I identify as a switch but I find it really hard to shift between roles with the same partner. Is it common to only switch between different partners rather than within one relationship?

The switch identity is sometimes assumed to mean flexible within every dynamic, but that is not how it works for many people. Switching is about the broader range of your interest and capacity, not about being able to flip roles on demand with any given person.

Relational chemistry is specific. When you meet someone whose energy immediately reads as dominant to you, the sub pole of your switch nature tends to activate. When you connect with someone who naturally defers to your presence, the dom side comes forward. Many switches describe this as feeling entirely natural rather than effortful, and the reverse as feeling awkward or forced.

The experience of being locked into one pole with a specific partner is so common in switch communities that it has its own informal vocabulary. Some switches describe certain partners as 'switching partners' because they have successfully moved between roles with them, while others are 'stable polarity' connections where one role becomes natural and the other does not.

None of this requires you to revise your switch identity. It means your switch nature expresses itself across the field of your relationships rather than necessarily within every single one.

If you find it important to have role flexibility within a single ongoing dynamic, the practical advice is to look for partners who are themselves switches and whose polarity with you is genuinely flexible. Not every combination of people will generate that, but some will.

You are not less of a switch for having one pole predominate with specific people.