What is relationship anxiety?

Relationship anxiety is ongoing worry about whether you’re actually safe with someone: whether they like you as much as you like them, whether they’re about to leave, whether this is even a real thing. It’s common, it isn’t a diagnosis, and in your 20s it often gets loudest in a situationship, because the less you know about where you stand, the more room the worry has.

What does it actually feel like?

It usually doesn’t feel like “anxiety.” It feels like being really, really into someone, plus a background hum of checking.

Take Sofia, 22, seven weeks into something with Dario, 25. They see each other Tuesdays and most weekends. On those nights she’s completely fine: cheap pho, his roommate’s terrible playlist, walking home the long way. The trouble is Wednesday through Friday. She notices he watched her story but didn’t reply. She rereads his “haha nice” four times. She opens his profile to see if he’s still on the apps, then closes it before it loads, then opens it again. By Friday she’s drafted three versions of “are we good?” and sent none.

That’s relationship anxiety in its natural habitat: not a big fight, just a lot of small checks in the space between plans.

Why does it spike in a situationship?

Because a situationship runs on not-knowing, and not-knowing is the fuel.

In a study of 141 people in dating relationships, communication researchers at the University of Illinois tracked how feelings shifted as people became more or less sure about where things stood.1 When certainty went up, so did happiness. When uncertainty went up, people felt more anger and sadness.1

In phone terms: every unlabeled week adds a little uncertainty, and your feelings follow it.

There’s also a timing piece. The relational turbulence model argues that the stretch between casual dating and something serious is often the bumpiest part, because uncertainty is high and you’re starting to rely on each other.2 In that research, small irritations felt worse when people were more uncertain, and the link with closeness wasn’t a straight line, which fits the idea that the in-between stretch is the bumpiest.2

A situationship can park you in that middle range for months. Close enough to care a lot, not defined enough to feel secure. Of course the worry gets loud.

Is it just me, or is it how I’m wired?

Some people do feel this more than others, and that’s not a flaw. Researchers describe attachment anxiety as a sliding scale everyone sits on somewhere: how much you worry about closeness and being left.

A 2024 study of 880 university students aged 18 to 25 found that one thing helped explain why people higher in attachment anxiety felt more anxious overall: intolerance of uncertainty, meaning how hard it is for you to sit with not knowing.3 That link didn’t hold for people higher in avoidance.3

In other words, if you hate open loops, an unlabeled situation is basically one giant open loop. It’s not you being dramatic. It’s a known tilt meeting a situation built to trigger it.

Is relationship anxiety the same as an anxiety disorder?

No. “Relationship anxiety” is an everyday phrase, not a diagnosis. Feeling anxious about someone you like is ordinary, and lots of people feel it in the early weeks.

It’s worth talking to a professional if the worry has spread beyond this one person, or won’t let go. The National Institute of Mental Health describes generalized anxiety disorder as worrying a lot about everyday things for at least six months, not being able to control it, and having it get in the way of daily life.4 It’s treatable, and NIMH’s advice is that once anxiety is causing problems at school, at work or with friends and family, it’s time to get help.4 Only a qualified professional can tell you whether that’s what’s going on. This article can’t.

So what’s Sofia actually dealing with?

Here’s her week, split four ways:

• What happened: he watched her story, sent “haha nice,” and they have a plan for Tuesday.
• The reading: “He’s losing interest.” That’s a reading, not a fact.
• The fear: “If I ask what this is, it’ll end.”
• The next step: ask the question in person, once, and stop collecting evidence in between.

Only the first line is a fact, and the first line is pretty fine.

What to do this week

• Name the open loop. Write down the one question that’s actually bothering you. Usually it’s “what are we?” wearing a disguise.
• Turn the thread into a plan. Day, place, time. A plan beats a week of decoding, and it shrinks the gap days where the worry lives.
• Mute one signal. Pick the thing you check most (story views, “Active now,” their profile) and make it harder to reach for a week.
• Ask once, in person. “I like this and I’d like to know what we’re doing” is allowed. Any honest answer gives you more than the silence did.
• Check the size of it. If the worry is everywhere, not just with them, and it’s lasted months or wrecked your sleep, talk to campus counseling, a doctor or a licensed therapist.

What doesn’t the research show?

• The uncertainty and emotion study looked at dating couples, not specifically situationships, so applying it here is a reasonable reading, not a proven result.1
• The turbulence model was built on people moving from casual to serious dating, and it describes averages, not what your next month will feel like.2
• The 880-student study measured links at one point in time, so it can’t show that intolerance of uncertainty causes anyone’s anxiety.3
• No article can tell you whether you have an anxiety disorder. The NIMH description is there to help you decide when to talk to someone, not to self-diagnose.4