We’d been planning to move in together for six months.
One month in, we broke up.
It wasn’t anyone’s fault. Nothing happened. We simply realised that the point where we moved into the same flat was also the point where our relationship had wound down to a natural end.
But how did this happen? And why didn’t we notice until we were at this point?
What happened?
After my marriage ended, my original plan was to move into my own place. At least for a year or so. As much as I liked the idea of moving in with my girlfriend (we’re all polyamorous, so don’t worry, the overlap between partners is perfectly normal for us) I wanted to have my own space for a while.
Well, lockdown got in the way of that, didn’t it? And, instead, I spent a year living back home with my parents.
And after a few months of alternating between staying at my parents and my girlfriend’s flat, it seemed silly to stick to the idea of living on my own. She and I would likely be at each other’s places all the time, anyway. Finding a separate place seemed like it would be little more than adding additional costs and complications to our lives. So we decided that we would move in together.
Over the next six months, we made our plans. It was complicated, as combining two lives always is. We had to figure out where we wanted to live, and what exactly our living arrangements would be. As a polyamorous couple, we both knew we’d been dating other people. And we would have our own lives to live apart from each other. We had no plans to create the “traditional” relationship unit. But we worked it all out, and late last year, we finally moved in together.
One month later, we broke up.
Why did this happen?
So, yeah, that sucks.
We did try to work through things. We did some couple’s therapy together. We took a break over Christmas to give us time to settle into everything else going on in our lives. But in the end, we had to admit to ourselves that as much as we loved being in each other’s lives, we simply weren’t in love anymore.
So why did this happen?
In a nutshell, some relationships just end.
I’ve changed a lot in the last year. Coming out of a fifteen-year relationship, changing careers from a highly paid project manager to a struggling freelance writer, and, of course, going through a freakin’ pandemic, are all things that are going to have a big effect on me.
And my partner had changed, as well. They’d also moved careers, moving from shift work to a 9 to 5 role. She had new partners she was falling for. She wasn’t sitting around waiting for me to pull myself together. She was growing as a human and living her own life.
We were both growing as people. It just turned out it was in different directions.
How didn’t we see this coming?
There is a process in relationships called “De-escalating”.
This is the process of taking a relationship and lowering its level of intensity. This can mean bringing a relationship to an end, but it can simply mean rejigging what you want that relationship to be.
This is especially important in ethical non-monogamy, where relationships are far more fluid than in traditional monogamy. There are all sorts of reasons to de-escalate a relationship. Maybe you and your partner have been in a sexual relationship but now want the emotional side without the sex. Perhaps you are coming out of the honeymoon phase of your relationship and no longer need to be in each other’s lives every moment of every day.
And now I realise we’d been doing this, subconscious and unintentionally, for the last year.
My breakup had caused a lot of emotional trauma for me to work through, which meant I’d detached in several ways already. I had no libido and couldn’t be as emotionally available as I used to be. We’d discussed this at the time, and my partner had been incredibly understanding and supportive. We knew it was something that would come back eventually. Then, as I slowly got better, the state of being in continual flux stunted the rebuilding process. I was far away. Both of us were changing careers. And there was, as I said earlier, a freakin’ pandemic going on, with all the existential uncertainties that brought with it.
But we told ourselves that once we were living together, everything could come together. We’d be together, in the same place, ready to build our new life.
But instead, we discovered we’d drifted too far away.
What happens next?
Well, nothing. Not really.
We’ve decided to continue to live together. Breaking up doesn’t mean we’re any less suited to each other as friends or flatmates. We each have our own bedrooms. Being polyamorous, we’re already used to each other’s other partners staying over. We have our own friends and our own lives.
So, other than the two of us being a couple, nothing needs to change.
Yes, it’s been a bit of a left turn. A lot of expectations and hopes had to be very suddenly adjusted. Already being in therapy has been incredibly useful. But, at the end of the day, while I’m sad this is how things had ended, I’m not heartbroken. I haven’t lost her. We’ve simply moved onto separate tracks.
And, like I said, this has been a long time coming. Even if I hadn’t realised it, my subconscious had already prepared itself.
So there we are. A story of subconscious and unintentional de-escalation leading to the end of a relationship.
But not a story of heartbreak.
Because while I’m incredibly sad our relationship is over, I haven’t truly lost anything. Yes, I miss all the little habits and in-jokes we had as a couple, I’ll always have them as memories. Bittersweet memories, perhaps, but memories nevertheless.
And down the line, perhaps I’ll simply look at this as one of many stepping stones along the path of life. Something that ended, only to be part of what made me capable of experiencing even greater happiness in the future.
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Previously Published on medium
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