My husband and I are a bit like your parents but at the same time, I have had to be alone when he's gone on a business trip or something and was extremely anxious, when I use to live alone for 13 years before meeting him!

People are different and have different needs at different times. I don't think there's any hard and fast rule for relationships, it's what works most of the time for both people? My husband worked with a man from China and he and his wife only see each other maybe once a month, they work in different cities. They were thrilled when her company moved her to a city closer to here so he could fly and see her most weekends instead. They are a truly international couple, fly to China to visit parents several times a year and other locations (she works for an international firm that has her travelling often). It seems to work for them, they're happy (I met her one Christmas party she flew in for :-)

I noticed you mentioned "going out" with friends a couple nights a week, I assumed when your husband was working? Why do you have to go out. That's a bit of avoidance in working upstairs with "yourself" while your husband is downstairs? My husband and I are retired so at home "together" all day, every day but he works upstairs and I work downstairs. I "see" him only a couple times a day! We often e-mail one another :-) But I'm "aware" of him/his presence in the house and comforted by it; it's exactly the same as if I were out together for dinner or doing grocery shopping/chores, going on an "adventure."

It looks to me from your therapist's advice and things you've said like you might be running from yourself; trying to distract yourself with your affair and being with others from yourself? If I were you I'd find some "workbooks" (I love Julia Cameron's The Artist's Way and do some journaling/exploring of yourself with yourself alone?