Couples · Brooklyn, New York
We had an arrangement, it went wrong, and we would rather say so
Pinned as arrangement_went_wrong
- Wants
- honest conversation with couples who have also got one of these wrong
- Rope so far
- Fourteen years together, one arrangement that lasted eleven months.
- Around
- Brooklyn, New York
Two years ago we agreed that he could practise with somebody else, because he needs the hours and I do not want to be tied. It ran for eleven months and then came apart, and everybody involved behaved reasonably badly for a fortnight before we all stopped.
What went wrong, as far as we can reconstruct it: the agreement was made once and never revisited. It started as one evening a fortnight and drifted to two a week without anybody deciding. I never met her, because it never seemed like the moment, and by month eight she was a name attached to an absence. And when I finally said I was unhappy, I had been unhappy for four months and it arrived as an accusation rather than as information.
None of that is her fault. She was straightforward throughout and we treated her badly at the end. We are both forty one, Brooklyn, together fourteen years, and we are still married and still working out whether to try again with better terms.
What we would like is to talk to couples who have got one of these wrong. Everything written about it is written by people for whom it worked, and we suspect that is a survivorship problem.
Not looking for a practice partner at the moment, since we are not ready. Not looking for advice from anybody who has never tried it. And not looking to be told we should have communicated better, which is true and useless.