The Most Heartbreaking Part Of A Situationship Is All The What-Ifs

The most heartbreaking part of a situationship is that you will find yourself asking “what if?” throughout the entire love-shaped affair. Everything will feel uncertain and that is because everything absolutely is. After all, when you are in a situationship, you know they do not owe you anything, not really. This includes loyalty, a future, a chance, or closure when it finally falls apart.

But still. You stay anyway. Because there is just so much damn potential. There is hope. There is something there, even if you two have not defined it yet. But you feel that unnamed something and you have to believe they do, too. And so, you want to wait and see what happens.

And while you are waiting, you begin to get lost in your mind asking, “What if?”

What if it turns out to be something wonderful? What if it becomes love? What if they are The One? What if they just need a little more time to fall? What if I failed to give them that time they needed and I miss out on the best relationship of my life because I was too afraid?

But then again, what if this is all a waste of time? What if they are not as into this as I am? What if they leave? What if they are not the person I think they are? What if…

It will be exhausting. And when the situationship ends, which it always will, you will still be asking yourself what if. You will constantly be wondering if you could have done things differently, and if those things would have made them stay and want you the way you wanted them.

What if it really was just bad timing for them? What if I met them six months from now? Or in three years? Or next week? What if I did not call back so soon? What if I played harder to get? What if I waited longer between text replies, what if I showed them that I could have anyone else but I wanted them anyway? What if I was enough for them? What if they come back and I do not want them anymore? What If I do?

It is the what-ifs that will break your heart the most. The false hope. The could-have-beens. The empty promises. The wasted potential. You tell yourself that you could have been great together. You could have been love. You could have been forever. But instead, you ended up becoming nothing at all.

And you have no evidence that you had something together. No anniversary date. Zero Instagram posts. You are not even sure if their friends knew you existed. All you are left with is what-ifs and question marks and an ache you do not believe you should be feeling at all. It almost feels foolish that you felt something so deeply for someone who was never truly yours at all.

But when all you are left with is what-ifs, you can lean into what-is instead: you fell for someone who was not there to catch you. And that is okay. You can call it what it is, what it was, and what it will be. And even if you do not have an official breakup date because you were never defined, the proof is in the heartbreak. Name the pain so you can own it and move past it. You can say that you had something ephemeral and undefined with someone and it was still beautiful. You can say it was real, because it was, even if it was only real for you. And that matters. That counts.