I'm not a lawyer and I don't know much about US immigration law. However, I've moved around the world a fair amount and had to get lots of visas. One of the things that's super important with a visa is to make sure that you qualify for that visa. For the US, I
believe that it's actually illegal to apply for a visa knowing that you don't intend to follow its rules. For example, you might be able to get visa A easily, but you really want visa B. You apply for visa A with the intent of finding a way to get visa B. Most of the time that's not allowed and if you do it knowingly you may get in big trouble.
From that perspective, a spousal visa usually exists for the sole purpose that you can live with your spouse. It's not a visa whose intent is to give you access to the country for other reasons. So if you go into the process with the knowledge that you do not want to live with your spouse, you are almost certainly going to be going against the terms of the visa -- you almost certainly must intend to live with your spouse indefinitely. You can't go into the situation with the idea that you are going to live with your spouse until you can get a different visa/residency status. Doing so could probably land you in a lot of hot water if it came out (How could it come out? Usual route: Have an argument late at night with your spouse. Really pissy neighbours get miffed and want to get rid out you. They call the immigration people. You may find it hard to believe, but I know more than one person deported from a country that way!)
Anyway, if your intent is to patch up your relationship with your spouse then my (not legal!) advise is to just concentrate on that. Inter-personal relationships are hard and if you aren't going all-in then it's unlikely to work out well. Similarly, I would not rely on a spouse that wasn't invested in rebuilding the relationship but is only doing you a favour so that you can get a visa. That puts a big burden on your spouse because they may want to get on with their life and your visa status will be holding them back. It's an incredibly dicey situation and very, very unlikely to turn out well.