Healing from a situationship can be harder than recovering from a breakup, and it’s not talked about enough. Taylor Swift’s recent album, The Tortured Poets Department, is filled with situationship-related themes, and it’s inspired me to really think about how painful they can be.
It might not be a “real” relationship, but the people in it are real. The feelings are real.
First, let’s define what a situationship is. A situationship is an undefined romantic relationship in which two people act like in a couple in some ways, but there’s no official commitment. One or both don’t know where the relationship stands at any given time because there are no formal expectations, boundaries, or consistency.
This lack of clarity makes situationships — and their endings — confusing and painful. You might never get clarity from the end of a situationship, but here are answers to a few questions you might have about why situationships are so painful:
- Why does it hurt so much? In a situationship, there’s more hope than there is in other relationships, and the loss of hope is horrible. After all, the opposite of hope is despair.
- Why does it feel worse than other breakups? The dynamics of a situationship — anxiety, uncertainty, hope — can increase emotional distress, lower self-esteem, and cause isolation, making the ending more agonizing.
- Was any of it real? The illusion of a future (however unlikely it might have been) is shattered when a situationship ends. This also puts cracks into the past, causing you to question the validity of everything that happened. This can be heartbreaking.
- Why did I do this to myself? It’s hard not to feel ashamed and angry at yourself for tolerating what you did. It feels as if you’re dealing with the consequences of your own poor choices, which adds to the pain of the situationship’s ending.
- Is it really over? The unpredictability was part of the situationship’s appeal, and this is what makes it so hard to end. Can something end if it never officially began? Of course it can, but it’s harder to comprehend. And sometimes it hurts more.
- Why do I feel so alone? Because a situationship is harder to talk about, both while it’s happening and when it ends, you might not get the same comfort from those around you when it ends. They might not understand or you might even tell them about what you’re going through.
- How can I have closure? The lack of clarity that exists throughout a situationship means you probable won’t get closure, at least not in the way you might with other relationships. This can make it harder to move on because you will have to create your own closure.
- Why am I having a hard time moving on? Being in a situationship can feel like taking illicit drugs. There’s longing and intermitted highs; there’s knowing you should stop and the pain of hope. The loss triggers withdrawal in a way that other relationships do not.
