Is It Possible To Love Two People At The Same Time?
The emotional life of the vast majority of people is usually well nourished with doubts about what it means to have a partner and about how a “normal” relationship should develop.
These are small questions that assail us with a lesser or greater intensity and that make us wonder if the loving bond that unites us with the other person is authentic, or if our needs and feelings fit with what a traditional romantic relationship is supposed to be. And, one of the most frequently asked questions about that is the following: is it normal to love two people at the same time?
In this article we will try to answer this question, which, warning, is complicated.
The first thing we have to understand when addressing this topic is that the question of whether it is normal to love more than one person at the same time is a moral doubt. What does this mean? Well it means that An answer to this question, to satisfy us, must be of a moral nature That is, it has to talk to us about whether it is good or bad to love two or more people at the same time and if that is compatible with a relationship.
It is necessary to highlight this fact, because the initial question masks the nature of the doubt by talking about what “is normal” and what is not: technically, normality is found out by measuring the number of times in which this phenomenon occurs. in people. Let’s say that 80% of human beings have loved more than one person at the same time (invented percentage). Will we be satisfied with this answer? Well, in the vast majority of cases, no, because what we really wanted to know is whether it is legitimate to feel that or relate in a certain way to these people feeling that. Looking at the frequency with which this event occurs in other people will not tell us anything about whether this is good or bad.
But this is not the only idea we have to consider before answering the question; there is another one.
The couple as a social construct
Let’s think for a moment about why we ask ourselves the initial question. If we reflect on that, it is because we assume that there is a way of relating to the people we love that has a better chance of being normal than the rest of the options. If we have doubts about whether loving several people at the same time is normal but we do not have doubts about whether it is normal to love (romantically) just one person, it is because In our culture there is a lot of social pressure that leads us to establish romantic relationships with only one person at a time
Now, independently of this social influence, is there something in the design of our body that establishes that we should only love one person romantically, in the same way that in our body there is something that prevents us from stopping hearing unless we let’s cover our ears? The most obvious answer is no: the proof is that many people realize that they love more than one person. Our biological constitution does not prevent us from doing so, what prevents us from doing so to a certain extent is social influence.
This idea that there are perverse “affective deviations” coming from culture that mean that a supposed monogamy programmed naturally in our body cannot be expressed correctly is erroneous, as well as essentialist. For example, cases of infidelity are frequent in many animal species that, in theory, are monogamous (or at least try to pretend so). In fact, in some studies it has been seen that the success of some animal forms depends largely on combining monogamy with discreet infidelities.
So, to understand whether it is good to love two or more people, we will have to ask ourselves whether or not it is legitimate to disobey those social rules, and whether it is useful to let these rules dictate how we should manage our emotions.
Differentiating between feeling and acting
To answer the question of moral character, we should ask ourselves the question about whether the fact that we romantically love more than one person harms others or not. The default answer is no. Because? Well, because, on the one hand, our feelings only concern us, and on the other, These feelings do not force us to behave in a way that could harm others
That is, we can love several individuals without this translating into a series of actions that we cannot control and that, therefore, can harm others. Just because an intense feeling is born in us does not mean that this will transform us into an uncontrollable and harmful being, because we have the ability to manage the way in which we express emotions.
The importance of the communication
And what happens when you are in a monogamous relationship and you begin to feel love for another person? Is this bad? The answer, although it may shock at first, is once again no. Of course, it is a fact that can cause pain, but it is not a bad thing in a moral sense. For it to be so, we should have had the opportunity to choose between loving another person and not loving another person, but this never happens.
That does not mean that this simultaneous infatuation cannot lead us to take a morally ill-considered path. For example, if we know that our relationship is based on a commitment and on the idea of exclusive falling in love, that means that if we start to have feelings for someone else we must inform our partner. If not, we will be cheating on her, and the psychological consequences of this can be very hard, since not only will the relationship go into crisis but the other person will also feel denigrated and have low self-esteem, thinking that they are not even worthy. to know the truth and be able to decide what to do with the relationship.
In short: is it possible to love several people?
In short, if there is something that we must be clear about when considering whether it is normal to feel something for several people at the same time, it is that not only is it normal, but when it happens we cannot avoid it. Whether we behave more or less in accordance with an ethical code will depend on the commitment we have adopted with the people involved and whether it is fulfilled or not, for which communication is essential. In some cases, such as those in which love and emotional life are expressed through polyamory, the room for maneuver will be much wider and possibly this will be an issue that will not concern us as much.
As for social norms, these will have an effect on our propensity when it comes to adopting one or another commitment with the people in whom our love is reciprocated (monogamy will almost always be chosen, in the majority), but Beyond that we don’t have to stick to them for what was said above: in our feelings, or rather in the way in which we experience them subjectively, we rule.
