Many of the questions I get from wives who have been cheated on have to do with sex. People worry that their sex life wasn’t “normal” before or after the affair. They often seek reassurance that their feelings or experience are valid.

An example is the couple whose marriage has just been severely disrupted because the husband has cheated on her. It is understandable that the wife often wants to pause her sex life while she tries to figure out how she wants to proceed. Sometimes the husband is not happy with this arrangement and will try to make her feel that she is wrong for suggesting it.

This is what I mean. A wife might say, “I kicked my husband out of our bedroom after I caught him cheating on us. It was hard for me to even look at him, let alone have him sleep next to me or even think we could have sex.” I don’t want him to touch me, let alone make any sexual moves on me. I didn’t tell him to leave our house for our children. And also because I want to reserve the right to take my time to decide what I really want. I don’t think this is too much to ask. In fact, one of my best friends went through this and said that she and her husband didn’t share a bed until about six months after the affair. But my husband acts as if he is being unreasonable. He says that he too has friends who have dealt with infidelity and that his male friends tell him that they still shared a room after the affair. He admits that not all of them were having sex right away, but insists that the men were not thrown out of their rooms.

I think both people may be right. But it doesn’t really matter what other couples decide to do. What matters is what works for YOU. The arrangement that couples have in terms of their bedroom varies a lot. One partner may feel comfortable even being in the same room, while the other may not. I don’t think you should feel bad if you want to sleep in separate rooms for a while.

I did this too and felt it was a better compromise than letting my husband leave home permanently. He just couldn’t deal with the proximity of sharing a room when she was so angry and hurt. He respected this because I think he realized the situation was his fault and understood why I wouldn’t want to share a bed with him at that point.

I didn’t want to feel pressured to have sex. I needed time on my own. I wanted quiet, private nights where I could be alone with my thoughts and not be constantly questioned. We interacted during the first days for the good of our family. But at night, we went our separate ways, although sometimes I would ask her to talk or watch TV with me, but we did that in the living room, not in the bedroom.

This went on for a while as we tried to work things out and heal. But it didn’t go on forever. I admit that we started to resume sex a little before my husband officially moved into our room. I guess we wanted to test the waters and gradually move forward. I didn’t stress too much about it. I just used how I felt as a guide. As I felt closer to my husband again and we began to restore trust, I began to feel more desire for him and so our sex life and sharing a room naturally resumed.

But I didn’t allow myself to feel pressured by this. And it would have been impossible for me to feel that desire in the first days. I was too angry and hurt and therefore my emotions shut down. Everyone is different, but for me to feel physical desire, I have to feel an emotional connection. And that was not possible when the matter was still fresh.

I think another consideration here is that not everyone is going to be honest about their bedroom habits. And that’s okay because, frankly, it’s nobody else’s business. But her husband’s friends who claim she never left her bedroom may not be being completely truthful. They may not want to seem like they weren’t in control of their own marriage, so they don’t admit that they spent any time outside of their own bedroom. Once again, it’s her business. But I don’t want you to blindly believe this and feel like there’s something wrong with you because you didn’t make the same choice.

I firmly believe that you have every right to decide what works for you. If it doesn’t feel right to share a room right now, I don’t see any benefit in forcing yourself to do so. If you think it would help to talk about it, a suggestion might be something like, “I listen to what you say. But I don’t care what our friends have done. Because it’s about us and what’s right for us.” our situation. Right now, I just want some time to myself. I’m not saying it will always be this way. But for now, I feel like I want to be alone at night. I ask you to respect it.”

I think one of the reasons husbands push to stay in their bedroom isn’t necessarily because of sex. It is because they are afraid that if they leave him even for a little while, they may never be invited to his bedroom again. This often turns out to be false. And sometimes it helps if you tell them that as you start to heal, you might change your mind about it over time.