Wife swap
Can switching your partner really save your relationship?
For anyone in a relationship, Seven Year Switch, a new Channel 4 reality show, is an unthinkable scenario. The show is taking four couples on the brink of separation to Thailand, where they are installed in luxury villas for two weeks with a different spouse. That can only really prompt questions – how could anything good possibly come of this? And who in their right mind would sign up?
It is a situation that could only exist on reality TV, a shame – because as the show’s psychotherapist, it is a dream working environment. Not only do these people get a chance to work on their own mental health with daily therapy and relationship counselling, but they also get a real sense of what it would be like to be with somebody else.
Let me be clear: the point of the show, which is already a huge hit in Australia, is not to encourage infidelity (although there are no rules against that during filming…) but for participants to be forced to interact in new ways, through which they will invariably learn about themselves and their relationship. It’s what I’d ideally achieve in all my couples counselling sessions, which is why I jumped at the chance.
The kinds of difficulties the couples on Seven Year Switch are experiencing – drifting apart, dwindling chemistry, fighting over money – will be familiar to most viewers. Our intention was to normalise relationship strife and show that there are ways of working through it. To get the best outcomes, however, it was essential that I paired the couples strategically. I visited them all before we left for Thailand and could see that some would get more out of being with somebody similar to themselves – they needed a taste of their own medicine – while I could see others thriving in a relationship with the opposite character-type to their real-life partner.
Take Nikki, for example, a stay-athome mother with two young children. She feels starved of emotional intimacy by her partner Simon. I paired her with Tony, a big talker, and it was amazing to watch her open up. She soon learnt, though, that Tony’s MO would have its drawbacks too.
In order to achieve the best results, the couples had to be as vulnerable as possible. I like to split people up and work with them independently; we get lost in roles in our daily lives and forget who we really are, and unless we have a positive relationship with ourselves, we can forget about building something meaningful with a partner. This is why for two weeks, participants had to cut off all contact with everyone apart from their experimental partner.
Thrown into the deep end, barriers were removed very quickly, particularly when they discovered that there was just the one bed in each villa (the One Bed Challenge). Their reaction to this provided me with valuable insight into the way they deal with conflict: some tried to negotiate, others gave up the bed to their experimental partner straight away, and one bagged the bed without asking.
We might have been in Thailand but this was not a holiday, and anyone who has been in therapy will know what hard work it is. One of the couples had to be coaxed to take it seriously, but this too was a useful insight: he had already been accused of immaturity by his real-life partner. In turn, the emotional abuse she had suffered from her partner meant that the experiment gave her the opportunity to enjoy a renewed sense of playfulness, and to remember who she was prior to the relationship.
Early on in the show, I recorded each participant describing what they really wanted from their other half, and then replayed these to their partners. It’s exposure therapy that I often use with my clients; when you are really forced to listen without interrupting, you can learn some valuable home-truths. One person in particular found this exercise to be an emotional epiphany: as she listened to her partner speaking, it was as if she lifted her expectations and began to think about herself.
Another kind of exposure therapy involved showing them photographs of their partner being intimate with their new experimental partner – not necessarily in a physical way, but engaging with them and having fun – and this also prompted a huge emotional fallout. Conversely, one ripped off his mic and ran out of the villa. Afterwards, I was able to explain to him that if you always run when things get tough, you’re not giving your relationship a chance.
We also did some role play: I asked the experimental couples to read transcripts of genuine arguments they’d had with their partners back in the UK. Stripped of the emotion that naturally accompanies a row, they were able to hear the words objectively. For one man in particular, this was a massive turning point. If they’d surprised themselves during two weeks of therapy, it was their turn to surprise me at the end when they were reintroduced to their real partners. I’d been rooting for certain couples who, without wanting to give too much away, didn’t necessarily come up with the goods. But each participant came away from Thailand stronger and more resilient in themselves.
If I had my way, couple therapy – if not swapping partners – would be compulsory. You learn so much about yourself and why you behave the way you do.
As told to Anna Tyzack
The Seven Year Switch is on Channel 4 next Thursday at 9.15pm
‘Forcing couples to interact in new ways, they will learn about themselves and their relationships’