Will it matter that I've bought my return train ticket backwards?

[50mg]

It's a return within a month ticket, so the dates are fine, but will it matter if I use the "return" before the "out"?

I'd love to ask a real person at the train company, but that is proving challenging!

Go to the ticket desk at your local station before you travel. My partner did something similiar to this and they just changed it around.

I would worry your return journey may be invalid if it was booked on a specific date

Usually the out ticket is for one day only but the return can be used on any day in a month.
So if you got the tickets today the out would only be valid for today and will have only today's (July 21st ) date on it. The return will have valid until August 21st.
So basically - no. You can't.
Just get the tickets changed.

As above the out is usually only valid for a specified day. So if you are going and coming back on the same day, it will be fine.
If you want to return at some point in the mo th, using g the out portion, it will be invalid.

If it's a full anytime it might be valid fir up to 3 days post departure, the return will be 30 days. If it's an advance or off peak its only valid in the date in the ticket

Go to a local ticket office and ask them to swap it but they are under no obligation to do so

The return (which will be my out) says valid for a month from the earliest out date, but the out says valid until xx xx xx which is a date 5 days after my planned out date, but actually the date I want to return, so that should be OK. I'm just concerned that the system will know I've already used the return and somehow invalidate the out iyswim.

"Just" get it changed isn't so straightforward. My local station say they can't do it because it's a different company and I can't get to speak to anyone on the phone.

Technically (according to the conditions of travel) they should only be used in the correct order.

Will it be noticed? It depends what type of ticket they are, if they have barcodes then staff can view the full history of the ticket. The older mag stripe ones are more primitive.

It's worth popping back to the booking office to see if they can be changed.