Should My Husband And I See Other People During Our Separation?
By: Leslie Cane: Many people aren’t sure how to handle the logistics of their separation. Many understand that while they are separated, they are going to explore living and functioning without their spouse. They fully understand that they aren’t going to be living under the same roof and may not be seeing or speaking every day, but what they do with their personal time during the separation is often in question. One of the most common concerns that people have is whether or not they should see other people during the separation. Sometimes, one spouse is really pushing to see other people while the other is very much pushing for both people to remain faithful.
A wife could ask: “should my husband and I see other people during our separation? I really have some hesitation about this. My husband wants to see other people. He says that seeing other women will allow him to see how that would feel to him. He says if it feels wrong or he finds himself comparing them to me, then he will know that perhaps we should try to save our marriage. I disagree. I think that seeing other people is only for people who are divorced. However, I have friends who tell me that I should see other men to make him jealous. So who is right? Is it a good idea for us to see other people when we are separated? I will tell you my opinion on this in the following article.
My Opinion On Seeing Others During A Separation: I’m going to give you my opinion and it is just that – an opinion. I realize that people may disagree with me and that’s OK. But I am basing my thoughts on my own experience and from the feedback I hear from other people. I believe that you should not date or see other people while you are separated. The primary reason for this is that your both seeing other people can add additional drama, confusion, jealousy, and anger into a situation that is already painful and volatile.
Not only that, but when you are separated but considering trying to save your marriage, you will often have some obstacles to overcome. Even if you and your spouse decide that you miss and love one another, you will still need to work through the issues that lead to the separation in the first place. This isn’t always easy. And if one or both of you are seeing other people, then you will need to deal with the jealousy and doubt that comes along with this process on top of all of the other issues that you are trying to deal with and overcome.
Additionally, it’s not at all uncommon to see a situation in which one spouse remains faithful and things start to look at least somewhat positive until suddenly one of the spouses meets and begins seeing someone else. And then in the blink of an eye, the marriage is back on hold and the faithful spouse is brokenhearted. So you have a situation in which the marriage may have been saved had one of the spouses not began dating someone else and complicating things.
In short, it’s my opinion that dating someone else during your separation significantly decreases your chances of being able to save your marriage and it just creates a lot of unnecessary issues that might have been avoided if both people agreed to put off seeing others until enough time has passed to give the separation a fair chance.
What If Your Spouse Is Pushing To See Other People? I sometimes hear from folks who really don’t want to date other people, but who are dealing with a spouse who is pushing for this. In this situation, I often advocate trying to come up with a compromise. Perhaps you agree to a set time frame where you will both remain faithful and will focus on working on your marriage and evaluating what you truly want without the complications of another person in the mix.
I feel that it’s very important to agree on this beforehand. Because if you leave it to chance, then you will often find that you are very worried about it and end up accusing your spouse when they may well be innocent. In fact, the more specific you can be about what to expect during the separation, the more success you will generally have. Ideally, you want to get along well and to reconnect during the separation. You will have a very hard time doing that if you are worried that your spouse is bonding with or falling for someone else and is beginning to move on. It’s just a potential problem that is best avoided with open and honest communication.
If you can agree that you won’t see other people for six weeks (or whatever time feels right for both of you) and will meet at least twice a week to check in with one another, then this is usually so much more preferable than leaving things to chance and then panicking when you find out or suspect that your spouse is seeing someone else on the sly and then wondering what that means for your separation or your marriage.
My husband and I didn’t set boundaries before our separation and this greatly complicated things for me because I was always worried he was seeing other people when I definitely had no interest in doing the same. It was already challenging to save our marriage, but this just added one additional complication. Thankfully, once I decided to stop worrying and acting out of anxiety and to start making a calculated plan, things changed significantly. If you like, you can read the whole story of our recovery on my blog at http://isavedmymarriage.com
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