Leah Berenson
Leah Berenson
February 18, 2024 ·  4 min read

7 Signs Your Partner Only Sees You As A Temporary Placeholder For Someone Better

Relationships are never a sure thing.  While of course, you can never really know for sure what’s in store for the both of you in your journey of falling in love with one another, you still always try to hope for the best. You want to be in a relationship that has serious potential for the future – but the sad thing is, your partner might not necessarily be thinking the same thing.

Sure. You could be going all-in thinking that you have a serious shot at going the distance with this person. And you just automatically assume that they feel the same way. But you shouldn’t. It’s possible that your partner might be in a relationship with you even though they might not necessarily want the same things as you. And that’s where things really get messy. You might be thinking too far ahead about your relationship and your partner might just be seeing you as a temporary placeholder until someone better comes along.

And that’s why you must consider it a priority to really see into your partner’s intentions and true feelings. You will always want to make sure that you can read your partner accurately so that you don’t end up blindsided by hidden agenda.

You would never want to emotionally invest yourself in a person who isn’t as emotionally invested in you as well. That’s why you need to be able to look beyond the surface and see what your partner’s really made of on the inside.

The one thing that you have to understand is that if you have a partner who is really serious about spending the rest of their life with you, then they would probably make an effort to not be ambiguous about it.

They would want you to know and feel that they’re deeply committed to making things work with you. There would be absolutely no doubt in your mind that the two of you are serious about trying to make things last.

But if you can’t shake that feeling of unease and uncertainty about your partner, then perhaps you have to consider that there’s something wrong with this picture. They might be saying or doing something in a relationship that looks good, but somehow it doesn’t make you feel the way that you want to feel.

Maybe something is wrong after all and you just need to get to the bottom of things. Here are 7 signs that your significant other only sees you as a temporary placeholder.

1. You don’t really talk about the future in a concrete manner.

Any talks about the future are either always shallow or just plain nonexistent. You would realize that you’re in a relationship that’s going nowhere if your partner just avoids all talks about the future in general.

2. Your instincts are telling you that something is off about their commitment.

You have to learn to trust your gut at times. It’s there for a reason. It’s looking out for you. You need to be able to listen to it when it’s trying to tell you that something is off. A lot of times, your emotions can get the best of you and blind you from reality. They will force you to lie to yourself. But your instincts always see the truth and they never lie to you.

3. They don’t really make the effort to integrate you into their life.

If they’re not making an effort to slowly integrate you into their life, they’re not all that invested in you. You will realize that something is off if they don’t take the time to introduce you to their family and friends.

4. You have no real presence on their social media pages.

They can post about their favorite movies or sports teams, but they wouldn’t dare post a picture of you. that would be too serious.

5. They just outright tell you that they don’t want to be in anything too serious.

Sometimes, you don’t really have to read between the lines. If you’re lucky, you will actually find yourself a partner who is honest enough to be upfront with you about how they see you. They will not want you to think that they’re seriously considering spending the rest of their lives with you at all.

6. You don’t have any deep conversations with one another.

You don’t really get deep with each other. It’s all just always surface level. You have a shallow relationship that is serving as a placeholder for a deeper and more serious one.

7. They only show up for you whenever it’s convenient.

A person who is only treating you as a placeholder doesn’t really love you – they only love that you’re there for them when they need you. And in return, they’ll only ever really be there for you when it’s convenient for them. There will be no consistency there.