Wife swap: why it's never easy when two ex-couples switch partners

Here’s a word of advice for happy couples: stay away from other happy couples, particularly ones who share the same lifestyle, bank balance or level of attractiveness as you and your beloved, because it’s all too easy to get on famously, fall into each other’s arms and before you know it you’re swapping house keys. Orlando Bloom and Miranda Kerr, for example, would have done well to hang out with married friends a grade or two less super-rich than the former model Erica Packer and her billionaire media mogul husband James. Such foresight may have avoided Miranda and Mr Packer reportedly dating after splitting with their respective other halves (they have since denied they are an item), while Orlando and Mrs Packer (via a Justin Bieber fracas) got cosy in Spain earlier this month.

Had I listened to my own words of caution two years ago, when my then-partner Sophie and I befriended a fashionable, feminine lesbian couple called Alice and Jess (‘just like us!’), I wouldn’t now be putting my underwear into an antique chest that once belonged to Alice, and Alice would certainly not be whipping up a midweek risotto in the Le Creuset saucepan I used to share with Sophie. Complicated? Yuh-huh.

Let me break it down: Sophie and I were a couple for seven years, I hesitate to say a ‘happy’ couple because there was a lot of door-slamming and frosty silences (her) and tears before bedtime (me). We met Alice and Jess at a work do — they’d been together for five years. We all had very different jobs in the TV industry, but enough in common to click. Even today, it’s rare to meet cool young female gay couples, so you gravitate towards each other like moths to candlelight.

I’d always assumed it was less of a threat to make friends with other couples than unpredictable and predatory singletons. A degree of flirting is allowed; it’s meaningless and fun when you’re all partnered off, isn’t it? Perhaps flirting is even more acceptable between four women than between two straight couples; I thought so, at least. How open-minded we all were… a jealous husband wouldn’t take too kindly to another man getting a glimpse of his wife’s inner-thigh tattoo, but among us girls, where was the danger?

Over six months we became good friends, meeting every couple of weeks for poker, dinner parties, nights out in Soho and boozy brunches in Notting Hill. Jess and Alice were so sweet to each other — always talking the other one up, rather than putting her down, as Sophie did to me. Seeing how kind and loving they were as a couple made me realise how lacking my own relationship was. It had been dawning on me for a while that Sophie wasn’t just a moody and ‘complicated’ girlfriend, but actually quite an unpleasant one. Seven years was enough time spent trying to make her happy… so one night, after a long emotional talk, I left with two bin liners full of clothes, a toothbrush and my passport and vowed never to go back.

It turned out that although Jess and Alice always seemed so happy together, they were better as best friends than they were lovers — not uncommon in lesbian relationships — and around the same time as us, they, too, split up, though much more amicably. You’ll realise where this left us: four heartbroken, sex-starved lesbians (calm down), suddenly single for the first time in ages. I’d always hit it off slightly more with Jess than Alice. But in coupled-up friendships, there’s always one you like more; the one who laughs that notch louder at your jokes or emails you Buzzfeed quizzes or shows you her inner-thigh tattoo in a restaurant toilet. Suffice to say Jess and I were texting a lot after the double split. I’d moved into a bedsit in Primrose Hill, and Jess — who had just said a teary goodbye to Alice as she moved out of their shared rental flat in Kentish Town — offered to come round and help me settle in.

I settled in all right. My new carefree life sans controlling ex included the comforting presence of Jess, with whom I was meeting up most evenings, ostensibly to counsel each other but really to drink wine and end up in each other’s beds. Even though we were single and free to mingle, it felt like what we were doing was illicit, betrayal even. This bothered Jess far more than it did me. ‘I have to tell her,’ Jess said to me one Sunday morning, after we’d been dating seriously for three months and were in bed drinking lapsang tea like an old married couple. We discussed how she should do it. The most important thing was to stress we hadn’t been attracted to each other when we were all friends. This was totally unexpected and nothing had been going on before we all split up.

Jess and Alice remained good friends, but, other than still owning a flat together, Sophie and I had cut all ties so I didn’t care how she’d react. When Jess took Alice for a drink to ‘come out’ as my girlfriend, I was nervous. I knew how much her friendship meant to Jess and I didn’t want to ruin that. ‘OMG-OMG-OMG!’ came the text that evening. ‘Alice and Sophie are together, too.’ Never has the two girls holding hands emoji been so disturbing.

Jess was relieved, as it meant she didn’t need to feel guilty about hooking up with me, but my emotions were a mess: weirdly, I was jealous. I guess, because Sophie had always been so hurtful to me while we were together, and I had wanted to punish her: I sure didn’t think she deserved to be happy now, like me. The rage I felt was pure and primal, deep in the pit of my stomach; I was also amazed that someone as sweet as Alice would fall for my mean, cold-hearted ex.

It took about three months for the news of their relationship to sink in properly. And just when it did, the next blow came — Alice was moving in with Sophie. Moving into my house that I still owned half of and was still paying half the mortgage on. Oh, it was irrelevant that I had moved in with Jess after six months and was happily sleeping in the bed that she and Alice once shared (Jess wouldn’t say which side used to be hers). As I pictured Alice in my old house using my coffee machine, sitting on my dining chairs, watching my TV, fitting snugly into the hole that used to be me, I had a desire to know more. Through Jess’ occasional meetings with Alice and some strategic Twitter and Instagram stalking, I knew that my girlfriend’s ex was driving the car I part-owned, taking our cat to the vet and having a lovely time redesigning our garden. It was making me angry. Despite the fact that it had been my choice to leave the cat, coffee machine and Le Creuset collection along with my nightmare ex in the first place; despite being happier now than I had ever been, and despite Alice surely feeling the same about me living in her old home with her old lover... I just couldn’t move on.