Loving … two

Is it possible to love two people at the same time? This question takes us by surprise: our first desire is to immediately answer no. And this is understandable: everyone remembers a lot of examples when one of the spouses deceitfully parasitizes immediately on two people who love him. And he, in fact, does not love anyone. However, we are not attracted by another option: to be a prisoner of absolutely sincere feelings for two partners at the same time.

“We are unconsciously afraid of the possibility of falling into a love triangle,” explains family therapist Inna Khamitova. — Not only because we all need stable, trusting relationships. Infidelity can lead to many losses: close people will turn away, a divorce is possible … “

The love triangle is a classic story. We are always worried about films, novels, in which the hero or heroine is torn between two loved ones, or these two are trying to figure out their feelings. We sympathize with them, but at the same time we are trying to understand: what are men and women looking for in such a split in relations?

love rating

“There are many who, at a certain stage in their lives, realize that they love two at once,” says French psychotherapist Sarah-Anne de Saint-Hubert. – The physiology of love of our contemporaries no longer fits into the framework of classical morality. Today, the dualistic understanding of love (love / dislike) is changing, we see that this feeling has many shades.

The “rating” of love in our lives is very high, and therefore it is precisely this that we are increasingly inclined to consider the cause of (our) betrayal. “40 years ago, when talking about adultery, married men meant that we were talking about casual relationships for one night,” explains sociologist Sergei Golod. “Today, the motives are different: more often they refer to love for another woman.”

Ideal and reality

“We are traditionally focused on monogamous relationships,” says Inna Khamitova. “And we hope to meet a person who can give us everything that we expect from love. We are ready to live a long life with him, grow old together and die in one day. But this is a rare happiness, an ideal story. Reality, in most cases, does not live up to expectations.

Why is this happening? According to the French psychoanalyst Didier Dumas, “the desire for monogamy reflects our unconscious desire to revive the primary connection with the mother. For a child, the mother represents his universe, gives inexhaustible love and acceptance.

And, having matured, many expect from their partner the same feeling of love and security as in early childhood. Putting a partner in the mother’s place, such a person dooms himself to eternal dissatisfaction, since the partner’s love falls short of the ideal maternal feeling. In this case, loving two is a way to avoid projecting our relationship with our mother onto the partner.

Another reason for the split in love can be the so-called splitting, when a person wins back his different desires and needs with different partners. Freud spoke of two drives – tender (it is in some sense due to attachment to the mother) and sensual (its goal is sexual satisfaction).

“In an adult, they should merge together and be directed to one partner,” explains psychoanalyst Natalia Kigai. “However, they often remain separated, and therefore different objects of love are chosen to satisfy them.”

Finally, for some couples, the third is vital: it helps to maintain relationships with each other. “A couple is always (to a certain extent) merging with each other,” explains Inna Khamitova. “But some people have an unconscious fear of over-merging with their loved one, they are afraid to feel absorbed. If in a couple both partners are like this, they feel bad together and unbearable apart.

In such a situation, love for the third one of the partners allows you to keep your distance. Let’s say a husband is not completely close to his wife because he has a mistress. But the merger does not happen with her either, because there is a wife. Such a story can last for years, until one of the lovers gets tired of the uncertainty and leaves the game himself.

Attachment or Diversity

The exclusive right to parallel novels has long belonged to men. Today, women are increasingly behaving in the same way, as if wanting to erase the differences between the sexes.

“There are structural differences, but rather between the masculine and the feminine,” comments Sarah-Anne de Saint-Hubert. The masculine is set in motion by centrifugal force, and more often than the feminine, gives rise to an attraction to double love relationships. And the centripetal femininity, being affection by nature, focuses strongly on one person and is less disposed to parallel plots.

It seems that we have to admit that for some this double love is really necessary to satisfy their deepest needs. “Let’s not forget that there are as many types of sexuality as there are people in the world,” reminds Didier Dumas. Just as no two people have exactly the same faces, so no two people have exactly the same sexual behavior.

A man who loves two women behaves differently with each of them in this respect. Sexuality is creativity, and the one who connects his life with two partners creates two works that are unlike each other.

To speak or remain silent?

Deciding to hide a new love, anyone runs the risk of feeling like a member of a vaudeville trio: husband, wife and lover (lover). “Only those who manage to talk, discuss their feelings with a partner and talk about sexuality are able to survive such a situation,” said Didier Dumas. “And it’s not easy, because you have to overcome two thousand years of silence about what is connected with sex!”

“Such a conversation can bring partners closer if they are ready to listen and try to understand each other,” says Natalya Kigai. “To do this, you must be ready to explore not only the other, but above all yourself.”

Not always, however, the desire to open up leads to positive results. “Before you decide to talk, you should ask yourself the question: “Why do I want to talk about treason?” Inna Khamitova warns. – To understand whether you are driven only by the desire to understand yourself and in relationships, or is there something else, say, an unconscious desire to create a competitive relationship between one partner and another.

You need to understand that the partner will be hurt; it is quite possible that he will perceive this information as a betrayal, will not be able to process it correctly, will begin to suffer, feel unnecessary … Here your straightforwardness is unlikely to be appropriate.

In the case when there is no opportunity to open up to a loved one, which means there is no chance to analyze the current situation together, there is little left. “Accept and comprehend the knowledge that you love two people, and figure out why this is so,” says Natalya Kigai. “After all, each new knowledge about oneself (even if it hurts) enriches us, leads to greater wholeness. Another thing is what exactly you will understand about yourself. Sometimes these are things that you don’t want to know at all.”

gift of love

Many of these stories, described in books or embodied in films, develop dramatically – explanations, tears, scandals … In real life, there are people who live in a love triangle for many years … and do not see any tragedy in it.

“If you are truly sincere in your feelings, you should not blame yourself just because your life path does not coincide with the generally accepted ideal,” says Sarah-Anne de Saint-Hubert. – Even if many condemn you. Two parallel love stories rather indicate that you have this most important gift – to love.