Dear Roe,
I am a heterosexual woman in college, I’m 20 years old and over six months ago I broke up with my situationship. For some reason I haven’t got over him still and I get triggered whenever I hear someone say his name or when I’m out and see someone who resembles him. When we ended things he just said “okay”, and then left after a couple of minutes while I was getting ready to leave without saying goodbye. He treated me not so nicely and would belittle me. Although I know he wasn’t great, I still miss him and occasionally stalk his social media account. He has got in contact with me occasionally through phone calls, which I don’t answer. I haven’t bumped into him in person yet but I’m worried about when I will. I find it hard to fancy someone now because of this situation. I’m not sure how to get over it and move on positively. I feel like I’ll never find a genuine partner.
I’m sorry you’re experiencing this, but you are not alone. I’ve never met a situationship that didn’t leave at least one person with a lot of hurt, pain and confusion. Situationships are by their nature confusing and ambiguous. For the uninitiated, a situationship is a romantic or sexual relationship that is not defined and lacks commitment, clarity or consistency. The supposed benefits of a situationship are that people can enjoy a romantic or sexual connection while remaining single and they don’t require emotional energy of a more committed relationship. However, I would argue that dating or having a friends-with-benefits arrangement achieves the same goals, but with more clarity. With dating, you’re exploring a connection and enjoying each other’s company regularly without being committed to each other yet – but there’s clarity around what you’re doing, and consistency in how often you see each other and the way you show up for each other which has a romantic tilt. In a friends-with-benefits arrangement, you’re enjoying commitment-free sex regularly with someone who is nice to you (the “friend” part of the equation) but there’s no expectation of romance or long-term commitment.
A situationship, on the other hand, might involve some romantic feelings from one or both people, but no clarity, no consistency, usually avoidant communication and very often a mismatch in expectations. One person may want to get to know the other person on a deeper level or gauge compatibility for a relationship while the other just wants sex. One person might want more exclusivity or time together while the other only wants to see each other sporadically. One person may want clarity on long-term intentions while the other is happy going with the flow – or sometimes avoiding being honest about their lack of romantic or long-term interest to keep their options open for attention, validation, sex or distraction on demand.
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The ill-defined nature of the situationship means that the standard rules and expectations of a typical monogamous relationship don’t exist – and this lack of clarity and social script unfortunately makes it easy for people to behave badly. They shouldn’t, of course; no matter what type of relationship you have with someone, you should always be aiming for respect, kindness and clear communication. But some people take the lack of social script as an excuse to abandon all decency and sense of respectful behaviour towards one another. This certainly sounds like it was the case with your situationship partner, who belittled you and made the ending of your relationship more abrupt, cold and unfeeling than it needed to be. When confusion, ambiguity, incompatible expectations, disrespectful behaviour and abrupt endings combine, what is often left is a mess of hurt feelings, mixed emotions, a loss of trust in yourself for entering into such an unhealthy dynamic and an obsessive train of thought that leaves you overanalysing every moment. The brain and heart don’t like unanswered questions like “What went wrong here?” or “What could I/he/we have done differently?”, and so we tend to obsess, looking for an answer – because we believe that if there’s a clear answer, we can learn from it and avoid making the same mistake next time. But when the relationship doesn’t have a clear script, code of behaviour or neat ending, answers become elusive, keeping us searching.
[ How do I find love while still living at home in rural Ireland?Opens in new window ]
You’re looking for that mystical thing called “closure” – but what you have to learn is that closure isn’t something someone else can give you. It’s a gift you give yourself. By waiting for closure, you’re giving this situationship too much space in your head and too much power over you. You need to take concrete steps to start taking back control.
Firstly, give yourself time to grieve like you would any relationship. Often with situationships, we don’t feel like we can cry about it to our friends or do the kind of emoting and self-care we would after a “real” break-up. But you are grieving the end of something, so let yourself. Give yourself a weekend to vent about him, journal about him, cry over some bad movies and emotionally tell yourself that it is over. Block him on all social media and commit to not stalking his page ever again. The part of you that is still obsessing over him is trying to keep you two connected. Say goodbye properly, in your mind and heart, and acknowledge to yourself that it is over.
Next, you need to start reframing this situationship in your mind, consciously and deliberately. Instead of letting your mind go around in circles of confusion and questions, start giving yourself answers. Write down a list of everything you have learned about yourself and about relationships. These could include, “I value kindness and affection in relationships”, or “I want a relationship with clear, consistent communication”, or “A lack of clarity around a relationship doesn’t feel freeing for me, it feels confusing and depletes my emotional energy. Clarity is freedom”. Write down everything, trying to frame it not simply as negative things you have endured, but important lessons you have learned and can bring forward. This simple reframing will stop you from seeing your situationship as something that was done to you and has left you helpless, to framing it as part of your growth journey that you have learned from and are using to make your future better. Whenever you find yourself obsessing about him, repeat those lessons to yourself – out loud if possible – and say, “I’m taking these lessons and moving on”. Like affirmations, saying these things out loud repeatedly will start rewriting the negative stories you’re currently holding in your head and eventually they will start feeling more true.
You’re fearful of trying again with someone new because you got your heart trampled, but you don’t have to dive into a new relationship. Instead of fearing that you’ll never find anyone (and trust me, you will), focus on just meeting new people. Focus on making new friends in college, go to a few events, join a new society. Expanding your social world even platonically will help you realise that there are fantastic people everywhere, and developing new friendships where you feel safe and respected will help you to regain a bit of trust in the world again. And if someone cute does ask you out, say yes. You don’t have to jump into a relationship, but you can enjoy the spark of possibility – and the chance to put those hard-earned lessons into action.
You’re in college. Consider this situationship part of your emotional education. Learn what you need to, bring that knowledge into the world, and grow in the direction you want to. You’ll be fine, I promise.
[ ‘My boyfriend wants to move to Australia, but my life is here’Opens in new window ]
