Situationship to Soulmate
This podcast is for YOU if: You're feeling stuck in the cycle of hurtful and harmful dating and intimacy experiences. If you feel like no matter how hard you try, you just can't stop making the same mistakes over and over again in your romantic relationships. If you are over "hookup culture" and "situationships", but seem to still attract people who can only give you that level of commitment. If all the people you date and sleep with have one thing in common: they inevitably leave you feeling hurt, confused, and betrayed.
Situationship to Soulmate
Situationship Breakups: How To Heal, Process, and Move On After a Situationship Comes to an End
Have you recently been through a situationship ending? Or maybe you're reflecting on past situationships? Or you can feel that the situationship you're in now has run its course? This episode is all about navigating the "breakup".
Just because it wasn't a "real relationship" doesn't mean situationships aren't just as difficult, if not sometimes MORE difficult, to heal from after they end. In this episode, Shelly shares her personal stories from the 3 main situationships in her 20s, and how she dealt with the ending of them. She also shares do's and dont's for navigating the end of a situationship.
Some highlights and tips from this episode include:
- DONT try to stay friends
- DO go no-contact
- Focus on hobbies and interests you haven't had time for
- Give yourself validation...situationship breakups SUCK!
Follow me on TikTok and Instagram @shamelesslyshelly + @situationshiptosoulmate
Welcome to the Situation Ship to Soulmate podcast. I'm your host, shelley mental health counseling graduate student and trained sex and relationship coach. I went from situationships, bad hookups and settling for less than I deserved to finding my soulmate. Let's help you get there too. So I know I'm not alone in experiencing some pretty heartbreaking or, at the very least, just difficult to get over situationship breakups. So I wanted to talk about this today because I feel like in general, we don't talk about these kind of breakups enough. We talk a lot about like breakups that happen from long term relationships or from official relationships, but there's so many people out there, myself included, who have been through these situationship breakups that felt just as difficult, if not more difficult, sometimes to get over than an actual relationship, and there's a few different psychological reasons for that which I'll get into in this episode. But yeah, I just wanted to kind of have this episode be a little bit similar to the first ever episode I did, where I share some of my own experiences but I also give you all advice and tips. So one of the reasons why situationships are so hard to get over is that we're kind of left with a lot of like what ifs? Or if onlys right. So like, when a situationship ends, it's really easy for our mind to wander and start wondering about like, oh well, like if he had been wanting a relationship, would it have worked out? Or like, oh, maybe in a few months, maybe in a few years, he will realize he wants to be with me and we could be together and then the relationship would be great, you know. Or it could also be like oh well, the reason that we fought so much or the reason that we had so many issues is because we weren't in a committed relationship. But if we were in a relationship then we wouldn't have those issues. So, because situationships aren't like the same as a real, quote unquote relationship, where maybe you're living with the person or at the very least, you have committed verbally to each other. Situationships are a little bit different than that, right, because it's usually like you don't have that commitment piece, or maybe you have some commitment, but it's a little bit of a gray area and you're still not really sure what's going on. So I feel like, because a situation is not like a full on committed relationship, it's harder to get over, because it's kind of easier to focus on the positive and focus on like what was going well and with that person, because you aren't necessarily holding it to the same high standards that you would hold a boyfriend or a girlfriend or a partner, a like committed partner.
Speaker 1:So in this episode I just want to talk about a few of my past experiences with situationship breakups and give you some advice on how to heal and move on from a situationship. So I shared this on the first episode, which I'll link in the show notes of this episode, called stuck in situationships, which, fun fact, has the most listens of any of my episodes so far. So I felt like I should bring back an element of that in this episode. But I talked about in that episode that I have had like three main situationships and I will say that by the third situationship it was a lot. It felt a lot easier for me to move on from it. So if you are experiencing maybe your first ever situationship, just know that it sounds cheesy but practice makes perfect and Eventually you will be able to get over this, even if it feels like it's taking a lot of time right now. So I'll dive into a little bit of how it was breaking up with situationships for those three that I experienced. Again. I do talk about this more in the first episode, so if you haven't listened to that episode already, I would definitely recommend doing that.
Speaker 1:But yeah, my first situation was definitely, I would say, the hardest for me to get over or took me the longest for me to get over. I think a lot of that was because I was 19 years old, which at the time I felt so grown up. But now I'm like, oh my god, 19? Like I was a child still, like I, yeah, no wonder it took me a long time. I had not had any experience with love or lust or dating or sex or anything. Another reason I feel like it was so hard to get over was because I had kind of built up in my head the idea like the idea of being with him had become bigger than like the reality, if that makes sense. So I had kind of just built it up in my head to be something more than it was and I was convinced that if he just woke up one day and decided he wanted to be in a relationship and decided he wanted to have a girlfriend, we would start dating, we would be madly in love, we would get married. Like I was like this 19 year old with just these you know, grand like fairy tale, like you know views on love. Oh, one day he might just wake up and realize he wants to be with me.
Speaker 1:I really had no evidence against this theory, partially because I didn't really have much dating experience, so I hadn't experienced that. You know, I didn't have the experience to know, like, hey, like when a guy tells you he doesn't want a girlfriend, what he's really saying is he just doesn't really like you enough to make you his girlfriend. I didn't know that yet, right, and so I kind of just yeah, I had no reason to, I had no reason to not believe that my idealized version of what I thought would happen wouldn't happen. So I was like devastated when he originally told me like I don't want to be in a relationship, I can't be in a relationship right now, whatever. But I think that I it took me longer to truly get over him because I was still holding on to hope instead of just being like, all right, he doesn't want to be with me. Moving on to the next one, I basically like prolonged my heartbreak in a way, because I was like continuing to think about him and wonder what if and hope that I would run into him at a party and everything would change.
Speaker 1:You know, the thing with situationships is that you you didn't get the chance to actually experience being in a relationship with that person, so you didn't like, you didn't get to see that relationship play out, so you don't really have any real experience with, like, how that person is in a relationship. The other reason why I think that this first situation ship was hard for me to get over is because I didn't really have anything to point to, to be like. That is why it didn't work, because it had been like, stopped prematurely. Basically, I was like the only reason that we're not together is because he doesn't want to be together. It wasn't like. Oh yeah, we dated for months or years and I saw all these red flags and here's all the things that he did wrong. Like when you go through a regular breakup, you can basically, you know, remind yourself like here's all these things that this person did that were shitty. But when it's a situation ship, it's a lot easier to make excuses for that person and be like well, yeah, he did that shitty thing, but we weren't in a relationship, like, we weren't in a relationship, so he didn't really like owe me anything, like yeah, I saw him kissing another girl at a party but, like, I never told him I wanted to be in a relationship, so you know. So, yeah, again, it's like, even if you had issues with the person, your brain is just like yeah, but I'm sure that would be different if we were in a real relationship, like I'm sure they wouldn't cheat on me just because they, you know, did.
Speaker 1:The situation ship version of cheating on me, the second situation ship I went into I was a few years older. I was in my like early to mid I think I was like 24 maybe and it was very plain to see for me, like why we couldn't be in a relationship. But even though I like, even though I could see, like, yeah, I know that he's not in a place to be in a relationship right now, I kept telling myself like, oh, what if? Like what, if? You know what, if he gets this shit together and he can commit to me and you know, a lot of time, I self like, well, right now he can't be in a relationship. But if? What? If he, like, started going to therapy and got a better job and in a few months, like maybe he could be in a relationship.
Speaker 1:You know, I didn't really hold on to him as long as I did the first situation ship in college, but I did do the whole on and off thing a little bit and there would be like a few months where we wouldn't talk and then we would start talking again and you know, he'd kind of come back into my life and I would kind of get my hopes up of like oh, maybe things have changed on his end. But I kind of had to learn to like start taking it at face value and stop daydreaming and just be like he is not changing or at least he's not changing at the speed that you want him or need him to, because you are someone who is looking for a real relationship. You don't want to just sit around waiting for him to change. But I will say, with this situation, once I decided I was done, I was very done. Once I was like you know what, I'm not going to text him, I'm not going to talk to him. And then at one point he texted me and I basically just said to him I can't talk to you. You know what I want. You know that I want a relationship. I know that you can't give that to me and I really just need some space. I can't talk to you anymore and that was one of the last times I ever talked to him and it felt really good to stand up for myself and to be like, hey, I'm not going to just keep texting you and be this emotional support person in your life when you know that I want a relationship with you and I know that you can't give me that.
Speaker 1:So my third situation I even more so was giving myself tough love and saying, okay, you've been through this before, don't wallow, don't go into the what ifs or the daydreaming of what could possibly be. Just move on and make room in your heart for someone new. And literally as soon as I did that, I met my boyfriend. Well, I had actually met him a year before that, but right after I was like done with that third situation ship, I moved to New York where my boyfriend was living. We got to know each other, we became friends and then we started dating. So I don't know, I love telling that.
Speaker 1:It's like I love when I talk about these three situations because it feels like I've come, I came full circle and like had so much growth from being that 19 year old who was like I don't see any, like I literally are writing in my journal after that first situation ship ended and being like I just know in my heart and my guide that that he's the right one for me. Like I just I'm just, I just feel like I shouldn't let it go. Like I just feel like I like this is right, you know to then being that like 23, 24, 25 year old who was like all right, I've been through this once before. I know I need to let him go, but it still sucks. It's still hard to then being a 28 year old who was like you know what I need to finally choose myself and when I'm done, I'm done.
Speaker 1:Like that third situation ship, I like, as soon as I decided in my mind that I was over it, I just I moved on and it was still hard. But I think again, it sounds annoying, but it's like practice makes perfect, like after you've been through a few situations, you are kind of like you know what. I've done this before. I know what needs to be done. I need to cut them off.
Speaker 1:And I will also say the third situation ship we had the most communication and then, like we had like the big talk that you would typically have like during an actual breakup and that was the first time I had experienced that with a situation ship and it was actually really helpful for me. Like I felt like I was no longer trying to ignore or suppress anything that might have been going wrong. I was like I was no longer trying to pretend that I was okay with not being in a relationship. I was like no, here's some things that I'm upset about. I'm going to talk to you about it and I really feel like I would be willing to try to make this work as a real relationship. And it seems like you're not willing to do that. And then he said his piece and it was like we both actually got, I think, a lot of closure because we had a real conversation with each other and we both kind of came to the agreement that we should stop seeing each other. So I would definitely recommend that. I know it sounds scary, like nobody likes breaking up. You know like you don't want to have to confront the issue or talk about it or face potential rejection. Like it still is really valuable for you to like have a real last conversation with the person and I think it helps with closure.
Speaker 1:So, with that being said, I wanted to give some like do's and don'ts for you. Whether you just ended the situation ship or you are like trying to get the courage up to end one, or you kind of sometimes you can kind of like feel the ending coming, if you know what I mean. Like sometimes you're like in a situation ship and you're like I feel like any day now he's going to end it. So if any of those situations are you, or if you're just wanting this information for the future, if you ever get into another situation ship even though you shouldn't, because, again, you should make this the year of no more situations Okay, I'm rambling now. Here are some do's and don'ts for you. So do go, no contact.
Speaker 1:I definitely recommend just taking at least some time to not talk at all to your situation ship after you all break up. Zero communication does so much in terms of helping you move on and also helping you reflect. I feel like every breakup and situation ship breakup that I've been through, I've journaled a lot afterwards and even just in journaling and like writing things out, I'm always like, oh, wow, like this makes more sense now. But, yeah, if you are ending a situation ship, I would recommend you go no contact and sometimes you have to set a boundary, so don't think Again. If you're doing like an actual talk conversation with them, like I recommended a minute ago, I would put into that conversation like hey, if we're ending this, I am going to need some time to not talk to you, so I would appreciate if you do not text me. I will text you when I'm ready. I've said something along those lines before and that really helped me feel like I was in control and feel like I had the power to be like when I'm ready to reach out to you, I will reach out to you. Maybe that will be in a few weeks, maybe that will be in a few months, or maybe it will literally be never and will never talk to each other again. And you deserve that right to choose when you talk to the person, right? So then if you break up and then they text you, you can kind of remind them of like hey, you know, you can either say to them like remember, I set that boundary, I don't want to talk to you, or you can just not respond because you know that you've already set that boundary with them.
Speaker 1:So I mentioned journaling a second ago, but my second do for ending a situation ship, or after you've ended a situation ship, is journaling. I feel like you should just write down all of the reasons why it didn't work and all of the bad things, because, like I said at the beginning of this episode, it's really easy to focus on the good things. So, like remind yourself, like all of the little things that kind of bothered you about this person, all of the reasons why you felt like hesitant or like I don't know, maybe this wouldn't be a good relationship. Like write all of those down. Don't get too stuck on the good memories or on their good qualities. Remind yourself why they sucked. Basically remind yourself why they sucked and why you needed to move on, because there are always reasons like I really am a firm believer in the fact that if it's meant to be, it will turn into a relationship and if it didn't turn into a relationship, I feel like there's a reason for that. Don't be like 19 year old Shelly writing in her journal about how you're in love and you know this is the right person for you and blah, blah. Like remind yourself that actually he kind of sucked sometimes. Like there were things that I really did not like.
Speaker 1:And my third do is focus on self love and hobbies or interests that you've been putting off, I feel like, even when it's not a real relationship, even when it's just a situation ship, a lot of times our mind like clings on to the possibility of a new relationship as like almost a hobby or like as something to think about. Like when we are in situations ships, we tend to let it take up a lot of time and energy, like more than it should be considered. It's not a real relationship, right? So yeah, now that you have left that situation ship, use your free time like now you don't have that time that you're spending texting the person or thinking about the person or going out with the person or hanging out with the person or whatever like use that time to try some new hobbies you've been wanting to try. I actually really recommend focusing on some creative or just like personal hobbies or interests or projects that you've been wanting to do. So, like I don't know, say this is just the first example that popped into my head, probably because I post on Tiktok but like say you've been really thinking like you would enjoy making Tiktok videos or making a YouTube account, but it's just something you've never tried. Or like you just didn't have time before. Like, instead of wasting your time talking about or thinking about or talking to someone who doesn't want to be in relationship with you, put that new free time into starting your Tiktok account or creating more videos that you've already been posting, or starting your YouTube account or starting a podcast, like you know. So those are my three do's, which were go no contact journal and focus on self love and new hobbies for yourself.
Speaker 1:So my don'ts are don't try to stay friends. Okay, you were never really friends to begin with. You know, maybe, maybe you were friends, but like, even if you were, if, even if your situation ship started out as a friendship, or maybe, like you were all in the same friend group and then that turned into a situation ship with one of the people in the friend group, which is what happened with my second relationship it's still never in your best interest to remain friends after ending a situation ship. Like. I Really feel like the only reason to stay friends with someone when you break up is if, if you were in like, a really long-term Relationship or marriage maybe, like I have a friend, my friend Rowan, who was actually on my podcast With their partner you know, rowan still friends with their ex-spouse, but that they had a very like, long term and loving relationship and they'd still genuinely love each other as people. You know it just didn't work out like romantically.
Speaker 1:I feel like with situations that's usually not the case. If you have that much love and respect for someone, you would probably be in a relationship with them and, like I said, I feel like there's always a reason why it's just a situation ship and usually that reason has something to do with an incompat, incompatibility or something that is like Causing you to not be in a relationship. Anyway, don't try to be friends best rule of thumb that I can think of. My second don't for you is don't retaliate or do anything petty. I know it can be really tempting, but I feel like it never really helps. It never actually makes you feel better. The worst crime that this person did really was not want to be in a relationship with you and that's not a crime like. It does suck and it does hurt our feelings. But don't retaliate. Don't post some tick-tock video about what a shitty person that they are like it's just it's not actually gonna make you heal and move on, so I just feel like you should skip it.
Speaker 1:Then my last don't is don't jump right back into another relationship or situation ship. Obviously, sometimes you can't control this. Like I said earlier, I started dating my boyfriend pretty soon after my final situation ship ended, and and I think the reason why that worked was because I had had those two previous situations ships and so, like I said, when this one ended, I was like I am done, I know my worth, I know what I want, and then what I wanted literally Appeared in my life and it was my boyfriend, you know. But I feel like most of the time, it's just good to give yourself some time To just like focus on yourself and do the things that I mentioned before of like Doing things that you haven't been doing, that you really want to, or just focusing on self-care, mental health. Maybe start going to therapy if you haven't yet, or if you've taken a break from it, like try therapy again, do different things that are good for your own personal growth, instead of just immediately Focusing your attention on another person.
Speaker 1:And, yeah, also, I just think it's important to give yourself time to kind of mourn that the ending of that situation ship. Because even though I've kind of given it some shit and I talk about situations ships like oh, it's not a real relationship. You know, we both know that they are still hard to get over. Like I talked about, I had a really hard time getting over my situation ships. So give yourself that time to mourn and Do some journaling. Talk about it in therapy.
Speaker 1:Don't feel embarrassed to talk about with your friends. I feel like sometimes you can feel embarrassed of like well, it wasn't a real relationship or like well, one of my friends just went through a breakup with someone she was with for five years and like what I'm going through doesn't, doesn't compare, it's like no, if your friends are good friends, they still want to hear difficult things you're going through. So I Guess that should actually be a fourth don't don't compare yourself to other people. Don't compare your pain to other people. Yeah, just overall, like distracting yourself with a new situation ship can be very tempting, right, but I feel like it kind of only prolongs you actually healing and moving on, because in some, in some instances at least, diving straight into a new relationship or situation ship can be a form of distraction or Dissociating or just like not fully processing what you've been through. So I hope those do's and don'ts were helpful.
Speaker 1:I just have a few more things I wanted to touch on in this episode. Remember that your emotions are valid and, like I was just saying, like, just because this wasn't a real relationship quote-unquote Doesn't mean that it's not still painful or it didn't mean something to you and it's still a grieving process to get over any kind of breakup, no matter if it was a a committed, monogamous relationship or if it was a Situation ship. You know, like something that my therapist told me years and years ago was that she was like you're going through a loss, like you're grieving. When I went through a breakup and I was like I had never thought of a breakup as grief, but it really is and depending on how emotionally attached or deep you got with your situation, it can really feel like a loss and it can really feel like a grieving process. So allow yourself to have that and know that that's valid. Don't discount what you've been through and start noticing if you find yourself downplaying it or saying things like well, like we weren't even really together or like it wasn't like a real relationship, because that's just your brain's way of trying to kind of trick you into not really truly feeling your feelings, or it's also your brain's way of like trying to make you feel like your emotions aren't valid. So I'm here to tell you your emotions are valid. If it's taking you a long time to get over a situation ship, that's okay. Try the steps and the advice that I gave in this podcast episode and hopefully it'll be helpful.
Speaker 1:Last thing my boyfriend always makes fun of me because he says I'll say like oh, can I say one more thing? Or like, oh, just one more thing. And he's like, is it actually one more thing? Because I have ADHD. So I will often be like, oh, yeah, one more thing. And then I go on a tangent for five minutes. You know this is really the last thing of this episode, but I think it's really important.
Speaker 1:Which is one of the most impactful things you can do is give yourself space and time to heal. So it might take longer than you think, and that's okay. Just remind yourself it's okay. It's going to take as long as it takes. You know, like I said, my first situation ship took me a few years to get over.
Speaker 1:You know, and I at times felt very frustrated with myself, with this situation. I felt like, why am I still thinking about this guy? Why am I not over him yet? But that doing all that like wondering like why, or being mean to myself, being hard on myself, didn't help. You know, you can't rush yourself or shame yourself into getting over someone. So when you really take the time to heal and process what happened, you can really you allow yourself the space to, like, reflect on the lessons you've learned and you can think about what you might want to do differently in the future. You can think about things you feel like you've done wrong or things you might want to do differently, without shaming yourself or rushing yourself into trying, like trying to force yourself to be over something if you're not over it.
Speaker 1:So I hope you enjoyed this episode. I know this episode would have been so helpful for me when I was going through some situation ship breakups in my past. So that's what I hope it can be for you and I am excited to continue releasing more episodes in 2024. And yeah, thank you for being here. If you enjoyed this episode, please share it with someone you think would enjoy it and don't forget to subscribe, rate and review the podcast so it can reach other people who need it. Follow us on Instagram and TikTok at Situationship2Soulmate. See you next time.
