Be honest, clear, and compassionate while expressing your decision to end the situationship. Avoid blaming or criticising the other person, and focus on your own emotions and needs. After expressing your decision to end the situationship, it's essential to establish clear boundaries.
But a situationship ending can be a brutal experience. Sure, commitment may not be present, but you can't take away the pain from a situationship breakup. It hurts just as much as normal breakups do. In some cases, even more.
Situationship breakups are a special kind of confusing
The undefined nature of situationships can make them singularly hard to recover from, says Jessica Alderson. As she says, “in situationships, there's often a lack of clear boundaries, commitment, and labels, making it difficult to know where each person stands”.
Situationships can last for a few days, weeks, months, or even years. Just like in other relationships, there's no expiration date unless one or both of you choose to end the situationship and move on.
Going no contact is only helpful for you to move forward. The no-contact rule will not make your situationship want to commit to you. Full stop.
It's been three months or more. Three months is more than enough time to know if you want to commit to someone else. You have an idea of who each other is at this point. If they still “don't know” what they want or what they're looking for, it's in your best interests to walk away.
With no right to assert your needs, you simply let your person go, and accept the impending heartbreak. It's difficult to grapple with an ex-situationship, as you can't truly call them your “ex.” Being able to call someone an “ex” validates your pain. However, in a situationship, you don't even receive that luxury.
The people involved in a situationship just go with the flow. Until one day, they have this realization that they need to have the 'talk,' and that changes everything. If it goes well, they will commit and have a real relationship. Sadly, not everyone gets to have a happy-ever-after.
This means you don't interact on social media, you don't text or call them, and definitely no FaceTime. While some people believe following the no-contact rule will help them win their situationship over, this is not the case. No contact is to help you move forward and nothing else.
While it may share some similarities with a friends-with-benefits relationship, the two terms do not mean the same thing. A friends-with-benefits relationship is when friends engage in casual sex without taking on the commitment aspect of a relationship. A situationship, on the other hand, lacks a formal label.
People who tend to gravitate towards situationships are those who want the emotional connection and intimacy with a partner in a compartmentalized way. They can have emotional presence and connection in person, but when apart, they can have their freedom.
These types of relationships often lack clear boundaries, commitments, and labels, which can lead to confusion and frustration. While situationships may seem convenient at first, they can quickly turn toxic and leave you feeling unfulfilled.
It's a red flag if they force you to prolong the situationship after months of dating. It's a red flag if they disregard your feelings about the situationship. It's a red flag if they make you feel bad for wanting more from the relationship after countless dates.
Unlike being in a relationship where you might have set dates and plans, a situationship is spontaneous and lacks consistency. You might see a person many times one week and then not see them again for a few weeks. "
The no-contact rule refers to cutting off all contact with an ex following a breakup, and it's the best method for moving on from an ex. No contact should last for a minimum of 60 days, and it includes no texting, no calling, and no interacting on social media.
Remember, just because you decide to go no-contact for the time being doesn't mean you can't still care about each other and eventually come together again in the future to nurture a new friendship. Sometimes you just need a little space first.
Since there is no clear line or boundary for what a situationship should be and how one should handle it, it can result in emotional and mental trauma, just like it does during a breakup but worse. There are basically three stages of falling in love: lust, attraction, and attachment.
He calls and checks up on you regularly. – We live in a time where people rather text than spend just a few minutes on the phone, but if he's picking up the phone and making an effort to start a conversation, it shows that he's creating time for you.
Bilek agrees that an open and frank conversation is the only productive transition from a situationship into something more. “Tell them, 'This is a good partnership for me,' and make sure to ask them how they feel.” Even if the conversation is hard, the resulting clarity will be worth the stress, Romanoff says.