Can you be truly in love with more than one person?

I think that one can truly love more than one person. Consider the love parents have for their children no matter how many they have. Except for sexual attraction, is this love different from the love adults have for each other? Adolescents, young and older adults often find that they are emotionally attracted to more than one person. Most societies prohibit such liaisons, especially when married. Some, however, permit husbands having multiple wives and less frequently wives having multiple husbands. Some households include multiple couples that are free to engage sexually with each other.

The likelihood of jealousy and it consequences is one reason that monogamy is preferred. Religious restrictions are another, though infidelity occurs as frequently for religious and it does for non-religious people. Sexual desire diminishes as one ages and children have been produced. Because this decline is often more rapid for women, men may find it difficult to resist temptation and, as it had with their spouse, emotional bonding with their paramour often results. Unfortunately, the initial relationship is damaged if not destroyed by this betrayal.

No. Not in the same exact way, with the same exact level of emotion and physical attraction. That is, unless you’re some kind of a true mental case.

@kritiper i didn’t think so either, but i know we can sometimes mistake lust. or infatuation as being deep in love the mind boggles.

I agree 100% with @Bill1939, but it is a truly tortuous, guilt-ridden situation with no satisfactory solution and having experienced it twice, I’ve avoided it like the plague.

@Bill1939, you make a fair and wonderful point sir, i think the love of our children is still a different kind of love than actually being “In love” with someone else, maybe i’m wrong, but i just feel that there is a difference loving someone and being in love with them.

@Safie Yes. Precisely!

I agree with @Bill1939 as well.
I also like the saying that “immature love is hot and mature love is warm.”
At 55 now I prefer warm over hoot any day of the week. The youthful love dramas are so unappealing as we get older,

I have friends in their 40’s going to marriage counseling and it is all I can do to listen to the latest drama the wife shares with me. I just kind of tune out, so-not-interested! lol
As a divorced women with a grown child and being in a long term marriage&divorce a dozen years ago, ( my choice ) I am quite content with my own company and am grateful I am not an emotionally needy person that feels a need to always be in relationship.

It’s as true as the history of literature itself!

I don’t know. there are so many levels of love. More so if you throw in lust and infatuation. We can lust after tons of people at once. Where do you think bar pickups come from? Really caring takes a lot more effort and commitment. And really really caring would probably take all of my attention, so I’d guess it can happen on some levels, but not the most intense level.

At the same time? True love? No.

I love @bill1939’s answer. He mentions cultures where polygamy is acceptable. While I can’t see that ever working for me, it has for many families. There are plenty of examples of menage a trois that seem to have been successful too. While I can’t see myself loving another man exactly how I love my husband, I could see myself loving another man as passionately but differently. I don’t think there’s a limit on our capacity to love. For me the question would be would I want to? I think trying to manage the love I felt for two men would be horrible and stressful. I wouldn’t want to hurt either or neglect one. So even though I believe I could love two men with the same intensity, I don’t think I would want to.

For some people I think it’s possible. For me? I can only love one man at a time. It’s hard enough to work on one marriage/relationship. I can’t imagine being in love with two men, having two relationships, and keeping them both alive and thriving.

If it isn’t possible, the illusion that it is certainly dominates human history. The collapse of everything from soap operas through the divorce and homicide rates might be orchestrated through the elimination of the possibility.

I suppose for those that are polyamorous but it seems too hard. I know I could never truly be in love with more than one person. Maybe have feelings but never really be focused on more than one with my soul devoted to them at the same time no. I can’t. Lol

I believe that a man or woman Can be in Love with their spouse and Children.

People are seeming to mix sexual pleasure and Love together. We all know that – You can Love someone without being sexual. *( If ) – A polygamous relationship is the same. The Man loves all of His Wife’s dearly and would give his life For them all. But Sexual pleasure is enjoyed with them all individually. A Family is about LOVE. I believe that one can have SEX without being in love and that seX has nothing to do with being in Love.

it is just a physical attraction, sense or a excitement or stimulation. Millions of People WORLDWIDE are having sex and they are not In Love. But Love is when You dedicate Your time and abilities to helping and taking care and respecting and supporting and Co Habitation with Another. I love My mother and My WIFE too. But Lust or sexual attraction is only shared with my wife.

Being in love, Does not mean that You are so Overwhelmed with Passion and Lust that You just cant help Yourself and are forced to become stimulated in a sexual way.

I am seeing a lot of this idea – ology – propagated by many people.