When we think of love — true love, romantic love, passionate love — we tend to think of two people who mean everything to each other, ultimately blocking out the possibility of anyone else entering into the picture.
And if a single person claims to be “in love” with two different people they aren’t currently dating, it’s easy to write that off as just two separate crushes of similar intensity. For many people, the notion of being in love precludes it being applied to two people at once — to them, love is necessarily a feeling you can only feel for one person at any given time.
“Feelings of ‘falling in love’ can exist even if you don’t really know the person,” says Jess O’Reilly, Ph.D., sexologist and host of the @SexWithDrJess podcast. “So you may have passionate feelings that are associated with your perception of this person — as opposed to the reality. Just because you feel excited about seeing someone or intensely attracted to them doesn’t mean you’d be fulfilled having a relationship with them.”
“So, for example, if the feelings of ‘being in love’ are a matter of having a crush on someone, oftentimes getting to know them can quash some of the intense feelings. This is because much of the passionate love we experience when we meet someone new is associated with the unknown, the mystery and the fantasy image we create in our minds; once you get to know them, the excitement can often dissipate.”
Can You Be in Love With Someone While Already in a Relationship?
Being in a relationship with someone else doesn’t make you exempt from feeling something for another person, unplanned or otherwise.
Of course, it’s possible to develop intense feelings for two people simultaneously without ever actually dating or being in a couple with either, but it’s a bit trickier when you start out in a relationship where you love your partner, only to suddenly feel love-like feelings for someone else.
“You can be passionately in love with someone while you’re in a relationship with another,” says Barrett. “A relationship is a logical choice. Falling in love is involuntary. It’s an arrow to the heart — you can’t help it. This often happens when your relationship has become more of a friendship, so you fall in love with someone who re-ignites the dormant passion within you.”
That’s often how infidelity happens, too. “Oftentimes, a long-term relationship can become more like a sibling relationship, and the sexual connection fades if the couple don’t know how to keep it alive,” says Tessina. “That opens the door for falling in love (or at least, lust) with someone else.”
For some people, seeking out a sexual outlet is where the cheating begins and ends. For others, it leads to developing real feelings for another, whether or not the affair is physically consummated.
“You might be in an emotionally cold or distant relationship, within which you have chosen to close your heart, or never felt comfortable fully opening it in the first place,” says House. “And then you meet someone who makes you feel safe, seen and sexy, and with them you become vulnerable, real, emotionally connected and in love.”
What Does Being in Love With Two People Say About You?
Feeling like you’re in love with two different people at the same time can be nerve-wracking.
For starters, our society tends to instill in people that it’s not even possible, let alone a desirable state to be in. Add in the fact that it often takes the form of some form of cheating, along with the possibility that if either person knew about the other, the whole thing would come crashing down, and you’re likely left with a pretty stressed-out person.
“If you’re in love with two people at once, forgive yourself,” says Barrett. “It simply means you’re human — that two people are both meeting desires you have for connection, love and companionship. Yes, it’s complicated, but there’s no cause for shame.”
Instead of seeing your feelings as a manifestation of something bad within yourself, it might be more useful to see them as a sign that something in your current relationship isn’t satisfying you. Then, you can interrogate the relationship on that basis, rather than making it about the other person specifically.
For instance, if you feel like you’re in love with two people, it might be a sign that “you don’t do intimacy well,” according to Tessina, and that “you don’t know how to negotiate the deeper parts of a relationship, so instead you get distracted by someone else. It’s really a way to avoid intimacy and bonding.”
Basically, if you have enough free time and emotional openness that you start falling for someone else, it implies that you’re not fully invested in the person you’re currently with.
Rather than being in love with two different people, really, you’re likely not actually in love with either. You might feel love for your original partner and you might be in lust with the new person, but neither of those meets the criteria for being in love.
Love is a powerful feeling, and most people understand that enough to use it to describe situations where they genuinely do feel powerful emotions.
However, if you feel like you’re in love with two people at the same time — particularly if you’re in a relationship with one of them and developing feelings for the other — you owe it to yourself and the two people you’re thinking of to explore what it is that’s really going on with you, emotionally.
“For monogamous folks, it can be very confusing, overwhelming and distressing” to be in love with two people, says O’Reilly. “Especially since dominant sociocultural scripts suggest that we ought to find ‘the one.’”
If you do explore a polyamorous arrangement, however, “being in love with two (or more) people at once can be highly fulfilling,” she says. “This doesn’t, of course, mean that it’s always easy. You may not have the time or resources to dedicate to two simultaneous relationships — regardless of whether or not you identify as polyamorous.”
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