Switches · the south east, London
We changed places after six years and the relationship did not survive it
Pinned as we_swapped_it_broke
- Wants
- somebody who has thought about what a swap actually asks of both people
- Rope so far
- Fifteen years, one long relationship, and a very instructive ending.
- Around
- the south east, London
For six years I tied her. Then she asked whether we could turn it round, and we did, and eleven months later we were not together. It has taken me two years to work out what actually happened there, and I think I finally have it, which is why I am able to write this rather than avoid the subject.
What went wrong was not the swap. It was that neither of us understood how much of who we were to each other had quietly attached itself to which end of the rope we were on. I had spent six years being the one who watched and decided, and I had built a whole idea of myself as a partner out of that. When it reversed I was not merely bad at the new position. I did not know who I was in the relationship any more, and instead of saying so I became difficult about small things for the better part of a year.
Forty, south east, fifteen years in. I am a switch now in a way I was not then, and it took the loss of something good to get there.
What I want is a partner who understands that this is not a scheduling matter. Both directions change what two people are to each other, and the change needs talking about rather than assuming it will absorb itself.
Not looking for anybody who thinks switching is simply doing two things. Not looking for someone who wants a swap once a quarter to prove open mindedness. And not looking to be anybody's experiment in going the other way for the first time.