I ended a good four year thing and the room took his side

I ended a perfectly good four year thing eighteen months ago because it had turned into a habit, and the room took his side, and I understand exactly why. He was well liked. He had done nothing wrong. There was no story available to explain what I had done, so the only explanation left was that I had been careless with somebody kind.

Forty four, the city centre, sixteen years in, both directions. The truth is duller than the version that went around. We had stopped choosing each other. Everything still happened on the same evenings, we were still fond, and I could not remember the last time either of us had actively wanted the evening rather than simply arriving at it.

That is a very hard thing to say aloud to a room that likes both of you, and I did not try. I said it was not working, which is true and explains nothing, and then I carried the cost of that for a year.

What I want now is somebody who understands that a partnership can end without anybody being at fault, and who will not need to work out whose side to be on. If the two of us ever arrived at the same place, I would say so at the time rather than after another year of Wednesdays.

One partner, both ends, an evening or two a week, and years of it. I am not frightened of the long version. I ended the last one precisely because I take the long version seriously.