Should You Wait for Someone Who's in a Relationship?

Entry No. 107 ·

Late on a mild evening after a night out, four friends in their early twenties in ordinary night-out clothes — plain tees, an oversized shirt, a bomber jacket, jeans — wait together under a bare, softly lit glass shelter with no posters or signs, sharing a plain paper tray of chips and laughing at a story; one young woman of about twenty-two in a cropped jacket, wide-leg jeans and trainers, a plain deep rose pink tote bag on her shoulder, smiles to herself as she looks down the wet, glowing street for the bus.

By The IF Team

Yes, if they feel like the right person at the wrong time. Waiting for someone who is in a relationship is not foolish; it is hope, not weakness. What matters is how you wait. The version that hurts puts your life on hold and spends its days watching for signs that their relationship is ending. The healthy version is to say how you feel once, in a way that asks nothing of them and puts no pressure on their relationship, and then keep living your life. Whatever happens in theirs, yours will have kept moving.

That is the idea behind IF, the dating app we built for everyone, single or in a relationship. An IF is a private, sealed message you send now that opens only if you are both single one day. No conversation can open on IF while either of you is with someone, so it gets in the way of nothing they have built, and if the timing ever lines up, you are already there.

If you are asking the question, you are probably already waiting a little. The friend from university who has been with the same person since second year. The colleague who lingers at your desk at six and then goes home to someone else. The one who sends you voice notes on the walk home and posts anniversary photos on Sunday. You are not a bad person for wishing the timing were different. Feelings that cross relationship lines are normal and honest; the only question is what you do with them.

Below: why waiting feels right, how long to wait, what to make of “I’m going to leave them”, and how to wait well. For the wider picture, start with right person, wrong time.

Why does waiting feel like the right thing to do?

Because it often is love. Stories reward the one who waited, the loyal friend who was there all along, and sometimes life does too: people meet at the wrong time constantly, and some find their way back.

Waiting for someone who is in a relationship has one extra wrinkle: you cannot know whether their relationship will end, and it is not yours to end. Held lightly, that is fine. You can wish them well, keep a door open and be glad for them whatever happens. Held tightly, it can turn into watching their relationship instead of living your own, and that is the only part worth guarding against.

Waiting can also grow heavier without you noticing. Psychologists call one reason the sunk-cost effect: the more you have already invested, the harder it becomes to see your situation clearly. Another is what behavioural psychologists call intermittent reinforcement: rewards that arrive unpredictably — a warm message, one late-night conversation that feels like a door opening — keep a feeling burning far longer than steady ones would.

And this kind of wait rarely gets a clear signal either way. In a classic study of unrequited love, the people whose feelings went unreturned often believed the rejection had never been clearly communicated. None of this makes you weak. It is why it helps to give the wait a shape of your own: put it into words once, in an IF, and let it hold the question while you live.

How long should you wait for someone to be single?

There is no right number, because the end of someone else’s relationship is not a date on a calendar, and it is not yours to schedule. So the useful question is not how long, but what kind of waiting you mean.

Waiting on hold

This is the version that hurts: not dating anyone else, keeping evenings free in case they message, checking whether anything has changed. It hands the shape of your life to a decision that belongs to two other people. Your feelings are real, and they deserve better than a life on pause.

Waiting while you live

You care about someone, you wish them well, and you leave the door open while you get on with your life: seeing friends, making plans that do not depend on them, dating other people if you want to. This kind of waiting needs no time limit. It is the version an IF is made for: you say it once, it waits in a sealed message, and you never have to keep the feeling alive by checking.

Waiting for him to break up with her

Whichever pronouns fit your story, this is the version most people mean. He has told you he is unhappy. Or she has told you it has been over in all but name for months. They are going to end it — after the holiday, once work calms down. Meanwhile the two of you are closer than friends usually are, and you are waiting.

They may mean every word. Leaving a relationship can be genuinely hard — a shared home, children, money — and it is theirs to do in their own time. What it does not need is you on standby. Wanting to leave and leaving are different things, and you will feel steadier judging by what happens rather than what is promised. “I’m moving out in March, and I’ve told her” is a fact about their life. “It’s complicated, just give me time” is a hope, and so is a timeline that slides each time you ask. Hold the hope gently, and keep your own life moving either way.

There is one line worth saying plainly. If what is happening between you is being kept from their partner, it is no longer waiting: it is a secret relationship, and secrets like that hurt everyone inside them, you included. Cheating is wrong, and so is lying. Everything short of that — the feeling, the friendship, the hope — is honest, and yours to hold.

You might want to tell them you will be there if they are ever single. You can, but opening up like that has risks: it puts them on the spot inside a relationship they are still in, and it changes things between you the moment it is said. You are potentially better off sending an IF, so that if the timing ever lines up, you are there to show them how much you have always liked them. No conversation can open on IF while either of you is in a relationship, so it is never a way to get closer in the meantime.

If they have already told you they have feelings for you, what to do when someone in a relationship says they like you goes through your options in detail. If the person is married, the questions change, and being in love with a married man or woman is the guide to read.

Let their relationship run its own course

It can start so quietly that it does not feel like anything: agreeing a little too readily when they vent about their partner, timing a confession for a bad week, making yourself the easy alternative.

None of that is needed. A relationship that begins because you helped end another one starts with a question neither of you can quite put down. If their relationship ends, it should end for its own reasons, decided by the two people inside it — and then you can begin with nothing to explain.

Be wary of pressure dressed up as honesty, too. Saying “I need a little space” is a boundary. Saying “leave them or lose me” is leverage, and so is a confession designed to plant doubt. The honest way to act on what you feel is one that would still be honest if their relationship lasted for ever. A sealed IF is exactly that: it asks for nothing, pushes nothing and simply waits.

Watch your own life, not their relationship

It is tempting to read their relationship for clues: fewer photos together, a partner who has stopped appearing in their stories, a mutual friend who hints that things are rocky. Searching for signs that it is ending feels like gathering information. Mostly, it keeps you stuck.

There are three good reasons to put it down. It is their private life, not yours to read. It keeps the feeling raw, because every check is a small dose of hope or despair; in a study of people who kept checking an ex-partner’s Facebook, more checking went with more distress and longing, and less personal growth. And it is usually wrong: a couple who post less may simply be happier offline.

If you notice you cannot stop checking — their profiles, their partner’s, their relationship status online — that is not a character flaw, but it is a signal. The intense, looping longing that psychologists call limerence feeds on exactly this kind of uncertainty. Mute, unfollow or archive whatever you need to. An IF is the opposite of checking: once it is sent, it waits so that you do not have to. And if the thoughts are taking over your days or your sleep, talk to someone; you do not have to carry it alone.

Should I wait for him or move on?

Only you can decide, and both are honest answers. A few questions usually make it clearer than it feels at 2am:

  • Have you said how you feel, or is it still going round in your head, unsaid?
  • Is anything changing that you could point to — a conversation, a fixed date, a move — or only moods and hints?
  • If nothing changed for years, would your life still feel like your own?
  • Have you stopped dating, or turned down people who were interested in you, in case they became single?
  • Are you more yourself than you were a year ago, or less?

If your answers worry you, the fix is not necessarily to give up on them. It is to change the way you wait: write it down once, in an IF, and give your evenings back to your own life. And if you would rather move on, that is valid too. Moving on and saying it are not opposites: an IF lets the feeling be said and set aside, waiting for the day you are both single unless they choose to delete it. How to get over someone you can’t be with is a longer, gentler guide to letting go.

When waiting for someone puts your life on hold

Waiting itself is not the problem. But if you recognise yourself in any of these, the way you are waiting is costing you more than it should:

  • You have put off plans, trips or dates “just until the summer” for more than one summer.
  • Your mood rises and falls with whether they have replied.
  • You have rehearsed the conversation where they finally choose you more times than you can count.
  • You measure every new person against them, and every new person loses.
  • Your friends have stopped asking about it, or started worrying.

One thing is different: if they have told you plainly that it is a no, or asked you for space, that is your answer. Stop there, and give them the room they asked for, in person, by message and on IF alike.

Getting your life moving again is less one big decision than a set of small ones, repeated:

  1. Decide, in words, that your life is no longer on pause. Say it to yourself, or to a friend who will hold you to it.
  2. If they have not said no or asked for space, and you want them to know how you feel, say it once. Face to face is brave and risky; a sealed IF says the same without asking anything of them today.
  3. If they have asked you to wait, tell them kindly: “I care about you, and I’m going to get on with my life,” and let an IF hold the rest until you are both single.
  4. Put some distance in: fewer late-night conversations and one-to-one plans, their notifications muted if you need them to be.
  5. Give the time back to the friends, projects and plans you paused, and date again when you want to.
  6. Expect waves. A rush of feeling is not failure. It is just a wave.

Where IF fits

There is a version of waiting that costs you almost nothing: say what is true once, set it down, and live. Saying it to their face puts weight on their relationship; saying nothing can leave it circling in your head for years. An IF sits in between. That middle ground is why IF exists: single or in a relationship, anyone can say how they feel, whatever the timing.

Each IF holds up to 250 characters, stays sealed, and opens only once you are both single. No conversation ever opens on IF while either of you is in a relationship, so it never asks them to choose. They may be told an IF is waiting for them, but never who sent it or what it says unless it is revealed, though people can still guess from context. If they are not on IF yet, one sent to an email address they gave you triggers one short invitation email, without your name or your words; one sent to a phone number or Instagram handle they have shared with you sends nothing at all, and simply waits in case they join.

It is a way of saying something, not of keeping watch, so you can stop checking: relationship status is self-declared, and the one time IF asks anything of you is when your own IF is ready to reveal. If they do become single while you are single, you get 24 hours to reveal it. Reveal it, and they see who you are and what you wrote, and can accept or decline in their own time; accepting opens a chat with your IF as its first message. A message that has waited all along says something no message sent on the day could. How long to wait after their breakup before asking them out covers that moment, and how not to end up as the rebound.

If you are in a relationship yourself, you can still send one: it waits until you are both single, and if they are single when you mark yourself single, it reveals straight away, with no 24-hour choice. How an IF works covers every case.

Your first IF is free. It takes a little courage to write, and that is rather the point: one honest message, written while the timing is wrong, that waits for the day you are both single so you can get on with your life. If the timing ever lines up, it may lead you to where you were meant to be all along.

Questions people ask

Is it wrong to wait for someone who is in a relationship?

No. Having feelings for someone who is taken is not wrong, and neither is hoping the timing will one day work. It only becomes a problem when waiting turns into helping their relationship end, lying to anyone, or putting your life on hold. Say it in an IF if you want to, and keep living.

Will he leave his girlfriend for me?

You cannot know, and nobody can promise it, but it might happen. People usually leave for reasons inside a relationship, not because someone outside it waited long enough. If they have said they will, look for action with a date attached, and treat a promise as their hope rather than your plan. An IF lets you be there if it ever happens, ready to show them you felt this all along; no conversation can open on IF while they are with someone, so it asks them to choose nothing today.

Can you wait for someone and date other people?

Yes, and that is the healthy version: carrying a feeling rather than holding your life in place. The one condition is honesty with the people you date. If you notice you are only going through the motions, pause for a while rather than let a new person pay for it.

What if they become single after I have moved on?

Then you meet them as someone with a full life, not someone who has been standing still, which is a far better place to start. If you are single and your IF is still waiting, you will be asked whether to reveal it, with 24 hours to decide, and they can answer in their own time; a message that waited all along can be the gentlest way to begin again.

Right person, wrong time? Wait for them on IF: say it once, then go and live, and let your IF do the waiting for you.