Sex During Separation: Should We Have It?

Can having sex with your partner during a separation help or hinder the chance of reconciliation?

You’re separated from your spouse, but you’re still occasionally intimate. This is more common than most people admit. And it raises a question that deserves an honest answer:

Does sex during separation help or hurt your chances of getting back together?

Dr. Joe Beam outlines three ways sexual intimacy during separation may help, three ways it may harm, and two critical considerations you should think through before deciding.

Can Sex During Separation Help You Reconcile?

Sexual intimacy while separated isn’t automatically a bad idea. In certain situations, particularly when both spouses are open to reconciliation, it can play a meaningful role. Here’s how:

Does Sex Release Bonding Hormones That Help Reconnection?

Yes. It may help bring you back together. How? Well, when you make love to each other, both of you get a burst of oxytocin. That’s a powerful hormone that plays a significant role in bonding people together. It’s released by things like touching, caressing, and kissing. During sex, oxytocin hits a high level. Therefore, making love with your separated spouse may create a stronger desire for closeness on both sides. Now, if you’re doing other things to resolve your problems, this could be the added value that helps you get together again.

Are There Physical and Emotional Health Benefits to Sex During Separation?

Yes. Having sex is good for you. It can help reduce levels of anxiety, tension, stress, and help you sleep better. And especially in men, it can significantly reduce irritability. There are several other benefits to being sexually active, ranging from better heart health, to less cramping during menstrual periods, to decreasing the likelihood of breast cancer, to avoiding prostate cancer, and much more. If you continue to make love while separated, you physically benefit yourself and each other, and hopefully you’ll benefit emotionally as well.

There are documented benefits to sexual activity that matter during an emotionally difficult season like separation. These include:

• Reduced anxiety, tension, and stress
• Improved sleep quality
• Decreased irritability
• Better cardiovascular health
• Reduced menstrual cramping
• Decreased breast cancer risk (in women)
• Prostate cancer prevention (in men)

Separation is already hard on the body and mind. If sexual intimacy is occurring within the marriage covenant, even during a difficult time, these health benefits are a legitimate consideration.

Is It Better to Be Intimate With Your Spouse Than to Seek It Elsewhere?

Yes. If you crave sexual fulfillment and find yourself looking for a lover to help satisfy your sexual needs, it’s best to do it with your spouse, even if separated. A new lover may seem exciting, but genuine fulfillment comes from making love to the person that you have a history with. Hopefully, a loving history. Besides that, sleeping with someone else likely seals the end of your marriage. It also creates new potential relationship problems for your future.

Why might it be a bad idea to have sex after separation?

The picture isn’t entirely positive. Depending on the situation, sexual intimacy during separation can create real harm, especially when intentions or expectations aren’t aligned.

Does Sex Create False Hope When Reconciliation Isn’t Possible?

Yes. If you’ve decided that you will not consider the possibility of reconciliation, and you know that your spouse holds out hope for your marriage, making love to them creates a false hope within them that will make their healing much more difficult. Separation is emotionally difficult enough. Please don’t add to their pain by selfishly having sex with the person who wants you back when you have no intention of ever coming back.

Can Sex Create Unexpected Emotional Complications?

Yes. Experiencing the closeness and bonding of making love with your separated spouse may set you up for disappointment and a breakdown in communication. Even if you think you’re over your spouse and you want to make love just for the sexual benefits, feeling powerful emotions during sex can develop strong desires to be with your spouse again. Not just sexually, but to put the marriage back together. That situation can cause a deeper and longer-lasting hurt for you if you finally divorce.

Does Having Sex While Separated Send the Wrong Message?

Sometimes. If your separated spouse is involved with another person sexually and making love with you as well, you’re giving your spouse the message that you’re okay with being one of his or her lovers. If you don’t want to give that message, avoid the sexual encounter. Of course, it’s your decision as to whether you have sex with your separated spouse or not. We recommend that you do some processing on the brief pros and cons given here. There are many more to think about, but these will help you use your brain and not just your heart.

Two Major Considerations:

First, if your spouse has already married someone else, sleeping with him or her makes you a cheater.

Please don’t be that person. The person who hurts someone else just to get what you want. If you do, everyone gets hurt, including you.

Second, be aware that if your separated spouse has been having sex with someone else, they probably have crossed sexual borders that they’ve never crossed before.

When a person violates their beliefs and values to cheat on their spouse, it’s not unusual for them to do things sexually that they would not do before. Now, we’re not telling you that to upset you, but to inform you. If you choose to have sex with your spouse who has been, or is involved with someone else, you may not be a satisfactory lover to your husband or wife if you do only those things you did before in your marriage.

Don’t be surprised if your spouse wants you to do things you haven’t done while you were dating. You may do them and find pleasure in the novelty of something new, or you may regret that you did it and resent your spouse for asking. If you’re going to make love to your separated spouse who has been with someone else, it’s best if you think about what you’re willing to do or not do if your spouse wants it, before they ask.

At a Glance: Sex During Separation

Factor	Potential Benefit	Potential Risk
Oxytocin release	Promotes bonding and desire to reconnect	Can reopen emotions unexpectedly
Health benefits	Reduces stress, anxiety, and physical tension	Only beneficial if emotional safety exists
Staying within the marriage	Preferable to seeking intimacy outside it	Can blur the line between separated and together
Misaligned expectations		Creates false hope if one spouse wants out
Messages sent		May signal acceptance of arrangements you don’t want
Legal status		Remarriage changes the situation entirely

Key Considerations Before Being Intimate While Separated

Before You Decide	Ask Yourself
Your intentions	Do you want reconciliation, or are you looking for physical comfort while staying separated?
Your spouse’s expectations	Will they interpret intimacy as a sign the marriage is healing?
Outside relationships	Is your spouse involved with someone else? What does your participation communicate?
Legal status	Are either of you divorced and remarried?
Changed boundaries	Have separation or affairs changed what your spouse may request? Are you prepared to maintain your limits?
Emotional risk	Are you prepared for feelings that may resurface for either of you?

The Decision Is Yours

There’s no universal right answer here. Your situation, your spouse, your intentions, and where you are in the reconciliation process all shape what makes sense for you.

What matters most is going in with clarity, about what you want, what you’re communicating, and what you’re prepared to handle emotionally.

If one reason is that you want the marriage to be saved, that can happen. If you want your mate to come home and make your marriage good again, we can help. Or if you’re the spouse who left, but you’re having hesitations about whether you should or should not try to save your marriage, we can offer clarity and guidance to help you make the best decision for your relationship.

Our Affair Recovery Toolkit helps you understand why your spouse had an affair and what you can do to fix it. It will help you regain your composure, your strength, and your dignity.

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