SurvivingInfidelity.com^®

I am the wayward husband. Dday was on 12/18/20. We have 3 kids between 2-9 years old. I have had lots of casual sex affairs and even some prostitutes for the last 8 years. I am still in love with my wife and have been doing everything possible to save the marriage. We are both in IC and MC. She has been losing hope in her ability to forgive, and I understand that. She wants to do a 2 week trail separation. I have a very sick dad so we are telling the kids I am leaving to help my parents out with my dad. Can anyone share their personal experiences with trial separations. How did it go? Any recommendations for us? We have decided to be faithful during the separation, but have zero interactions aside from logistics with swapping the kids. No small talk and after the 2 weeks we talk about how it went for us both. I know already that I will not like it at all, but I want it for her peace. She will continue to have my GPS location through the separation.

Thanks for listening.

If I were your wife I would want you to respect my request. I think it would be good if you did some reading on helping yourself and helping her. My WS has been reading Help Her Heal: An Empathy Workbook for Sex Addicts to Help their Partners Heal

Sheets, Carol Juergensen I would find a book or workbook also on healing yourself, separate from a book about healing the relationship. My WS watches YouTube videos by a group called "Affair Recovery". Maybe you could watch videos and read and make notes that you can share with her.

Maybe during the time you can write her a couple of letters?

If it were me I would prefer to see you working on yourself and not going out, etc. I would want me WS to use the time to reflect and work on himself. I would hope the break would make him appreciate me more. I hope the break helps you both.

This is a really good opportunity for you to dig deep and show your W and yourself how badly you want to be safe for her and your family. Good on you for not bucking when she told you what she wanted.

You decide how you want to spend this time.

You can view it as an OPPORTUNITY to gather yourself, your thoughts, reflect, learn, etc.

or

You can view it from the "poor me, I may get D" perspective.

Entirely up to you.

I did a 6month S about 18 months after dday.

My WH took the latter approach. We are not in R.

If you want to be seen as R material, it's up to you to start behaving like it.

I have had lots of casual sex affairs and even some prostitutes for the last 8 years.

I'm no therapist, but this sounds like behavior worthy of seeing a CSAT and getting an evaluation for sex addiction. Even if you are not SA, a CSAT is something you may want to consider.

IIRC you looked into programs for SA - have you actually participated?

And I second the Help.Her.Heal Book. Along with How to Help Your Spouse Heal.

And the Osterlind/Breecker interview on the Addicted Mind

And the Helping Couples Heal podcast - esp the interviews with Omar Minwalla and Stan Tatkin. You may have already done that, but if not, I think there is a ton of helpful info (esp in those podcasts).

My only recommendation is to set out some clear criteria on how to terminate the separation and what follow-on decisions ARE.

- Continue with separation?

- Return to R?

- Call R off and proceed with D?

How do you and she arrive at any of the above decisions? Recommend detailed spelling out on what faithful means, just so there’s no ambiguity.

My STBXBW and I spelled this all out and it was helpful in minimizing the “what ifs” that will likely spin through your head as you’re alone.

A good plan is to have MC work with you on all these topics so expectations are clear and outcomes aren’t surprising.

You can see from my signature block how S went- However I still enthusiastically recommend it. It was the beginning of me learning to live with and understand myself.