"Affairs are emotional side-projects," says Lisa Chen, LMFT. "Millennials already feel stretched with burnout, cost-of-living pressures, career, and political unrest." Taking on another relationship, she adds, "takes too much bandwidth."

"You're not just grieving a person, you're also grieving the potential of the relationship," says Lisa Chen, LMFT. She explains why the unpredictability of an undefined connection can make a situationship feel more addictive than a relationship, and harder to leave.

"Puffer-fishing' is essentially emotional self-protection masked as avoidance," says Lisa Chen, LMFT. She observes this pattern in avoidantly attached clients and emphasizes that "real intimacy isn't destroyed by vulnerability, but defenses against vulnerability."