Switches · the east end, Toronto
Nine years with somebody who has never wanted any part of this
Pinned as partner_not_involved
- Wants
- a second relationship built on a great deal of unglamorous talking
- Rope so far
- Fourteen years, both directions, nine alongside a partner who does not.
- Around
- the east end, Toronto
Nine years with somebody who has never wanted any part of this, and the thing nobody tells you is how much ordinary conversation it takes. Not dramatic conversation. Logistics. Whose evening Thursday is. Whether I am home for dinner. What happens when two calendars collide, which they do about once a month and always over something small.
Forty two, the east end, fourteen years in and both directions. My partner is not tolerating this and is not being brave about it. He genuinely does not care, in the way he does not care about my running, and he would be embarrassed to be described as generous. What he does care about is being told things in advance, which seems fair to me.
The work is real, though. We have a version of the same conversation every few weeks and have done for nine years. It is not romantic, it is not a crisis, it is closer to two people running a household together, and I have watched several people walk into this arrangement expecting it to manage itself.
So I am looking for somebody who has done this before or is genuinely prepared to. You would be a second relationship, openly, with a shape that gets discussed rather than assumed. You would have two evenings and one weekend afternoon a month and you would never be a secret from anybody. And you would need to be as good at the boring conversation as I have had to become.