When we love, we want to be together with a beloved person. See them, feel, and touch. But what if we love two people at the same time? If feelings are divided between two partners and we can’t choose one and reject another? Both men and women may suffer from this phenomenon. Let’s see what psychologists think about the matter.
The source of a desire for a double life
Why do some people fall victim to double love? Because they are afraid to take responsibility? Because women need to combine sex and forbidden fruit? Because men tend to distinguish between the notions of “mommy” and “lover;” as Freud has claimed, men often fail to combine tenderness and infatuation. Also, because we often want the things a present partner can’t give us.
Besides, considering a relationship in a couple, we usually stick to the monogamy principle. Yet, this principle belongs to the realm of culture, not biology. It hasn’t been proved that a human as a biological creature is monogamous. Moreover, monogamy in nature may be different: it may mean “one partner for the whole life” and “one partner in the given period of time.” The question is not why we engage in a new relationship but why we don’t put an end to a previous one.
Social pressure
The social mind controls an existing relationship. As a rule, a person destroying it faces condemnation in and outside a family circle. Indeed, for some purposes (e.g., for children’s upbringing), a long-lasting couple is preferable, at least because of financial and emotional stability. For this reason, two people may continue living together, helping each other, and even preserving sexual relationship despite the fact they aren’t attracted to each other as before. However, the lack of soul intimacy will inevitably make one of the partners feel that something important is absent from their life.
According to analytics, love needs care. Forgetting about this, we distance from each other in the course of time. Thus, there forms a hole in a relationship which may sometimes be filled with a new feeling. It may be either a fleeting passion or a deep love relationship. In another person, we are attracted by features we cannot find in ourselves. Overestimating a new partner, we find in them all the features we guess we are lacking so that this person becomes our narcissistic reflection of someone we would like to be.
Nevertheless, it’s a mere illusion that is gradually dissolving. It turns out that a real person is far from our ideal image. Then, there are only two options available: either to dare love them as they are (in this case, our attraction becomes a deep feeling), or this story ends.
At a crossroad
In the first half of our life, we aim at reaching the status of an adult person and holding a solid social position. That’s why our attention is focused mainly on the outer world and finding our place under the sun. After 40, life goals become absolutely different. Many people become more attentive to themselves. Instead of looking for success and career growth, we start searching for a sense of our life and moral values.
A meeting with a person who embodies our new values may help us to notice new possibilities in our lives and ourselves. Should we abandon our previous achievements or try to combine them with current goals? Well, it depends on our character and circumstances. However, quite often, when we are at a crossroad, we may find two people by our side – our previous partner and a guide showing us a further way. Who should we choose?
If both partners are significant to us
The point is that we may satisfy different needs in different unions. Every person is versatile, so that we may simultaneously long for adventures, unexpected discoveries, and the feeling of safety in a stable relationship. The stability of an existing union is both a minus and a plus. So, we appreciate two beloved people for different reasons. That’s why we don’t want to lose them since it would mean that we will no longer be able to satisfy some of our needs.
Being attracted
We can love two people but be attracted to one partner only. We are trying to find ourselves all life long, and sometimes it seems to us that this search is over. However, time passes by, and the story repeats. When we see that another person has the traits we seem to lack, there appears a feeling that we’ve found our missing part, which causes high sexual appeal.
Now we desperately want to unite with this part, become sufficient. It’s an almost irresistible desire hard to cope with while in a stable relationship, sexual drive fades because a long-term union is about bonding, not passion. But if we don’t end a new relationship, gradually, we start feeling a deep emotional connection with a new partner. This is how a person becomes a regular partner simultaneously in two couples. To combine them, more precisely to share yourself between them, is a challenging task. You risk causing both partners’ resentment and reproach.
Crisis as a trial for a couple
At the beginning of a relationship, another person attracts us because they incarnate our subconscious expectations. Yet, in the course of time, we may start subconsciously projecting on them our tiredness and dissatisfaction with ourselves or circumstances. Then we accuse a partner of our losses and failed hopes.
Crisis periods are inevitable in a lasting relationship, but they give partners a possibility to review the basis of their union. This process lets us better understand what relationship aspects refer to ourselves and our inner life and which – to a partner and life exactly with them.
We discover ourselves through others. Would we consider a new love connection as a source of energy that nurtures our stable relationship, or would it open an absolutely new life to us we have to build from scratch? It’s impossible to predict. And unless a choice is made, we are in love with both partners simultaneously. НравитсяОцените это раньше всех