The Situationship Hangover: Why Gray Area Breakups Hurt

The term “situationship” has become part of our modern vocabulary, particularly among younger generations. Millennials might call it this, Gen Z and others might have another name for it, while Gen X and baby boomers may have experienced it without ever naming it. But what exactly is a situationship? And more importantly, why does ending one hurt so much, even when it was never “official” in the first place?

I’d say that a situationship is a romantic or sexual relationship that exists in a gray area between casual and committed. You’re spending time together, most likely being intimate, but there’s no clear definition of what you are to each other.

Often, one partner wants more, while the other doesn’t, creating a dynamic where someone’s holding on to what could be, while the other person gets pseudo-intimacy without actual commitment. We can make sense of this dynamic by considering attachment theory, which really explains why people stay in these situations and why it hurts so much when they end.

The Anxious-Avoidant Dynamic

If we turn our attention to attachment theory, we can easily understand how situationships develop by considering the anxious-avoidant dynamic. The person who shows up more anxious in relationships – they are the one who will hold on to what could be. They are also vulnerable to that intermittent reinforcement – the inconsistent attention, time, and connection. Sometimes the connection feels defined, sometimes it doesn’t, and the anxious partner will often betray their own boundaries to maintain it. By holding onto what is, the anxious partner will keep the situationship train on the track.

Often, the avoidant partner is really getting the better end of the deal because they’re getting this pseudo-intimacy without the actual commitment. The anxious person operates from a scarcity mindset: they like this person so much that even inconsistent attention feels worth staying for, especially on the days when they actually receive what they’ve been asking for. The avoidant partner, meanwhile, has learned they can maintain the connection without committing to anything, knowing their partner will keep showing up anyway. This creates a breeding ground for a very toxic dynamic.

What’s interesting and often gets overlooked is this belief that the avoidant partner holds the power, but it’s actually the anxious partner – because if the anxious partner finally says, “This isn’t enough for me,” then the relationship no longer exists. They just have to have the courage and agency to set the boundary or ask for more.

Now, we often focus our attention on the anxious partner, but for the avoidant partner, it is often a myth that they don’t want closeness. They do want intimacy and closeness, but there is often anxiety associated with these exact feelings. Thus, this dynamic is not really serving them either, because they’re continuing to get in these very surface-level, non-committed relationships without actually getting their needs met. It’s not functional for either person.

If you’re anxiously attached, you’ll likely attract the same type of avoidant person over and over – someone comfortable with ambiguity. Anxious folks come to expect inconsistent attunement as normal and seek out what’s familiar. Avoidant folks have learned they can’t rely on others, so closeness makes them anxious. A situationship lets them keep someone at arm’s length, which is closeness without commitment. It’s a cycle that doesn’t serve either person, but both keep recreating it.

Understanding Ambiguous Loss

What makes situationship grief particularly challenging is the ambiguity itself. When someone dies or we end a marriage, it’s very clear that there is a beginning and an end. But when things are less clear, it’s difficult for our brain to make sense of that, which then makes it hard for us to define a way to heal and move forward.

We also tend to downplay what a situationship is, which minimizes its realness. This may even broaden into family and friends – we’re not usually bringing a situationship home, but that doesn’t make the feelings any less real.  Thus, this dichotomy exists: I’m not bringing you home to my family, yet I have real feelings for you. And now we broke up, but we didn’t really break up because we weren’t really together in the first place. But my feelings are still real, which adds to that confusion.

Because there was no definition around what was, there’s often a lack of language to describe what no longer is. This often bleeds into how others view our situationship as well. Oftentimes, we get an “I told you so” from those around us, which only furthers our sense of ambiguous loss. This can make us believe that our feelings are invalid or an overreaction. However, the feelings are real, and they deserve to be acknowledged. It’s important to consider less the label, time, or intensity but rather the illusion of what could have been and what feelings that person elicited in us. That’s usually where our grief lies.

The Social Media Factor

Prior to the internet age, we would just end a relationship and that would be it. You never saw them again. You didn’t have to really wonder what they’re doing.

But with social media now, they linger. It’s so easy to check up on their Instagram or to see if their location has changed. Their profile might even come up again as a match on the dating apps you just got back on.

In order to move forward from a situationship, we have to be intentional and disciplined about blocking or unfollowing – and keep it that way. Don’t let that glass of wine make you think, “Oh, let me see what they’re up to.” Creating that distance, whether physically or through social media, is often critical to moving forward and truly healing.

Moving Through the Grief

When we talk about the stages of grief, most of us are familiar with those initial feelings of shock or denial. Because of the ambiguity related to a situationship ending, you might find yourself spending more time here. Alongside this experience of unreality, you might experience confusion and questioning related to the experience as a whole. You might find yourself asking: Did any of this matter to them as much as it did to me? Have they moved on so quickly? I think that’s where the social media boundaries can become so important, because we can so easily go in and check to see what they’re doing, to know if they’ve moved on.

If we don’t allow ourselves the time to acknowledge that the grief is real, we will get stuck in that space. Which, if we aren’t intentional, can affect our future relationships. Even if it is not another situationship, but a real relationship, if we don’t complete that experience with the other person, it can linger.

Healing Considerations:

• Acknowledge the loss for what it is and give it language. If it feels like loss, it is loss – it doesn’t matter what the label was, the length of the relationship, or the title you gave it. At its core, it was an attachment to another person who’s no longer someone you’re attached to. Whatever you feel about the situationship ending is true to your experience. This is where therapy can come in handy, because friends and family may have opinions about it or not want to talk about it because they didn’t approve in the first place. A therapist’s role is to be a non-judgmental witness to your grief, allowing you to process it fully, regardless of what the relationship was called.
• Identify what you want from a relationship and don’t settle. After you’ve given yourself some time to label and acknowledge the loss, let’s focus on asking – what are we actually looking for? What is our checklist? Less of a focus on superficial checklist items but an emphasis on how they show up in a relationship. Do they show consistent communication? Are they attentive to you bringing up your needs? How are they with their own friends and family? Answering these questions can serve as an objective barometer when we start to date again.
• Find your own boundaries around continued contact. We’re going to block and we’re going to keep them blocked, and we’re not going to unblock them, no matter how many drinks we’ve had.
• Try closure activities.  When we’re dealing with grief, we would encourage things like writing a letter to the person, journaling prompts around endings or closure, or any other ritual you find helpful in your normal grieving practice
• Get back to things that you love. This is especially important for the anxious partner. A lot of times, the anxious partner will completely neglect their own interests and life to make time and space for the other person. If we can get back into the things we enjoy, oftentimes that helps us kind of move through the ending and move forward.

The Bottom Line

Overall, we should consider treating situationship grief as we treat any other loss in our life. Some of us are restricted in or unsure of how to grieve as a whole, which can make this type of grief even more challenging. Your grief is valid. Your feelings are real. And you deserve the space to process this loss fully, just like any other significant relationship in your life. Therapy can help aid in this healing process, as well as help us to understand why we keep settling for situationships, preventing us from finding the connected and secure relationships that we actually desire.

Cady Parliman,  LCSW-S, is a Licensed Clinical Social Worker with over 8 years of experience specializing in complex trauma/PTSD, anxiety, and relationship issues, bringing expertise from her role as former Clinical Director of a PHP/IOP program in The Woodlands, TX. She is EMDR trained and uses a personalized, trauma-informed approach that integrates Person-Centered, CBT, DBT, and ACT modalities to help clients heal from past traumas and build fulfilling lives. Cady creates a warm, collaborative therapeutic space where authenticity and the healing power of the therapeutic relationship are at the heart of her work with adult individuals.