<![CDATA[Ideally, romantic relationships are built on clear status, commitment, and relational definition. However, many young adults engage in romantic relationships without clear status, such as situationships. This ambiguity often creates an emotional dilemma: individuals experience jealousy but lack the relational legitimacy to express it. This study aims to understand how young adults make meaning of and express jealousy within such ambiguous relationships. Using a descriptive qualitative approach with an interpretive paradigm, in-depth interviews were conducted with eight informants aged 18–29 years who had experienced situationship relationships, drawing on Romantic Jealousy Theory, Self-Disclosure Theory, and Relational Dialectics Theory (RDT). The findings reveal three main findings. First, all informants experienced status ambiguity (“grey area”) as the main characteristic of situationships; some felt disadvantaged by the confusion and overthinking it caused, while others deliberately chose ambiguity as a mechanism to avoid emotional risk. Second, the majority of informants (6 out of 8) expressed jealousy non-verbally through silence, emotional withdrawal, silent treatment, retaliatory communication patterns, and social media posts with implicit meanings with one informant strategically using social media as a channel to express jealousy that could not be conveyed directly. Only two informants expressed jealousy verbally, driven by the need for confirmation. Third, most informants were trapped in a condition of “having feelings but having no right” (punya rasa tapi tidak punya hak), shaped by prevailing social norms, causing jealousy to be suppressed, disguised, or managed internally. This study concludes that jealousy in situationships is not merely an emotional response, but a form of emotional negotiation within unresolved relational contradictions, further shaped by each individual’s past trauma and trust issues.]]>
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