As someone on the internet once said, “I’ve seen some of the greatest minds of our generation ruined by a 3-month-long situationship.”
Don’t let this be you.
Valentine’s Day presents the perfect opportunity to re-evaluate the status of your current suitors and your situationships— I know I am. This is the season for love, and sometimes that means loving yourself enough to end an unfruitful relationship. This article will outline the steps you can take toward ditching your beleaguered situationship. And if you don’t plan to ditch your sitch, the following steps will remind you to take a critical look at how that *special* someone is making you feel.
But first, let’s define a situationship. The situationship is typically understood to be a relationship without the label. Your situationship is someone you go on dates with and most likely hook up with. But there is no security of a label. Often, situationships are made up of one party who is avoidant of a relationship, and one party who would prefer a relationship. For the purposes of this article, this will be our frame of reference.
Step 1: Look at the facts.
Listen, we can all be delusional from time to time, it is a natural part of having a crush. But at some point, the haze must lift, and you must begin to look at your situationship with a discerning eye. Let’s take a look at the facts.
One of the problems most associated with situationships is that actions don’t line up with words. When we look at the facts, we can evaluate how well this person has shown up for us. Does your situationship say he’s going to buy you flowers? Or does he actually bring you flowers? Does he say he wants to meet your friends, or does he actually show up to group events when invited? Don’t trust what a man says. Trust what he DOES. If his actions don’t line up with his words, your red flags need to go up. You have to set the boundary immediately with this type of man. He says one thing and does another? That’s fine, because there are other people out there who will do exactly what they say they’re going to do and will not leave you with false expectations of greatness.
What are the facts?
Step 2: Evaluate your feelings.
Sometimes when we find ourselves in a situationship, the heightened levels of anxiety can cloud our judgment. In the midst of this fog, you have to ask yourself whether or not you actually like the person or if you are just addicted to the intermittent validation the person is giving you.
In these cases, you may need to recuse yourself and really question your compatibility with this person. Do you share values, interests, goals? Does this person consistently treat you well? Do they meet your needs? What do they bring to the table? Do you like who you are when you’re around them? It is important to check in and see how you feel and then move forward from there.
No healthy relationship can be built on a foundation of uncertainty. If someone is consistently making you doubt yourself, they aren’t the one for you. If you don’t have similar values and goals, things likely won’t work out in the long term. If the person is not meeting your needs and is not compatible with you, you should initiate the process of ending things.
How do you feel?
Step 3: Talk to your friends.
Our friends can often see the big picture of our relationships better than we can. Their opinions are essential for analyzing a situationship. Ask for their uncensored opinion on the person you’ve been seeing. Have they met the person? What were their thoughts? What sort of person have you become since talking to them?
If they give you a vote of confidence, you may want to have an honest conversation with your situationship about establishing boundaries or moving things forward. But if your friends are hesitant or have significant qualms, you need to reconsider the situationship immediately. Trust that your friends have your best interest at heart and know that even if they tell you something you don’t want to hear, it will help you out in the long run.
What are your friends seeing that you’re not?
Step 4: Think about how you’d feel if it ended.
Too many friends of mine have mentioned therapy or medication for anxiety for the first time while they were talking to someone who made them feel unsure about themselves. I’ve been there too. That being said, if someone is causing you to develop symptoms of a severe mental illness you’d never struggled with before, it’s time to reconsider. One of my friends was in this boat. When she and her situationship broke things off, I asked “Don’t you feel relieved???” Her answer was, of course, yes. No one is worth sacrificing your peace.
No one is worth sacrificing your mental health or your peace of mind. Breakups are tough but if you know you’ll be relieved when it ends, get it over with and end things as soon as you can. It may be painful to end things, but not as painful as being in a constant state of worry over someone who should want to be with you.
Know that when things end, you’ll be able to focus on yourself again and not wake up first thing in the morning searching for their name on your phone.
How would you feel if things ended?
Takeaways? It’s better to be single and loveless than emotionally committed to someone who can’t manage to show up for you and meet your needs. If someone is causing you to feel more stress than peace, it’s time to break things off. Take a step back to ask yourself the questions outlined here and consider ditching your situationship this Valentine’s Day.
XOXO <3
