Why I wish I’d switched off Seven Year Switch, but couldn’t

National TV exposure is no way to sort out a relationship. Or leave one. But I’ll admit, I couldn’t take my eyes from the screen.

switch

OPINION

SWITCH therapy doesn’t actually exist as a relationship-saving tool — even the psychologists who appear on new reality relationship show Seven Year Switch admit that.

Nor did switch therapy exist for the 858,000 metropolitan viewers who tuned in to watch the show debut last night — they weren’t using their remote to change the channel.

I was among them — and I’m still unsure if I should be ashamed of that.

Because Seven Year Switch redefined car-crash reality television.

And the car-crash reality is, watching it, I felt like I shouldn’t have been.

I felt like a voyeur. I felt physically sick.

Normally, I take a perverse delight in reality TV I just can’t look away from.

I delight in its crassness, marvel at the motives of those taking part, dissect why they’re doing it, and yes, I’ll confess, feel slightly smug it’s not me.

Not so Seven Year Switch.

Not because of the stunts, and the flimsy premise that a relationship on the rocks will benefit from separating the couple in trouble, and having them live with a similarly-conflicted stranger in a luxury beach pad with one bed (I’m not great at relationships, but tend to believe the general consensus that an affair, or prospect of one, won’t fix one).

And not because I think its participants are being taken advantage of — they signed up, after all.

But because I felt like I was watching misery I shouldn’t be allowed to see.

It’s misery sometimes masked in bravado, front, defensiveness and delusion. But misery nonetheless.

Poles apart: Cassie and Ryan are a couple teetering on the brink. Picture: Supplied

Seven Year Switch works on paper, because it delivers on the reality TV recipe.

Viewers see pieces of themselves, and their own relationships, in each of the characters.

Just when they’ve labelled someone an overbearing cow or a man-child, a fresh revelation upsets the balance.

You’re angry, you empathise, you want to hug the person who has lost themselves; yell at the ones who won’t grow up or lighten up, and tell those who won’t to man up or woman up and get the hell out.

But slick editing can’t conceal the underlying desperation and raw honesty of people who are unhappy — and perhaps not thinking clearly.

Seeing a couple discuss how they grieved separately over the loss of their baby; an overwhelmed mum admit she’d lost herself and the woman she was 10 years ago; a bloke snatch an engagement ring back in a puerile attempt to punish; a woman angrily demand her seemingly disinterested partner tell her he loves her — I wanted it to be happening behind closed doors.

I saw a bunch of people at the end of their relationship tether, perhaps desperately in need of counselling and better communication. And desperately in need of someone to call ‘cut’ on filming.

Car crash counsellor: Seven Year Switch psychologist Jo Lamble. Picture: Channel 7

I wanted to hit the brakes and say to the couples: “Stop — you don’t need to do this, not like this. You don’t need a bunch of people you don’t know seeing this.”

I wonder if these people, later in life, will write a letter to themselves, after they get through these relationship dramas — and they will get through them, in whatever shape or form — and warn themselves against playing it out so publicly.

Will they wonder did they need to share it with a nation?

Will they wonder where the responsible person was that should have said ‘stop’ when their own view was obscured by unhappiness? Will they wish someone had called ‘cut’ on their behalf?

National TV exposure is no way to sort out a relationship. Or leave one.

Figure out if you can see the next 10 years, and go from there. Maybe without the cameras watching.

Originally published as Why I wish I’d switched off Seven Year Switch, but couldn’t