Catching Feelings In Your Situationship? We Got You.
6/5/202651 min
Are you being "breadcrumbed" (do you even know what 'breadcrumbing" is?). Are you trapped in a loop of romantic ambiguity, where you're getting just enough intimacy to stay hooked, but left staring at your phone wondering if you're even allowed to call them when you're having a bad day?
In this episode of But Are You Happy, host Ashani Dante talks with clinical psychotherapist Sarah Bays to pull back the curtain on the confusing world of situationships. We’re moving beyond the surface level to explore the psychological tightrope of living in relational limbo, unpacking why we consistently compromise our own needs just to avoid the terrifying discomfort of real vulnerability.
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CREDITS:
Host: Ashani Dante
Guest: Sarah Bays
Senior Producer: Tahli Blackman
Group Executive Producer: Naima Brown
Audio and Video Producer: Marlena Cacciotti
Social Media Producer: Olivia Colman
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Clips
Transcript preview
First 90 secondsAshani Dante· Host0:00
So a situationship is comfortable. That doesn't mean it's right for me and what I need, but it means that I don't have to be super vulnerable, I don't have to fear being hurt- Mm ... I don't have to fear being consumed by someone and having to give everything to them, and that might be too much. If we're thinking about those people where, yeah, on the surface, situationships really suit them. It's not really that it suits them, it's more that I'm scared that if I allow more of myself to be seen or to be given to someone, that I then could get hurt. Welcome to But Are You Happy? I'm Ashani Dante. Dating can feel confusing enough, but now there's a new kind of dynamic that a lot of people are living inside, often without even realizing it, the situationship. It's an undefined romantic connection that sits somewhere between dating and a proper relationship. It can feel warm, convenient, and even intimate, but it's rarely clear to the two people in it what their relationship actually is. Today, we're unpacking the psychology behind situationships with Sarah Bays. She's a Sydney-based psychotherapist and host of Mamamia's relationship podcast, This Is Why We Fight. She also runs Motivated Minds, a counseling practice with a strong focus on relationships. Sarah spends a lot of time helping people make sense of their relationship patterns, especially how attachment styles play into the way we connect, and situationships