and connect with someone else, then my marriage was just no longer meant to be. Is this a good idea?”

What I am about to give you is only my opinion. The only person who can decide what is best for your marriage is you. The only one who knows your marriage intimately is you. But, having gone through a separation myself and knowing how many emotions are surging and how misunderstandings and resentments can easily take hold, I’d personally caution you against seeing other people. And there are many reasons for this, some of which I’ll go over below.

Your Feelings Will Often Be Apparent Because You Are Away From Your Spouse And Not Seeing Him Regularly: It’s my experience (and this is confirmed by many people who contact me) that many people begin to miss their spouse after a short time away from them. Often, the separation at least gives you the perspective from the view point of missing your spouse, and because of this, you begin to see that perhaps you were unyielding in places where perhaps you could have given a little more. This is usually enough to clue you to the fact that perhaps your feelings for their spouse to remain. And this has happened without your putting your marriage at further risk.

Emotions Are Already High During A Separation And Seeing Other People May Only Introduce More Complicated Feelings Into An Already Volatile Situation: I think that it is fair to say that most of us have our emotions running all over the place when we are going through a separation. Most of us are at least a little bit confused, scared, vulnerable, and frustrated. This is not the ideal time to attempt to add one more complication into our lives. I would argue that any relationship that you start during your marital separation is likely doomed from the start. You are not going to be in an emotionally healthy place and you are likely not ready to start up with someone else until you come to a conclusion about your marriage. And I’m not even talking about whether it is right to see someone else while you are still married, which is a separate (but important) issue. Frankly, seeing someone else is likely to only make you more confused about your feelings.

Seeing Someone Else May End Your Marriage Before You Even Gave It A Chance: Some people secretly are hoping that seeing someone else is going to get a reaction out of their spouse. They hope to find that their spouse is jealous and therefore much more motivated to save their marriage at once. I suppose that, if it actually happened this way, perhaps the whole strategy would have been worth it.

But it so often does not happen this way.  More often, your spouse finds out and they are hurt and angry. They figure that the marriage must not be that important to you and many retaliate by beginning to date other people themselves. Now suddenly you have two separated spouses dating others. What do you think is the likelihood of saving your marriage at this point?

Hopefully by now it’s obvious that I don’t think it’s advisable to see other people when you are separated. It just complicates things. It is hard enough to save your marriage when only the two of you are involved. Why make it harder than it needs to be? And why give your marriage anything but the best chance? If you don’t make it, then you are in a situation where you can see other people. But right now is not that time. Right now, your focus should be on the fact that you are still married.

I suspect that just being away from your spouse will help you to evaluate if you still love him.  At least this was the case with me.  If you’d like to read more about my own separation and how I was able to end it with my marriage in tact, you can read more on my blog at http://isavedmymarriage.com

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