READ THIS IF YOU'RE STUCK IN A SITUATIONSHIP

warning: tough love

I recently posted an Instagram story asking folks what they want advice on for my podcast, Can I Say Something, with my cohost-best-friend Madeline. And I was so heartbroken to see that around half of the responses were from people stuck in a situationship who wanted more. And listen, I’ve been there. The trenches. And when you’re young, in your teenage years, in college, I get it. Those phases are destabilizing and messy. They're supposed to be!

But here's what's making me nervous: I'm in my mid-twenties now, surrounded by what should be fully-functioning adults – people with 401ks and rent payments and strong opinions about air fryers – and I'm watching them act like they're still passing notes in high school asking, "Do you like me? Circle yes or no." My friends and peers who have their lives together in every other way are accepting emotional breadcrumbs like they're starving.

Enter: tough love.

You are not a better person because you suffer.

Let me say that again: Your capacity to endure emotional breadcrumbs doesn't make you deeper, more evolved, or more worthy of love. You've unconsciously woven your suffering into the fabric of your identity. It's become your go-to conversation starter, your default mood, your comfortable emotional baseline. When someone asks, "What's new?" your heart immediately jumps to them, to the latest development in your ongoing saga of almost-love. You've become the friend in the situationship.

And yeah, your friends will keep listening (I hope) because they love you. They'll sit with you through the hundredth retelling, they'll analyze the confusing texts with you. But you're ignoring the one brutal truth staring you in the face: the person not committing to you doesn't want you. Not enough. Not in the way you want them. Not in the way you deserve.

And yes, there's a perverse comfort in familiar pain. Suffering becomes our most intimate landscape, a twisted geography of predictability where trauma feels like home. Familiar pain feels like home, even when that home is a rundown emotional shelter that barely protects us. We'd rather replay old wounds than risk the unknown terrain of genuine healing, mistaking our trauma bonds for depth and our repeated heartbreaks for some profound understanding of love.

Here's what you need to do:

1. Emotional quarantine. Separate yourself from them. Physically, digitally, emotionally. No more following their friends' accounts, no more strategic appearances at their favorite bars. Why? Because every point of contact resets your healing clock to zero. Your brain is literally addicted to the dopamine hits of their potential attention. You need to go through withdrawal to reset your neural pathways.

2. Redirect your fantasies. When you lay in bed fantasizing about them, force yourself to think about someone else. Anyone else. Your future self. Your goals. That cute barista. I don't care. Actively rewire your reward system. Your brain has created a groove, like a record needle stuck in the same track. You need to physically carve new pathways.

3. Stop keeping your wounds fresh. Delete the screenshots. Stop analyzing their likes. Quit the detective work. You have to stop being the archaeologist of your own disappointment. Every time you scroll back through old conversations, you're reinforcing neural pathways of pain.

4. Unpack the narratives you tell yourself. This is where the real work begins. Dig deep into the stories you've been telling yourself – those quiet whispers that keep you stuck, the internal dialogues that justify your continued suffering. More on this below.

5. Reparent yourself. This is the big one. Give yourself the validation you're seeking from them. Learn to sit with uncertainty without turning it into content. Your inner child is screaming for attention – but you're the adult now. Act like it.

In our careers, we tell ourselves stories about why we're stuck: "I'm not ready for that promotion yet," or "Someone like me doesn't get opportunities like that," or "I need three more years of experience before I can even think about applying." We build entire identities around being the underdog, the overlooked one, the person who has to work twice as hard for half as much. And sure, sometimes these stories have kernels of truth – systemic barriers are real – but often, they're just comfortable excuses that keep us safely in our comfort zones.

In friendships, we craft narratives about being the reliable one, the therapist friend, the one who's always there for others but never needs anything in return. We wear these labels like armor, telling ourselves it's noble to be the emotional support beam for everyone else's lives. But underneath that story might be a deeper truth: maybe we're afraid that if we stop being the helpful one, the caring one, the always-available one, people won't stick around. Maybe we're using our supporting role in others' lives to avoid starring in our own.

And in relationships? Oh, the stories we tell ourselves here are epic novels. We're the patient one, waiting for them to be ready. We're the understanding one, accepting their emotional unavailability. We're the deep one, feeling everything so intensely. We tell ourselves that our ability to endure uncertainty is a sign of emotional depth, that our willingness to accept crumbs means we understand love better than others. We convince ourselves that suffering for love makes us protagonists in some great romance, rather than acknowledging we might be extras in someone else's casual dating life.

These narratives become self-fulfilling prophecies. The more we identify as the person who's always overlooked at work, the less likely we are to put ourselves forward for opportunities. The more we lean into being the friend who never needs support, the harder it becomes to ask for help when we're drowning. The more we embrace the role of the patient, understanding almost-partner, the longer we stay in situations that don't serve us.

But the thing about stories: we can edit them. We can rewrite them. We can put down the pen on one narrative and start fresh with another. You're not locked into being the friend who's always the last person invited, the employee who's always passed over, the person who's always waiting for someone to choose them. You can write yourself a new role. You can tell yourself a new story.

Listen to me.

You're not a moth destined to circle a flame that will never warm you.

You're not a supporting character in someone else's story. You're not defined by your attachment style or your trauma or your longing. These are just narratives you've accepted because they feel familiar, but familiar doesn't mean good.

Life doesn't automatically turn out well because you're a good person. It gets good when you go after what you want.

The universe isn't conspiring against you. But it's also not going to hand you everything you want on a silver platter.

Stop dating people who hate you. Stop turning your anxiety into aesthetic. Stop waiting for a relationship to save you from the work of becoming.

Your suffering doesn't make you special. Your healing might.

Now get up. Walk out of the waiting room. There's a whole world of possibility waiting for you on the other side of your almost-love story. And trust me – it's so much better than the shrine you've built to what could have been.