0:00

Welcome to the Situation Ship to Soulmate podcast

0:02

. I'm your host , shelley mental health counseling

0:04

graduate student and trained sex and

0:06

relationship coach . I went from situationships

0:09

, bad hookups and settling for less than I

0:11

deserved to finding my soulmate . Let's

0:13

help you get there too . So

0:19

I know I'm not alone in experiencing

0:22

some pretty heartbreaking or

0:25

, at the very least , just difficult

0:28

to get over situationship

0:30

breakups . So I wanted

0:32

to talk about this today because I

0:35

feel like in general , we don't talk

0:38

about these kind of breakups enough

0:41

. We talk a lot about like breakups

0:43

that happen from long term relationships

0:45

or from official

0:48

relationships , but there's so many

0:50

people out there , myself included

0:52

, who have been through these situationship

0:54

breakups that felt just

0:57

as difficult , if not more

0:59

difficult , sometimes to get over than

1:02

an actual relationship , and

1:04

there's a few different psychological reasons

1:06

for that which I'll get into in this episode

1:08

. But yeah , I just

1:10

wanted to kind of have this episode

1:12

be a little bit

1:14

similar to the first ever episode I did , where

1:17

I share some of my own experiences

1:19

but I also give you all advice and tips

1:21

. So one of the reasons why

1:23

situationships are so hard to get over is

1:26

that we're kind of left with

1:28

a lot of like what ifs ? Or

1:30

if onlys right . So

1:32

like , when a situationship ends , it's really

1:34

easy for our mind to wander and

1:37

start wondering about like , oh well

1:39

, like if he had

1:41

been wanting a relationship , would it have worked

1:43

out ? Or like , oh , maybe in

1:45

a few months , maybe in a few years

1:47

, he will realize he wants to be

1:49

with me and we could be together

1:52

and then the relationship would be great , you know

1:54

. Or it could also be like

1:56

oh well , the reason

1:58

that we fought so much or the reason

2:00

that we had so many issues is because

2:02

we weren't in a committed relationship . But if

2:04

we were in a relationship then

2:07

we wouldn't have those issues . So , because

2:09

situationships aren't like the

2:11

same as a real , quote unquote relationship

2:14

, where maybe you're living with the

2:16

person or at the very least , you have

2:19

committed verbally to

2:21

each other . Situationships are a little bit different than that

2:23

, right , because it's usually like you don't

2:26

have that commitment piece , or

2:28

maybe you have some commitment , but it's a little

2:30

bit of a gray area and you're still

2:32

not really sure what's going on . So

2:35

I feel like , because a situation is not

2:37

like a full on committed relationship , it's

2:39

harder to get over , because it's kind

2:42

of easier to focus on the positive and focus

2:44

on like what was going well and with

2:46

that person , because you

2:48

aren't necessarily holding it to the same

2:50

high standards that you would hold a

2:53

boyfriend or a girlfriend or a partner

2:56

, a like committed partner . So

2:58

in this episode I just want to talk about a few of my

3:00

past experiences with situationship breakups

3:02

and give you some advice on

3:05

how to heal and move on from a situationship

3:07

. So I shared this on the first episode

3:10

, which I'll link in the show notes of this

3:12

episode , called stuck in situationships

3:14

, which , fun fact , has the most listens

3:17

of any of my episodes so far . So I

3:19

felt like I should bring back an element of that

3:21

in this episode . But I talked

3:23

about in that episode that I have had

3:26

like three main situationships

3:28

and I will say that by the third situationship

3:31

it was a lot . It felt a lot easier

3:33

for me to move on from it . So

3:35

if you are experiencing maybe your first ever

3:37

situationship , just know that it

3:39

sounds cheesy but practice makes perfect and

3:42

Eventually you will be able

3:44

to get over this , even if it feels like

3:46

it's taking a lot of time right now . So I'll dive

3:48

into a little bit of how

3:51

it was breaking up with situationships

3:53

for those three that I experienced

3:55

. Again . I do talk about this more in the

3:57

first episode , so if you haven't listened to that episode already

3:59

, I would definitely recommend doing

4:02

that . But yeah , my first situation

4:04

was definitely , I would say , the hardest

4:06

for me to get over or took me the longest

4:09

for me to get over . I think

4:11

a lot of that was because I was 19 years old

4:13

, which at the time I felt so

4:15

grown up . But now I'm like

4:18

, oh my god , 19 ? Like

4:20

I was a child still

4:22

, like I , yeah

4:24

, no wonder it took me a long time . I had not had

4:26

any experience with love

4:30

or lust or dating

4:32

or sex or anything . Another reason I feel like it was

4:34

so hard to get over was because I had kind of

4:36

built up in my head the

4:39

idea like the idea of

4:41

being with him had become bigger

4:43

than like the reality , if that makes sense

4:45

. So I had kind of just

4:48

built it up in my head to be something

4:50

more than it was and

4:52

I was convinced that if he just

4:55

woke up one day and decided he wanted to be in

4:57

a relationship and decided he

4:59

wanted to have a girlfriend , we

5:03

would start dating , we would be madly in

5:05

love , we would get married . Like

5:08

I was like this 19 year old

5:10

with just these you know , grand

5:12

like fairy tale , like you

5:15

know views on love . Oh

5:17

, one day he might just wake up and realize

5:20

he wants to be with me . I

5:22

really had no evidence against this

5:24

theory , partially because I didn't

5:26

really have much dating experience

5:28

, so I hadn't experienced that . You

5:31

know , I didn't have the experience to know , like , hey

5:34

, like when a guy tells you he

5:36

doesn't want a girlfriend

5:38

, what he's really saying is he

5:41

just doesn't really like you enough to make

5:43

you his girlfriend . I

5:45

didn't know that yet , right , and

5:47

so I kind of just

5:50

yeah , I had no reason to , I

5:52

had no reason to not believe that my

5:54

idealized version of what

5:56

I thought would happen wouldn't happen . So

5:59

I was like devastated when he originally

6:01

told me like I don't want to be

6:03

in a relationship , I can't be in a relationship

6:05

right now , whatever . But

6:07

I think that I it

6:09

took me longer to truly get over him because

6:11

I was still holding on to hope instead of just being

6:14

like , all right , he doesn't want to

6:16

be with me . Moving on to the next one , I

6:18

basically like prolonged my heartbreak

6:21

in a way , because I was like continuing

6:25

to think about him and wonder what

6:27

if and hope that I would run into him

6:29

at a party and everything would change . You know , the

6:32

thing with situationships is that you you

6:34

didn't get the chance to actually experience being

6:36

in a relationship with that person , so

6:39

you didn't like , you didn't

6:41

get to see that relationship

6:44

play out , so you don't really have

6:46

any real experience with , like , how that person is

6:48

in a relationship . The other reason why I think that this

6:50

first situation ship was hard for me to get over

6:52

is because I didn't really have anything

6:54

to point to , to be like . That

6:57

is why it didn't work , because

6:59

it had been like , stopped

7:01

prematurely . Basically , I was like the

7:04

only reason that we're not together is because

7:06

he doesn't want to be together . It wasn't like . Oh

7:08

yeah , we dated for months

7:11

or years and I saw

7:13

all these red flags and here's all the things that he did

7:15

wrong . Like when you go through a regular

7:17

breakup , you can basically , you

7:19

know , remind yourself like here's all these

7:21

things that this person did that were shitty

7:23

. But when it's a situation ship , it's

7:26

a lot easier to make excuses for that person

7:28

and be like well , yeah , he did that shitty

7:30

thing , but we weren't in a relationship

7:32

, like , we weren't in a relationship , so he didn't really

7:34

like owe me anything , like yeah

7:37

, I saw him kissing another girl at a party but

7:39

, like , I never told him

7:41

I wanted to be in a relationship , so you

7:44

know . So

7:46

, yeah , again , it's like , even

7:48

if you had issues with the person , your

7:51

brain is just like yeah , but I'm sure

7:53

that would be different if we were in a real relationship

7:56

, like I'm sure they wouldn't cheat on me just

7:58

because they , you know , did

8:01

. The situation ship version of cheating on me , the

8:05

second situation ship I went into I was a

8:07

few years older . I was in my like early

8:09

to mid I think I was like 24

8:12

maybe and it was

8:14

very plain to see for me , like why

8:17

we couldn't be in a relationship . But

8:21

even though I like , even though I could

8:23

see , like , yeah , I know that he's not

8:25

in a place to be in a relationship right now

8:27

, I kept telling myself like , oh

8:29

, what if ? Like what , if ? You know what

8:31

, if he gets this shit together and he can commit to me

8:33

and you know , a lot of time , I self

8:36

like , well , right now he can't be in a relationship

8:38

. But if ? What ? If he , like , started going to therapy

8:40

and got a better job and

8:42

in a few months , like maybe

8:45

he could be in a relationship . You know , I

8:48

didn't really hold on to him as long

8:50

as I did the first situation ship in college , but

8:52

I did do the whole on and off

8:55

thing a

8:57

little bit and there would be like

8:59

a few months where we wouldn't talk and

9:01

then we would start talking again and

9:05

you know , he'd kind of

9:07

come back into my life and I would kind of get my hopes

9:09

up of like oh , maybe things have

9:11

changed on his end . But

9:13

I kind of had to learn to like start taking it

9:15

at face value and stop daydreaming and just

9:17

be like he

9:20

is not changing or

9:22

at least he's not changing at the speed that

9:24

you want him or need him to , because

9:27

you are someone who is looking for a real relationship

9:29

. You don't want to just sit around waiting for him to change

9:31

. But

9:34

I will say , with this situation , once

9:37

I decided I was done , I was

9:39

very done . Once I was like you know

9:41

what , I'm not going to

9:43

text him , I'm not going to talk

9:45

to him . And then at one point he texted

9:47

me and I basically just

9:49

said to him I can't

9:52

talk to you . You know

9:54

what I want . You know that I want a relationship

9:56

. I know that you can't give that to me

9:58

and I really just need

10:00

some space . I can't talk to you anymore

10:03

and that was one of the last times

10:05

I ever talked to him and

10:07

it felt really good to stand up for myself and to be

10:09

like , hey , I'm not going to just keep texting

10:11

you and be this emotional support

10:13

person in your life when

10:16

you know that I want a relationship with you and

10:19

I know that you can't give me that . So

10:27

my third situation I even more so

10:29

was giving myself tough love and saying

10:31

, okay , you've been through this before

10:34

, don't wallow , don't go into

10:36

the what ifs or the daydreaming

10:39

of what could possibly be . Just

10:41

move on and

10:43

make room in your heart

10:45

for someone new . And

10:48

literally as soon as I did that , I

10:50

met my boyfriend . Well

10:53

, I had actually met him a year before that

10:55

, but right after I was like done

10:57

with that third situation ship , I

10:59

moved to New York where

11:01

my boyfriend was living . We got to know

11:03

each other , we became friends and then we started dating

11:06

. So

11:08

I don't know , I love telling that . It's like

11:10

I love when I talk about these three situations

11:13

because it feels like I've come , I came

11:15

full circle and

11:17

like had so much growth from being

11:19

that 19 year old who was like I

11:22

don't see any , like I literally are writing

11:24

in my journal after that first situation

11:26

ship ended and being like I just know

11:29

in my heart and my guide that that

11:31

he's the right one

11:33

for me . Like I just I'm just , I just

11:35

feel like I shouldn't let it go

11:37

. Like I just feel like I like this is

11:39

right , you know to then

11:41

being that like 23 , 24 , 25

11:44

year old who was like all

11:47

right , I've been through this once before . I

11:50

know I need to let him go , but it still

11:52

sucks . It's still hard to then

11:54

being a 28 year old who

11:56

was like you

11:58

know what I need to finally choose myself

12:01

and when I'm done , I'm done . Like that third

12:03

situation ship , I like , as soon

12:05

as I decided in my mind that I was over

12:07

it , I just I moved on and it was still

12:09

hard . But I think again , it

12:11

sounds annoying , but it's like practice makes perfect

12:13

, like after you've been through a few situations , you

12:16

are kind of like you know what . I've

12:19

done this before . I know what needs to be done . I

12:21

need to cut them off . And I will also say the third

12:24

situation ship we had the most

12:26

communication and then , like we had

12:28

like the big talk that you would typically

12:30

have like during an actual breakup and

12:33

that was the first time I had experienced that with a situation

12:35

ship and it was actually really

12:37

helpful for me . Like I felt like I was no

12:39

longer trying to ignore

12:42

or suppress anything that

12:44

might have been going wrong . I was

12:46

like I was no longer trying to pretend

12:49

that I was okay with not being in a relationship

12:51

. I was like no , here's

12:54

some things that I'm upset about . I'm going to talk to you about

12:56

it and

12:58

I really feel like I would

13:00

be willing to try to make this work as a real relationship

13:03

. And it seems like you're not

13:05

willing to do that . And then he said his piece

13:07

and it was like we both actually got , I think

13:09

, a lot of closure because we had a real conversation

13:12

with each other and we both

13:14

kind of came to the agreement

13:16

that we should stop

13:19

seeing each other . So

13:22

I would definitely recommend that . I know it sounds

13:24

scary , like nobody

13:26

likes breaking up . You know like

13:29

you don't want to have to confront the issue

13:31

or talk about it or face potential

13:34

rejection . Like it still

13:36

is really valuable for you to like have

13:38

a real last conversation with the person and

13:41

I think it helps with closure . So

13:43

, with that being said , I

13:46

wanted to give

13:48

some like do's and don'ts for you . Whether

13:52

you just ended the situation ship or

13:54

you are like trying to get the

13:56

courage up to end one , or you kind

13:58

of sometimes you can kind of like feel

14:00

the ending coming , if you know what I mean . Like sometimes

14:03

you're like in a situation ship and you're like I

14:05

feel like any day now he's going to

14:07

end it . So if any of

14:09

those situations are you , or

14:12

if you're just wanting this information for the future

14:14

, if you ever get into another situation ship even

14:16

though you shouldn't , because , again , you should make

14:18

this the year of no more situations Okay

14:21

, I'm rambling now . Here

14:23

are some do's and don'ts for you . So

14:25

do go , no contact

14:28

. I definitely recommend

14:30

just taking at least some time

14:32

to not talk at all to your situation

14:34

ship after you all break

14:37

up . Zero communication does

14:40

so much in terms of

14:42

helping you move on and also helping

14:44

you reflect . I feel

14:46

like every breakup

14:48

and situation ship breakup that I've been through

14:50

, I've journaled a lot afterwards and

14:53

even just in journaling and like writing things out

14:55

, I'm always like , oh , wow , like

14:57

this makes more sense

14:59

now . But , yeah , if you are ending a situation

15:01

ship , I would recommend you

15:04

go no contact and sometimes

15:06

you have to set a boundary , so don't think

15:08

Again . If you're doing like an actual

15:11

talk conversation with

15:13

them , like I recommended a minute ago , I

15:15

would put into that conversation like hey

15:18

, if we're ending this , I am

15:20

going to need some

15:22

time to not talk to you , so I would appreciate

15:25

if you do not text me . I

15:27

will text you when I'm ready . I've

15:29

said something along those lines before and that

15:32

really helped me feel like I was in control and

15:34

feel like I had the power to be

15:36

like when I'm ready to reach out to you , I

15:38

will reach out to you . Maybe that will

15:40

be in a few weeks , maybe that will be

15:42

in a few months , or maybe it will literally

15:45

be never and will never talk to each other again . And

15:47

you deserve that right to choose

15:50

when you talk to the person , right ? So

15:52

then if you break up and then they

15:54

text you , you can kind of remind them of like

15:56

hey , you know

15:59

, you can either say to them like remember

16:01

, I set that boundary , I don't want to talk to you , or

16:03

you can just not respond because

16:05

you know that you've already set that boundary with

16:07

them . So I mentioned

16:10

journaling a second ago , but my second

16:12

do for ending

16:14

a situation ship , or after you've ended a situation ship

16:17

, is journaling . I

16:19

feel like you should just write down all

16:21

of the reasons why it didn't work and all of

16:23

the bad things , because , like

16:25

I said at the beginning of this episode , it's really easy

16:28

to focus on the good things . So

16:30

, like remind yourself , like all

16:32

of the little things that kind of bothered

16:34

you about this person , all of the reasons why you

16:36

felt like hesitant

16:39

or like I don't know , maybe this wouldn't be a

16:41

good relationship . Like write all of those

16:43

down . Don't get too stuck on the good memories

16:46

or on their good qualities . Remind

16:49

yourself why they sucked . Basically

16:51

remind yourself why they sucked

16:53

and why you needed to move on , because there

16:56

are always reasons like I

16:58

really am a firm believer in the fact that

17:00

if it's meant to be , it will

17:04

turn into a relationship and

17:06

if it didn't turn into a relationship , I feel like there's a

17:08

reason for that . Don't be like 19

17:10

year old Shelly writing in her journal about

17:12

how you're in love and you know

17:15

this is the right person for you and blah , blah

17:17

. Like remind yourself that actually

17:20

he kind of sucked sometimes . Like there were

17:22

things that I really did not like . And

17:25

my third do is focus

17:28

on self love and hobbies or interests

17:30

that you've been putting off , I

17:32

feel like , even when it's not a real

17:34

relationship , even when it's just a situation

17:37

ship , a lot of times our mind like

17:39

clings on to the

17:42

possibility of a new relationship as

17:45

like almost a hobby or

17:47

like as something to think about . Like when

17:50

we are in situations ships , we tend to

17:52

let it take up a lot of time

17:55

and energy , like

17:57

more than it should be considered . It's not

17:59

a real relationship , right ? So

18:03

yeah , now that you have left that

18:05

situation ship , use your free time

18:07

like now you don't have that time

18:09

that you're spending texting the person

18:12

or thinking about the person or going

18:14

out with the person or hanging out with the person

18:17

or whatever like use that time

18:19

to try some new hobbies

18:21

you've been wanting to try . I actually really recommend

18:24

focusing on some creative or just

18:26

like personal hobbies or

18:28

interests or projects that you've been wanting to do . So

18:30

, like I don't know , say this

18:33

is just the first example that popped into my head , probably

18:35

because I post on Tiktok but like say

18:37

you've been really thinking like you would enjoy making

18:40

Tiktok videos or making a YouTube

18:42

account , but it's just something

18:44

you've never tried . Or like you

18:46

just didn't have time before . Like , instead

18:50

of wasting your time

18:52

talking about or thinking about

18:54

or talking to someone who doesn't want

18:56

to be in relationship with you , put that new free time

18:58

into starting your Tiktok account

19:00

or creating more videos that you've already been posting

19:03

, or starting your YouTube account

19:05

or starting a podcast , like you

19:07

know . So those are my three do's , which were

19:09

go no contact journal

19:12

and focus on self love and new

19:14

hobbies for yourself . So my don'ts

19:16

are don't

19:18

try to stay friends . Okay , you

19:21

were never really friends to begin with . You

19:23

know , maybe , maybe you were friends

19:26

, but like , even if you were , if

19:28

, even if your situation ship started out as

19:30

a friendship , or

19:33

maybe , like you were all in the

19:35

same friend group and then that turned into a situation

19:37

ship with one of the people in the friend group , which is

19:39

what happened with my second relationship

19:43

it's still never in

19:47

your best interest to remain friends

19:49

after ending a situation

19:52

ship . Like . I Really

19:54

feel like the only reason to stay friends with someone

19:57

when you break up is if , if you

19:59

were in like , a really long-term Relationship

20:02

or marriage maybe , like I have a friend

20:04

, my friend Rowan , who was actually on my

20:07

podcast With their partner

20:09

you know , rowan still friends with their

20:12

ex-spouse , but

20:15

that they had a very like , long

20:17

term and loving relationship and

20:19

they'd still genuinely love each other as

20:21

people . You know it just didn't work out

20:23

like romantically . I

20:26

feel like with situations that's

20:29

usually not the case . If you have that much love

20:31

and respect for someone , you would probably

20:33

be in a relationship with them and , like I said , I feel like there's always

20:35

a reason why it's just a situation ship and

20:37

usually that reason has something to do with an incompat

20:39

, incompatibility or something

20:42

that is like Causing you to not

20:45

be in a relationship

20:47

. Anyway , don't try to be friends best

20:50

rule of thumb that I can think of . My

20:53

second don't for you is don't retaliate

20:55

or do anything petty . I know it can be

20:57

really tempting , but

20:59

I feel like it never really helps . It never actually

21:02

makes you feel better . The worst crime that this

21:04

person did really was not

21:06

want to be in a relationship with you and that's

21:08

not a crime like . It does suck and

21:10

it does hurt our feelings . But don't

21:12

retaliate . Don't post some tick-tock video

21:15

about what a shitty person that they are

21:17

like it's just it's not actually

21:19

gonna make you heal and move on , so

21:21

I just feel like you should skip it

21:23

. Then my last don't is don't

21:26

jump right back into another relationship

21:28

or situation ship . Obviously

21:30

, sometimes you can't control this . Like

21:32

I said earlier , I started

21:34

dating my boyfriend pretty soon after

21:37

my final situation ship

21:39

ended , and and I think

21:41

the reason why that worked was because

21:43

I had had those two previous situations ships

21:45

and so , like I said , when

21:47

this one ended , I was like I am

21:49

done , I know my worth , I know

21:51

what I want , and then what I wanted

21:54

literally Appeared in my life

21:56

and it was my boyfriend , you know . But

21:58

I feel like most of the time , it's

22:01

just good to give yourself some time

22:04

To just

22:06

like focus on yourself and do the things

22:08

that I mentioned before of like Doing

22:10

things that you haven't been doing , that you really want

22:12

to , or just focusing on self-care

22:15

, mental health . Maybe start going

22:17

to therapy if you haven't yet , or

22:19

if you've taken a break from it , like try therapy

22:21

again , do different things that are good for

22:23

your own personal growth , instead

22:26

of just immediately Focusing

22:30

your attention on another person

22:32

. And , yeah

22:35

, also , I just think it's important to give yourself

22:37

time to kind of mourn that the

22:40

ending of that situation ship . Because

22:43

even though I've kind of given it some shit and I

22:45

talk about situations ships like oh , it's not

22:47

a real relationship . You

22:49

know , we both know that they are still hard

22:52

to get over . Like I talked about , I had a really

22:54

hard time getting over my situation ships . So

22:56

give yourself

22:58

that time to mourn and Do

23:00

some journaling . Talk about it in therapy

23:03

. Don't feel embarrassed to talk about with your friends

23:05

. I feel like sometimes you can feel embarrassed

23:07

of like well , it wasn't a real relationship

23:09

or like well , one of my friends just

23:11

went through a breakup with someone she was with for

23:14

five years and like what

23:16

I'm going through doesn't , doesn't compare , it's

23:18

like no , if your friends are good

23:20

friends , they still want to hear difficult

23:22

things you're going through . So I Guess

23:25

that should actually be a fourth don't don't compare

23:28

yourself to other people . Don't compare your pain

23:30

to other people . Yeah

23:33

, just overall , like distracting yourself with a

23:35

new situation ship can be very tempting

23:37

, right , but I

23:39

feel like it kind of only prolongs

23:42

you actually healing and moving

23:44

on , because in

23:46

some , in some instances at least , diving

23:49

straight into a new relationship

23:51

or situation ship can be a

23:53

form of distraction or Dissociating

23:57

or just like not fully processing

24:00

what you've been through . So I hope those do's

24:02

and don'ts were helpful . I just

24:04

have a few more things I wanted to touch on in this episode

24:07

. Remember that your emotions are

24:09

valid and , like I

24:11

was just saying , like , just because this wasn't

24:13

a real relationship quote-unquote Doesn't

24:15

mean that it's not still painful or

24:17

it didn't mean something to you and it's

24:19

still a grieving process to get over

24:21

any kind of breakup , no matter if it was

24:24

a a committed , monogamous

24:26

relationship or if it was a Situation

24:30

ship . You know , like something that my

24:32

therapist told me years and years ago was

24:34

that she

24:37

was like you're going through a loss , like you're grieving

24:39

. When I went through a breakup and I was like I had

24:41

never thought of a breakup as grief , but

24:43

it really is and

24:45

depending on how emotionally

24:48

attached or deep you got with

24:50

your situation , it can really

24:53

feel like a loss and it can really feel like a grieving

24:55

process . So allow yourself to have that

24:57

and know that that's valid . Don't

24:59

discount what you've been through and start

25:01

noticing if you find yourself downplaying

25:04

it or saying things like well , like we weren't

25:06

even really together or like it wasn't like a real

25:08

relationship , because that's just your brain's

25:10

way of trying to kind of trick you

25:12

into not really truly

25:15

feeling your feelings , or

25:17

it's also your brain's way of like trying

25:19

to make you feel like your

25:21

emotions aren't valid . So

25:24

I'm here to tell you your emotions are valid

25:26

. If it's taking you a

25:28

long time to get over a situation ship , that's

25:30

okay . Try the

25:32

steps and the advice that I gave in this podcast

25:35

episode and hopefully

25:37

it'll be helpful . Last thing my

25:40

boyfriend always makes fun of me because he says I'll

25:42

say like oh , can I say one more

25:44

thing ? Or like , oh , just one more thing . And he's

25:46

like , is it actually one more thing ? Because

25:48

I have ADHD . So I will often be like

25:50

, oh , yeah , one more thing . And then I go on a

25:53

tangent for five

25:55

minutes . You know this is really

25:57

the last thing of this episode , but I think it's really important

25:59

. Which is one of the most impactful things

26:01

you can do is give

26:03

yourself space and time to heal . So

26:07

it might take longer than you think , and

26:09

that's okay . Just remind yourself it's okay . It's

26:12

going to take as long as it takes . You

26:14

know , like I said , my first situation ship took

26:16

me a few years to get over . You

26:19

know , and I

26:22

at times felt very frustrated

26:24

with myself , with this situation . I

26:26

felt like , why am I still thinking about this guy

26:28

? Why am I not over him yet ? But

26:31

that doing

26:33

all that like wondering like why

26:35

, or being mean to myself , being hard on myself , didn't

26:38

help . You know , you can't

26:40

rush yourself or shame yourself into

26:43

getting over someone . So when you really take

26:45

the time to heal and process

26:47

what happened , you can really you

26:49

allow yourself the space to , like , reflect

26:51

on the lessons you've learned and you can

26:53

think about what you might want to do differently in the future . You

26:55

can think about things you feel like you've done wrong

26:57

or things you might want to do differently , without

27:01

shaming yourself or rushing

27:03

yourself into trying , like trying

27:05

to force yourself to be over something if you're not

27:07

over it . So I hope you enjoyed this episode

27:10

. I know this episode would have been so

27:12

helpful for me when I was going through some situation

27:14

ship breakups in my past . So that's

27:17

what I hope it can be for you and

27:20

I am excited to continue releasing more episodes

27:22

in 2024 . And

27:25

yeah , thank you for being

27:27

here . If you enjoyed this episode , please share

27:29

it with someone you think would enjoy it and

27:31

don't forget to subscribe , rate and review the

27:33

podcast so it can reach other people who need

27:36

it . Follow us on Instagram and TikTok

27:38

at Situationship2Soulmate . See

27:40

you next time .