Infidelity Articles By Katie Lersch

By: Katie Lersch: It’s not uncommon for the faithful spouse to consider a martial separation after they have learned that their spouse has been cheating or having an affair. Sometimes, even the sight of their spouse sickens them. And being under the same roof is difficult when their presence makes you so angry and sad. Even people who have a little more control over their emotions wonder if separating isn’t the right thing to do. Often, even if you want to work things out eventually, when the discovery of the affair is new, you just feel that you need to process this without the watchful eyes and probing questions of your spouse.

However, not everyone has the luxury of being able to live in two different residences. Some people can’t afford to live apart from their spouse immediately. Still others have children and they don’t want to disrupt that household because of those children. So I might get a comment like: “I found out that my husband has been cheating on me. I want a separation. And I believe that this is me being kind because my first inclination was to immediately file for divorce but I only held off on that because of my daughter, who adores her father. However, it’s important to me that we are separated. The problem is that we are going through financial difficulties right now and we can barely afford the one home that we have. So we couldn’t afford for my husband to stay somewhere else. My husband says that he will move into the basement except for when our daughter is around. He says that he will eat dinner with us as a family so my daughter doesn’t know what is happening. But after we put our daughter to bed, he will go downstairs and stay there until the morning. I have my doubts as to whether or not this can work, but I feel as if I don’t have a choice. My husband swears that he will respect my boundaries. Is this a horrible idea?”

I don’t think that this is something that isn’t workable. After my husband’s affair, I did stay with extended family for a little while. But, as alluded to above, this disrupted my family life. I felt I needed to get home to provide continuity for my family. However, I stressed to my husband that I needed lots of space and I needed for him to keep his distance from me. He complied with this because he knew that if he didn’t, I was only going to leave again and that was the last thing that he wanted.

There were some advantages and some challenges to this situation. Here are some of them. On the positive side, I didn’t have to wonder if he was still cheating. And I know that this can be a huge problem when you are living under two different roofs. He came straight home after work and didn’t leave until the next day. He was always at home. So, I knew that he was making the effort to put our marriage first. If we had lived apart, I would have always have wondered what he was doing or who he was with, even if he called regularly.

Another advantage was our family. I truly believe that they didn’t know that anything was horribly wrong. Yes, they may have sensed the tension. In fact, I’m sure that they probably sense trouble. But they probably also sensed that we were trying to work it out. If one of us had moved out, we would have had to explain this and then they would have worried, which we absolutely did not want.

The disadvantage of this was when I got very frustrated with my husband or didn’t want to see his face, there was really no way around it. Sometimes, as I said before, the sight of him made me angry so I would pick fights. I would say and do petty things just to get a reaction. I am not proud of this. But it happened. Also, he was witness to all of my struggles. He tried to stay out of my way mostly. But if I was having a bad day, I couldn’t pretend that I was totally fine from afar.

However, he did respect my boundaries, especially at first. I think that he did not want to do anything to set me off. After a while, as things got better, we no longer had to tip toe around each other as much. But in the beginning, it wasn’t easy. I can look back at it now though and say that it was probably beneficial. If we had lived apart, I believe that I probably would have assumed the worst of him.

So to answer the original question, I don’t think that this idea isn’t workable. I think it’s vital to set boundaries though. If you’re already in counseling, the counselor can help you navigate this. If not, just be honest about what you want, need, and expect.  This process isn’t easy, but it is doable if you are motivated to get it done.  You’re welcome to read more about my own healing on my blog at http://surviving-the-affair.com

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