How to Get Over a Situationship: The First Weeks
Getting over a situationship starts with the gap it leaves: the time a message used to arrive, the reflex to check your phone. In a lab study, distraction lifted mood but left feelings for the person unchanged. Give the gap a few minutes a day and write down exactly what you miss.
Most situationships do not end on a particular day. There is no conversation, nobody hands back a key, and hardly anyone asks how you are holding up. The messages thin out until one morning there is nothing, and your thumb still opens the chat out of habit.
Why does a situationship hurt so much when you weren't even dating?
A breakup usually has a sentence that ends it. A situationship tends to fade instead, so it rarely feels like an ending, and you keep watching for a sign that it isn't one. A year after ending a two-year situationship, one person in r/Situationships wrote: "I'm still constantly thinking about him."
The gap is widest wherever this person had a fixed place in your routine, the good-morning text or the voice note on the way home. I write about why this grief is rarely taken seriously in grieving someone who was never officially yours.
Why can't I stop thinking about them?
The gym, plans every day, a full calendar: almost everyone hears this advice. It helps while you are busy, and once things slow down, the thoughts are often right back. Pushing the thoughts away works even less well. Wegner et al. (1987) asked people not to think of a white bear for five minutes, and they could not do it.
Later, when allowed to think about the bear, they thought about it more often than people who had been free to from the start. The study is old and about a bear, not love, but I find the principle useful: what you push away tends to come back.
What helps in the first weeks after a situationship?
Lieberman et al. (2007) showed in a brain scanner that putting a feeling into words dampened the amygdala's response to negative images. That is a good reason to be precise when you write. "I feel awful" gives you little to work with. "I miss the message that used to come before work" gives you something to look at.
Should you go no contact after a situationship?
Instead of a strict rule, try three small habits. Write the message you want to send in your journal and leave it there for a day. Note the times of day when the gap is strongest, because those are the hours that need a plan. And if you keep running into each other, write two sentences after each encounter.
If this person keeps resurfacing just as things settle, the situationship hope cycle looks at why each return is so hard to resist.
Seven days to start with
Early on it is hard to tell whether you miss this person or what it might have become, and the question "what if" comes up anyway. You might as well give it a fixed place and think it through there, one question at a time, instead of letting it run all day.
If you would rather see where you stand first, the free Check-in is a better start: four questions, then the journal that fits your situation, and the mini-journal "Before you hit send" by email.
Frequently asked questions
How long does it take to get over a situationship?
There is no documented timeline. It depends on how much room this person had in your days and whether you still see each other. A better measure than a date is whether the gap shrinks week by week.
Is distraction bad when you are trying to get over someone?
No. In Langeslag and Sanchez (2018) it lifted people's mood, which has value. It just did not change their feelings for the person.
Is it normal to grieve a situationship?
Yes. Attachment does not wait for a label, and the loss is real even when few people acknowledge it. Why your feelings in a situationship are real goes deeper.
When is a journal not enough?
If for weeks you barely sleep, cannot manage daily life or see no way out, talk to your doctor. A journal is a tool for clarity, not a replacement for therapy.
Sources
- Langeslag, S.J.E. and Sanchez, M.E. (2018). Down-regulation of love feelings after a romantic break-up: Self-report and electrophysiological data. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 147(5), 720–733. pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/28857575 (retrieved 14 October 2026)
- Wegner, D.M., Schneider, D.J., Carter, S.R. and White, T.L. (1987). Paradoxical effects of thought suppression. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 53(1), 5–13. pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/3612492 (retrieved 14 October 2026)
- Lieberman, M.D., Eisenberger, N.I., Crockett, M.J., Tom, S.M., Pfeifer, J.H. and Way, B.M. (2007). Putting feelings into words: affect labeling disrupts amygdala activity in response to affective stimuli. Psychological Science, 18(5), 421–428. pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/17576282 (retrieved 14 October 2026)
Simone Pleifer, MSc
Simone Pleifer, MSc, is the founder of Journals by Simone and the creator of the Emotional Clarity Journey system. She holds an MSc in Nutritional Science and has 14 years of experience in pharmaceutical clinical research. Her work bridges scientific rigour and emotional depth for people navigating secret love, situationships, and unspoken feelings. She is currently developing a supplement line to complement the ECJ system.
About Simone