I loved the weekends on tour. I hated the weeks after them

BetweenTheTourDates · Posted 24 Sep 2026, 07:08

I’m 32 and I was with a woman who works as a touring musician for just over a year. At the beginning, her life felt exciting rather than difficult. I teach, so I could sometimes meet her in another city during half term or get a late train on Friday after school. I loved standing at the back of a venue knowing which ridiculous socks she had on under her stage clothes. When she was home, we were properly together. She would stay at mine for ten days, cook while I marked books and complain that my washing machine sounded haunted. Then she would leave for three weeks and the relationship would become voice notes between soundchecks. She never pretended touring was temporary. I think I did that part for both of us. There was always one more run of dates, one festival season, one support slot too useful to refuse. I kept thinking that once this album cycle ended, we would discuss living in the same city and having a week that repeated. In July I finally asked what she wanted after the next tour. She said another tour. Not to avoid me. Not because she was frightened of commitment. She loves the work and has spent fifteen years building a life where she can do it. She said she could imagine us being serious, but she could not promise that serious would eventually mean being home most nights. We tried to make the difference smaller. Shared calendar. A voice note every morning. Two nights kept free whenever she came back. It helped with the waiting and the missed calls. It did not change what either of us wanted. I want ordinary time. Dinner that is not a reunion. Knowing we can go to a friend’s birthday next month without checking three versions of a schedule. Somebody who is present for the boring Wednesday as well as the brilliant weekend in Manchester. She wants a partner who can be part of her moving life without quietly hoping she will stop moving. Last month she was offered six months supporting a bigger artist across Europe. She called me before saying yes, which was kind. I heard myself trying to sound pleased while calculating how many school holidays matched the dates. We ended it two days later. There was no betrayal to point at. She did not choose a tour over me in one dramatic moment. I had spent a year treating the structure of her life as a phase, while she had been telling me it was the life. I miss her. I miss the venues, the terrible service-station food and the feeling of seeing her walk offstage looking for me. I do not miss organising my whole emotional life around the next gap in a calendar. We loved each other in bursts. I needed a relationship that also existed between them.