we did same room for like 3 years and last month tried separate... woah

ok so we are M38/F36, been in the lifestyle since 2022, met our regulars on Kasidie and SLS, the whole thing. always same room. always. it was kind of our identity tbh, we'd say to other couples "we're same room only" like it was a personality trait lol. last month at a house party in austin, our regulars suggested we try separate rooms just once. i was nervous af, like genuinely shaky. she went upstairs with him, i stayed in the den with his wife. and idk how to describe it but something cracked open. without her watching me i wasn't performing. without me watching her she actually let go in a way i'd never seen reflected back at me later when we debriefed. she said the same thing about herself. she came back down 90 min later and her face was different. like really different. now we're questioning everything we thought we knew about ourselves. did we waste 3 yrs being same-room ppl who were actually separate-room ppl the whole time?? or is this just a phase we needed? anyone else had this exact flip happen... was it permanent for you or did you go back. and how did the trust thing work, cause i thought i NEEDED to see to feel safe but apparently nope