Dear Micky, I actually had written a response about the "6-month timeout" and lost it. Well here is my general thinking. Sure, you got to work on your stuff about reliable connection, but six months ain't, in my opinion, much work. The work comes from repeately gifting your partner with space, helping them meet their needs for space, forming a partnership in which you routinely monitor and support your partner's needs for quiet. One "six-month-lesson" really doesn't seem to me very useful. 20 2-hour or over-night or one day or even one week timeout - now that seems like real practice. A six-month timeout seems to me like a waste. I am 66 years old. Looking back I really notice and grieve about how much time I wasted getting to where I am now. Personally if I were you I would throw out that six-month-timeout and start anew. Maximum timeouts I have encouraged people to use were three-week-no-contact, and those were for couples who had trouble doing shorter ones. If he wants to take six months off to explore, I would give him a much more productive choice. Mebbe, a warning that if he hasn't made appointments with a relationship therapist for the two of you, and hasn't seriously started in those sessions dealing with the undealt-with-stuff, by the end of two months from today, then you are going to take his inaction as his decision to drop the relationship and you will formally leave and start looking for someone else to live/work with on the rest of your life. Might wanna look at my paper on decision making when you have a passive partner. I hope I am not being too blunt. Just seems like a waste of a life. Best wishes, Al.