Situation Transcript

Rhea: My relationship experience is one thing. I am a fully-fledged situationship veteran. From my Humongous Lesson all the way to my Dave, it was all situationships.

Liz: I don't know about that. I think your Humongous Lesson was probably a little bit situationship that turned into something else. You guys were very revolving door in various ways.

Rhea: Yeah, yeah. Maybe we were in a situationship, but definitely my two . . .

Liz: It was definitely toxic and dysfunctional, which situationships are often - toxic and dysfunctional.

Rhea: What is the difference between a situationship and a relationship?

Liz: Well, a situationship is not a relationship. It's a circumstantial connection. So we have a false sense of knowing and intimacy. We are somehow communicating but that communication does not translate into really knowing each other very well in person. Maybe when we meet up, we talk a bit, but there's a little bit more sex than that. So really a situationship is a downgraded relationship. There's very little commitment involved. That kind of nebulous - I know you, we can kind of hook up, we can certainly sext. Maybe we'll see each other, maybe we won't, but we keep each other somehow hooked. Whether or not you're going to see each other is really one of the biggest question marks. The biggest and most important feature of a situationship as opposed to any other kind of connection people make is the fear of commitment that underpins it.: I can't be real about this.

Rhea: And when we say lack of commitment, it can be literally I commit to you or it's your feelings matter to me.

Liz: Exactly. It's more the: your feelings matter.

Rhea: So it's a bit like a fuck buddy.

Liz: With a pretty fucked up power dynamic.

Rhea: Is there usually one that's in control and one that isn't?

Liz: Yes, because most of the time - and this is why situationships are not in integrity - somebody wants more than the other is giving, but they feel like in order to have this person in my life, I just need to be cool. I need to not ask for too much. I cannot seem needy. I cannot let my feelings or my desires be known or this person's going to run out the door.

Rhea: Can you act like you're in a situationship even though you're not?

Liz: Yes, but that goes back to what we were just saying, which is often situationships have that fucked up power dynamic and that's a good question because it really does go back to why are we even in situationships? Why do we allow ourselves to enter them and stay in them when that's compromising what we want? When it's a relationship that doesn't have any integrity?

Rhea: You can be scared to ask someone for more because you know that they don't want to give you more. So you're like, I'll settle for what I've got because it's better to have someone - or them specifically - in my life than not at all.

Liz: Most of the time when it comes to situationships, it's that particular person.

Rhea: I'll take what I can get from you.

Liz: It is all about ego validation.

Rhea: It's inauthentic because you end up accepting that, but then at some point you can't anymore.

Liz: Oh yeah. No, they will always have an expiration date.

Rhea: And I know in one of my experiences, initially that's what I thought I wanted too, but the fact of the matter is we got on so well that then I started questioning that. Immediately as my wants and needs changed within the relationship or the situationship, the dynamic shifted because the minute I recognized that I actually could want more was the minute that I started acting differently in order to get a desired outcome. all that ended up doing was imploding us, because all of a sudden every action meant so much more. Whereas he was very hypersensitive to it must stay this way because of my emotional limits and capabilities, I was very much like, oh, he just did this. Maybe he doesn't mean this, or oh, this just happened. Maybe it could mean that.

Liz: Oh gosh! The mind games.

Rhea: Exactly.

Liz: That's so twisted.

Rhea: I think I lasted what, three weeks? A lot of what happens to us in our lives that we don't like or we don't enjoy tends to have a particular similar story that runs through it.

Liz: Yes.

Rhea: Now we can distil those stories down to the very core of that which is always, I'm not good enough, but the step up from there, so the almost the way in which one can differentiate the kind of thread that's running through your karma as it were, will be one of seven themes and they can range from I am broken, I am undeserving.

Liz: I am unlovable.

Rhea: To I am not worthy. But when we're talking about relationships, so for example, you know a lot of my issues when it came relationally were me making myself smaller so that I could be palatable.

Liz: Yes.

Rhea: What that meant was I believed that in order to be loved, I had to fit into the other person's idea of what lovable was, because I didn't believe that I could be lovable as myself on some very, very, very deep level.

Liz: Which made you a perfect candidate for a situationship.

Rhea: Yes, because it was my karma of I am unlovable that was coming up in everything, which means to distil it back down, I am not good enough to be loved as I am.

Liz: Or for anyone to want to commit to me. As we move into self-empowerment, which requires self-love, we really have to be able to confront and heal all the different ways in which those stories have manifested. So it might be that you've healed your karmic theme of I am unlovable, but then you've got to go back and heal it in all the different ways in which you've experienced it.

Rhea: The remnants do still come up. When you've been a career situationshipper, it's quite difficult to step out of that even if you're not actually in one.

Liz: Oh yes, cause it's almost hard to believe that if somebody actually wants to see you than once.

Rhea: Maybe I'm delusional. All these things...

Liz: Yes, you start to question because you think you've been so locked in that story for so long that you've wired your brain in such a way and your heart, you've shut down completely that you just think that's all I'm worth.

Rhea: Is it because you think that way about something it will then happen?

Liz: When you've committed to your own healing, when you've committed to your self-care, when you've committed to a level of self-partnership, where you were able to prioritize yourself and understand and know and act that your feelings matter, that you matter, your needs matter, your desires matter.

Rhea: Even if it just matters to you.

Liz: Yes, exactly. Completely. That's all that matters is that any of that really fully matters to you, when you can own it.

Rhea: So it's things like when I feel uncomfortable, I give myself the space to find out why I'm uncomfortable and then act accordingly.

Liz: So when we're really able to voice it to ourselves, especially, then we can really start to see change. But I think that situations have gained momentum in understanding and in popular social media and in conversation, because they really are getting us to examine what commitment means to us. All the experiences of older generations, previous generations have pretty much instilled and intensified a massive fear of commitment in the younger generations. The reason why situationships are so important to look at and understand is that: You know what, it's not your fault. They've always existed to some degree or another. But they always speak to the limitations of our hearts, which is coloured entirely by our fears. But it's so up right now for people to look at because A - they're forced to confront their fears and understand and examine them, and B - some of this is just inherited shit that your generation has had to hold because of previous generations' issues and their inability to commit, their inability to own what they want.

Rhea: So basically what you're saying is kind of like a situationship is almost like an extra marital affair without the marriage.

Liz: Right.

Rhea: That's the best way I've heard to describe it.

Liz: Yeah, I think so.

Rhea: It's that level of commitment is that I'm almost committed to someone else more than I'm committed to you. And in this case of a situationship, you're both committed to your fears more than you're committed to each other. One person's committed to the fears of I am not good enough to have something that I actually want. The other person is, I'm committed to my fear of commitment more than I'm committed to you.

Liz: That's right.

Rhea: So it's kind of like you are having an extra marital affair. It's exactly the same thing. Situation-ships mean you cannot evolve.

Liz: No, not at all. Too much fear blocks you that there's absolutely no way that you would be moving on that.

Rhea: Even though you might think that you do. In all likelihood, if you think about where you are 10 months ago, 5 months ago, 3 months ago, are you in the same place? If you think about where you'll be in 3 months, 5 months, 10 months, is it likely you'll be in the same place?

Liz: Yes.

Rhea: That is usually a good hallmark of are you in a situationship?

Liz: Totally.

Rhea: Whereas with dating, either you'll continue to date, become monogamous but get in a relationship or stop dating, or in a relationship you're already there, and it's asking why would people choose to remain in a situation where it's not growing? Why would you choose to have this much interaction and nothing more? And then as we said, the answer is fear. By remaining there, you're not allowing yourself to grow. You're not allowing the relationship to grow. Therefore you are not allowing your commitment to one another to grow. And the only reason why you do that is if you're afraid of commitment. And I have a lot of compassion for it because I do know how it feels when there is someone that you love with all your heart, or you have fallen in love with the potential of what you guys could be if only you were actually together. So you tend to ignore all the crap that they're clearly showing you.

Liz: Red flags!

Rhea: All the red flags, whether it's addictions, whether it's other relationships they're in, whether it's their job status, whether it's how they treat you, prioritize you, all of that.

Liz: All the excuses.

Rhea: You do so because it's the potential of what could be, but at the same time, you don't push it because you don't believe you're worthy of the potential.

Liz: But I'll tell you. So often when we're stuck on the "potential" of what could be, it's not the potential. It's the fantasy that we've created in our minds, where it really never had the potential that you want to convince yourself that it does. But the potential only exists when that person is committed. Until then it's your fantasy.

Rhea: Well also the potential exists when that person is capable of being committed, and I think that's the thing that we tend to forget.

Liz: But even if they're capable, they may not want it. If somebody is holding fear around commitment, there's never a potential. There's merely the fantasy. What's really important in this case is to understand what it is about commitment that repels many of us. And it's not just the: “I fear I'm not good enough and I can't.” It's understanding that the older generations have left a really difficult relationship legacy for the younger generations.

Rhea: It becomes this perfect melting pot of we'll just stay right here and neither of us will work on any of our shit, because we're doing just enough to not be lonely. But at the same time, we're not doing enough to make us happy either. And eventually what will happen is one will break and normally it's the one, funnily enough, who wants the commitment.

Liz: Exactly. Well yeah, cause they're not.

Rhea: They're the ones that want more and are not getting it.

Liz: Right, and so that stalemate will eventually break.

Rhea: First, we get to the stalemate, which is I want more. You don't want to give me more. We're both going to pretend this is okay.

Liz: This is hurting. This is killing my spirit. I do not feel at peace because I don't know when I'm going to see you again. I don't know when to expect that next text. This is hard.

Rhea: And so my mind is on overdrive constantly.

Liz: Trying to figure all of this out, but also assuage all my fears and tell myself I don't need more. It's just exhausting and it eats us up inside.

Rhea: I don't need more, all to vilify the other person. What a dick he is! It's his fault!

Liz: All my friends are saying this.

Rhea: Whereas actually it's as simple as you are at a stalemate because you want more, but you're not being able to ask for it.

Liz: And that's not that other person's fault. It's no one's fault. Yes, somebody's behavior might be eliciting a response from you, but you're in that situationship for a reason. You stepped into it and compromised yourself enough. You don't blame yourself for it either. Have compassion.

Rhea: Understand that you did it for a reason because you did it in order to see that you would be capable of doing.

Liz: It shows us how much more we want. Sometimes those dysfunctional relationships are great for helping us define what it is we really want.

Rhea: And sometimes those dysfunctional relationships are great at showing us how far we're willing to go to get a shred of companionship, and where we really need to look at the healing. So when you're in a stalemate situation, there's a lopsided view of power. I know we've discussed this briefly, but we didn't really go into it. And is that because one person, the one person who wants more is giving their power away to the person who doesn't want more, because they are not owning their feelings?

Liz: Exactly. And they're warping their sense of responsibility to themselves. They diminish themselves. When you diminish your needs, when you diminish your wants, when you diminish your desires - I'm not talking about superficial bullshit like: I need this person to see me four times a week, not two.

Rhea: It's more I need, as we were talking the last time, I need this relationship to feel natural.

Liz: Yes, exactly. This needs to have some integrity and it's not, and I cannot be myself. It really is. Can I be myself in this dynamic or not? When I'm not, then I'm not in my power. And so when we have that power surrendered and we get it back by stepping up and saying, this is what I need to make this work. If not, have a lovely day. It was really nice knowing you.

Rhea: And you have to be really willing to let them go.

Liz: So what happens is...so say it doesn't go there.

Rhea: I can't leave my job. I don't have enough time. I can't give you more than I am doing.

Liz: Time is always the big bullshit.

Rhea: I can't give you more than you're asking for basically for whatever reason.

Liz: Okay. You take your power and you take your self-respect, which you just got back and you move on and you work on your own healing. The other way that the stalemate ends is that things just kind of dissolve. So the communication wanes.

Rhea: But situationships can break through to something more though as well.

Liz: If they do break through into more, then more than likely it will have an expiration date because you don't know exactly why that person stepped up. So it's a beautiful thing in the sense that when we take back our power and we say I need more, and the person's like, oh great, I'm totally capable. I just didn't know where you were at. Okay cool. But there was a lack of communication. There was some fundamental issues that that necessarily won't resolve. So unless you're already, unless you've been working on this, it's likely that that relationship will hit another snag somewhere and the likelihood that that's going to move forward. Who knows? It is really difficult to turn that one around and allow it to evolve into its greatest potential. But it's not to say that it couldn't be a positive relationship because we're not living in a Rom-Com. We're not living in a romance book where things get tied up with a bow with the same person. You almost will know it's a situationship because there's very little disruption in its wake. It doesn't necessarily leave you devastated.

Rhea: No.

Liz: And if it does leave you devastated, really it's because you really need to confront those fears around I am not good enough.

Rhea: You know, I keep hearing this 'fight the fear', and it really helped me when I was kind of moving through this, because the fear is always, what if I get hurt? What if I find out that this person doesn't want me and then no one wants me? But you have to fight that fear because you won't ever be able to have the confidence in a yes if you allow yourself to stay in a situation of a maybe, because effectively what you're doing is you're living in a no. Really.

Liz: Oh yeah.