Situationships: Why You’re Stuck and How to Break Free

Your situation has all the hallmarks of a relationship – you make time to see each other, you enjoy physical and emotional intimacy, and you’re not seeing anyone else… but you can’t call it a relationship. You might be feeling confused, anxious, and wondering: “what are we?“. If this all sounds familiar, you might be in a situationship.

A situationship happens when you feel like you’re in a relationship but there’s no shared future plans, clarity, or understanding of what to call it. You’re not their partner, but you’re not single either – and you’ve been dating for long enough that the connection is well established.

This article explores more about what situationships are, why they can be so difficult to leave, and how your attachment dynamics and the modern dating environment can keep you stuck in relationship limbo.

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Key Points:

• Situationships are undefined romantic/sexual connections characterized by uncertainty, avoided conversations, and lack of future planning.
• The anxious-avoidant attachment dynamic often keeps people stuck in situationships.
• Situationships can be hard to leave for psychological, neurobiological, and cognitive reasons.
• Situationships can turn into relationships, but only if both partners are ready to commit.
• A partner not being ready to commit does not mean you’re not good enough.
• Ending a situationship requires recognizing your needs, communicating clearly, and looking after yourself the way you would after any break up.

What Is a Situationship?

A situationship is a romantic or sexual relationship that doesn’t have clear labels, commitment, or shared direction. It’s more than casual dating, but not yet a defined partnership. An American study which interviewed and collected questionnaire responses about situationships came up with the following definition:

“A situationship is a relationship with someone in which there is a romantic connection, often involving time spent together, affection, and sexual behaviors, but no clarity or label.”¹

This study also highlighted that situationships involve low or fluctuating commitment and can sometimes be one-sided, where one partner wants more commitment than the other. They also sometimes arise from circumstance, such as going long distance, and levels of integrating the relationship into your personal life can vary.

Situationships are not inherently bad – sometimes a relationship with intimacy but without commitment is what somebody is looking for, and some situationships are entered with a clear understanding that that will be the dynamic. The problem arises when one partner wants the relationship to progress and the other doesn’t, which can lead to anxiety and emotional distress when communication breaks down.¹

5 Signs You’re in a Situationship

Researchers analyzed the way people spoke about relationships vs. situations from beginning to end – how they’re formed, how they’re maintained, and how they end.¹ They found some similarities and some differences in each situation. We’ve highlighted a few of the results below:

When you’re in the middle of a situationship, you might notice the following signs:

• You’re emotionally intimate, e.g. you tell each other “I love you”, but you haven’t labelled your relationship or you’re still just “dating”.
• You or your partner avoid the “what are we?” discussion.
• You spend lots of time together in the present but don’t seem to be able to make plans for the future.
• You often feel jealous or doubt the relationship because there’s no commitment.
• One of you wants more from the relationship than the other.

Situationship vs dating

It can be hard to tell whether you’re in a situationship or just dating because the two can be quite similar. In the early stages of dating, it’s reasonable not to expect exclusivity or future plans while also investing time and energy into each other and building intimacy.

There’s no set timeline for when dating should become a relationship – each relationship is different, and some people prefer to move at a slower pace for a variety of reasons. However, if you start to feel like you want more than the other person is able to give, but you both continue to engage in your current relationship dynamic, you might find that you’re moving into situationship territory.

Why Situationships Feel So Hard to End

If you feel like you’re stuck in a situationship you can’t walk away from, you’re not alone. Ending a situationship can be particularly difficult for some people, depending on your attachment style, your internal working model, and even your brain chemistry.

Situationships and Attachment Styles

If you have an anxious attachment style, you might be more likely to hold on to relationships that aren’t stable. Instead of feeling put off by a partner’s disinterest, you might feel an intense need to regain their attention. When your partner pulls away, you can experience high emotions that drive you to pull them back in – sometimes leading you to act in ways you usually wouldn’t, such as calling them repeatedly when they’re out.

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Your partner might be more likely to pull away if they have an avoidant attachment style. People with high avoidance typically avoid commitment in relationships, and might be more likely to pull away when they feel commitment coming. If one of you is avoidant and the other anxious, you might enter a push-pull dynamic that feels confusing and exhausting for both of you. High avoidance in one or both of you could be more likely to lead to a situationship.

The Dopamine Loop

When we’re reminded of our romantic partners, the reward areas of our brains light up with dopamine.² This feels good and drives us to look for more of the rewarding experience – in this case, contact with your situationship. The more you get this reward, the stronger the brain pathways become, leading you to seek more and more of the reward.

Intermittent rewards can be the most impactful, so inconsistency in your situationship can lead you to develop even stronger dopamine responses to your partner. Some people naturally have more sensitive dopamine systems, also making them more susceptible to stronger dopamine responses.

The Exception Fantasy

We can also get stuck in a situationship when we think we might be the exception – this is easy to convince ourselves of, but rarely the case. If you already have an internal working model of others as unreliable and love as something that needs to be earned, such as in the anxious attachment style, you might be more susceptible to believing you’ll be the exception if you just make them like you enough.

The reality is that, if someone doesn’t want to be in a committed relationship, their core values and current needs are unlikely to change just because they like you a lot.

The Hidden Psychology of Situationships

Situationships are often difficult to end because of our psychology. So what else is going on under the surface?

Sternberg’s Triangular Theory of Love

According to psychologist Robert Sternberg, love is composed of 3 things:³

Intimacy: feelings of closeness.

Passion: physical attraction and desire.

Commitment: choices to remain with someone and a sense of shared direction.

Relationships can have varying degrees of intimacy, passion, and commitment at any given time – so it’s suggested that situationships are love with high intimacy and passion but low commitment.¹ Sternberg suggests that romantic love evolves as passion declines and commitment increases, so if commitment does not increase, romantic love is stagnant.

Are You in Love or Limerence?

A doctoral dissertation found that, even though fear of abandonment and cognitive distortions were equal between people in a relationship and people in a situationship, people in situationships tended to have higher limerence.⁴

Limerence is a state of infatuation, characterized by obsessive thoughts, dependent mood, and a craving for reciprocation from the other person. Instead of healthy, stable love that develops over time, it develops quickly and induces intense emotions – negative and positive. Limerence tends to fade once certainty is established, so it makes sense that the uncertain nature of a situationship could provide fertile ground for limerence to thrive.

Cognitive Differences in Certainty Tolerance

Some people are uncertainty-oriented – if this is you, you are curious and you seek new information when faced with uncertainty. Others are certainty-oriented – if this is you, you prefer to stick with what you know and look for information that confirms existing beliefs to resolve uncertainty.

Situationships are inherently uncertain. One study found that certainty-oriented partners need either high or low trust in their partners – they needed to know either way whether they could trust them or not, and found relationships the most uncomfortable when trust was somewhere in the middle.⁵ Uncertainty-oriented partners, on the other hand, typically had a moderate level of trust in their partners.

Situationships could appeal to certainty-oriented and uncertainty-oriented people for different reasons – certainty-oriented partners might gravitate toward situations that are already defined by low trust and commitment, while uncertainty-oriented partners might feel more comfortable exploring these undefined relationships.

Can a Situationship Turn Into a Relationship?

Some situationships do turn into relationships, if both partners want to commit. The only way to establish commitment is to have the difficult conversations, and one of you will have to be in the vulnerable position of expressing a desire to commit to the relationship first.

By assigning a label to the relationship – even if it’s not “partner”, “girlfriend”, or “boyfriend” yet – you reduce uncertainty and gain a clearer idea of where you are and where you’re going. You don’t have to approach your partner with an ultimatum, just a clear idea of the certainty you need and what might help you get it.

That said, you can’t make someone commit to a relationship if they’re not ready to. If someone’s not ready to commit to you, it doesn’t mean that you’re not good enough or that they don’t like you enough. People have lots of different reasons for not wanting to commit, such as their own healing journey, life stage, or just their preference in relationships, and these remain true no matter how great a potential partner is.

It does hurt to be the only one who’s ready to commit, but as long as you’ve both communicated what you want, you’ve done the right thing. It’s okay to take time to think about what you want to do next, but if you know you can’t continue in an uncommitted relationship, it might be time to end the situationship.

How to End a Situationship

Ending a situationship can be just as difficult as ending a relationship, especially if you personally felt a sense of high commitment as well as passion and intimacy. Situationships generally fizzle out, but communicating your needs, boundaries, and desire to leave gives both of you a sense of closure.

Recognizing It’s Time to Leave

If you’ve expressed a need for more commitment and your situationship partner isn’t on the same page, it might be time to break it off. You might decide that you can wait for them to be ready, but if you feel anxious, uncomfortable, and stressed in the meantime, you owe it to yourself to be honest about what you need – especially if your partner has expressed no desire to commit in the future.

How to Break It Off

Even though ghosting can feel easier, directly communicating your feelings is the best way to establish certainty and clarity about the break up. Just because your partner isn’t ready to commit, doesn’t mean they won’t have feelings about the situationship ending – gently let them know that the relationship isn’t giving you what you need, and remember that you don’t need their agreement or permission to move forward with this decision.

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How to Get Over a Situationship Without Closure

It can be difficult to feel a sense of closure when nothing in particular happened to end the relationship, it was just a difference in wants and needs. Remember that all the normal break up feelings are valid, even if you didn’t have a relationship label – you felt the same feelings and experienced the same attachment as if you were in a labelled relationship.

All the same advice regarding break ups applies: look after yourself, turn to your support network, invest time and energy in hobbies and friends, and take any space you might need to separate yourself from the other person.

Getting over any relationship – even a situationship – takes time. Don’t be hard on yourself when you’re not getting over a situationship as quickly as you want to.

Why Do I Keep Ending Up in Situationships?

If you’re stuck in a pattern of situationships, your attachment style could be behind it. Attachment anxiety could lead you to seek uncertain situations that feel familiar, while attachment avoidance couold lead you to consistently enter relationships without feeling ready to commit.

If you do have an insecure attachment style, you don’t have to be stuck in situationships forever – earned attachment security is possible, but it does take time, effort, and – importantly – positive attachment experiences. Staying in a situationship characterized by uncertainty or anxiety can make it difficult to work on your own attachment security.

Conclusion

Situationships aren’t always a bad thing – sometimes we’re not ready to commit, but we want the company and intimacy of a relationship. If both people are on the same page, there’s no problem. However, situationships become particularly difficult when one partner wants more than the other.

Situationships do sometimes progress into relationships, but not always. If you communicate with your partner and they’re not ready to commit, it might be time to walk away.

If you find yourself consistently stuck in situationships, it could be to do with your attachment style. Take our attachment style quiz to find out whether attachment anxiety or avoidance could be playing into your relationships and begin learning how to have more secure attachments.

FAQs About Situationships

Q: What’s the difference between a situationship and casual dating?

When you’re casually dating, you’re still building intimacy and a connection, which usually leads to commitment. If intimacy and passion have been built but commitment has not increased, you may be in a situationship.

Q: Are situationships bad?

Situationships aren’t inherently bad, but a lack of communication – especially where one partner wants more than the other – can make situationships difficult and emotionally draining.

Q: How long do situationships usually last?

Situationships can last any length of time, from weeks to years.

Q: How do you get over a situationship without closure?

Closure is something you give yourself, not something someone else can give to you. Recognize what you’ve learned from the situationship and look after yourself, with the understanding that your feelings about a situationship ending are just as valid as if it were a labelled relationship.

Q: Do situationships come back?

Situationships sometimes come back, but this is highly dependent on the individuals and their relationship and you can’t make someone commit before they’re ready. People have lots of different reasons for not wanting to commit and it doesn’t mean that you aren’t good enough.

Q: Why are situationships so painful?

Situationships are particularly painful when you want more commitment than the other person. This can induce feelings of rejection, anxiety, and confusion.

References

1. Langlais MR, Podberesky A, Toohey L, Lee CT. Defining and describing situationships: An exploratory investigation. Sexuality & Culture. 2024 Aug;28(4):1831-57.
2. Takahashi K, Mizuno K, Sasaki AT, Wada Y, Tanaka M, Ishii A, Tajima K, Tsuyuguchi N, Watanabe K, Zeki S, Watanabe Y. Imaging the passionate stage of romantic love by dopamine dynamics. Frontiers in Human Neuroscience. 2015 Apr 9;9:191.
3. Sorokowski P, Sorokowska A, Karwowski M, Groyecka A, Aavik T, Akello G, Alm C, Amjad N, Anjum A, Asao K, Atama CS. Universality of the triangular theory of love: Adaptation and psychometric properties of the triangular love scale in 25 countries. The Journal of Sex Research. 2021 Jan 2;58(1):106-15.
4. Munib-Ur-Rehman M. Fear of Abandonment, Interpersonal Cognitive Distortions, and Limerence (Doctoral dissertation, Forman Christian College).
5. Sorrentino RM, Holmes JG, Hanna SE, Sharp A. Uncertainty orientation and trust in close relationships: individual differences in cognitive styles. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. 1995 Feb;68(2):314.