how much can one travel on a spouse visa?

I hear about four different answers to this.  Some say three months per year total, some say three months at a time, some say no more than three months in the 2 years?  And that's just by calling the home office alone!  I love how they can never get their stories straight!

Can anyone point me to the relavent clause, if at all possible?  We want to go to south africa for three months, and I dont want to have to reapply...I'm going out of my head trying to work this one out.

thanks so so sooo much.

Could you be getting confused with citizenship requirements?  When you apply for citizenship, you can't have been out of the UK more than a total of 270 days during the previous 3 years, no more than 90 days within the last year itself.

so wait. when I'm applying for ILR, do the same rules hold?  Or can I come and go easily on the spouse visa and still get ILR?

No - ILR is different from citizenship.  And I don't think there's anything on the ILR application that asks you to state your comings & goings.