Loyalty Is A Test Of Love

It is possible to love two people at the same time. I see it all the time in my counseling office when people describe their affairs. They love their spouse and they love their affair partner. They are paralyzed with indecision because they love both individuals. The love they feel is a function of getting to know two people too well. Both their souse and their affair partner are loveable, admirable, and are completely capable of giving and sharing love.

You can love two people at the same time - not in the same way and for different reasons - but you can only give loyalty to one. That’s where the ethics and morality of decisions come in. For morality’s sake and for peace of mind, don’t try to do it. Loving two people at the same time can "eat you alive." It is painful and it comes to an unhappy consequence with major betrayal and personal anguish.

People have to guard against affairs by watching the quality of their cross-sex friendships. Deliberately avoid the type of intimate conversations that would lead to a compassionate, loving relationship with a workplace or other "friend" that might set up a competing love and trigger impulses toward more intimacy - including physical intimacy.

By having two relationships at once, the lover chooses to be loyal to one partner by keeping the relationship a secret, or by sharing information about one relationship with the other but not visa versa. It is the "insider" who gets the true loyalty. True loyalty isn’t tested until the lover has to make a final choice between the two parties. He or she has to give up one love over the other because divided loyalties destroy trust in both relationships. Loving two people at the same time does emotional violence to the betrayed party to whom the original commitment was made.

Feelings follow loyalty. While the affair is going on, generally the offender redefines what is happening in their marriage as not true love, or maybe was never true love, to justify his or her behavior. The offender rejects or withdraws from his or her marital partner because of the loyalty issue. Feelings of not being in love follow the behavior (disloyalty to the spouse) and the thought (not love or flawed love). People rewrite the history of their courtship and marriage to account for their disloyal behavior.

By eliminating the association with the affair partner and by redefining that relationship as less than true love, the offender then can "feel" love for his or her spouse again. If an offender defines the feelings toward the affair partner as an infatuation or something less than true love, then it is easier to give up the relationship.

In the case of an affair partner, there is usually evidence to substantiate the fact that it is not true love because the lovers are sharing only a portion of their life together and were deceitful to themselves and others to justify what they were doing.

Love is a choice. Love is behavior. Love is consistent loving behavior - sustained attention and concern over time. Feelings are a part of love, but feelings follow the way we behave - if for no other reason than to reduce cognitive dissonance. Conversely, behavior doesn’t necessarily follow feelings. If it did, this would be one heck of an undisciplined and impulsive world. It is hard to change feelings unless there is also behavioral change.

"Real" love encompasses loyalty. Choosing to have a competing love in your life is a violent disservice and betrayal to one or both of the partners. One relationship might have primacy over the other or alternate depending on the circumstances. In a behavioral way, love is being withheld from either the affair partner or the spouse. Mutual commitment and loyalty are necessary to sustain love.

Loving two people at once is not pleasant. It is painful or will become painful. It means eventually having to give up one of the parties and, in the meantime, living with competing loyalties. For those who have been there, it is a terrible place to be. Deceit and disloyalty are tough to live with. Wanting both relationships and knowing that it is impossible is a fence nobody wants to be on.

Stay away. Loyalty and honoring commitments are a test of love. People can retain full consciousness of their feelings of love toward their affair partner and choose not to act on them. When I tell a person who has violated their marital vows by infidelity to categorically stay away from their affair partner, I am doing it to allow time for the feelings to diminish. This takes time. Staying away represents a choice - which is an act of love toward the person you are now choosing to love.

The betrayed spouse shouldn’t be too alarmed by residual feelings their marital partner may have for the affair partner as long as there is no contact between them. The choice has been made. Feelings will diminish. What needs to happen now is an outpouring of love, concern and unselfish behavior in the marriage. With time, strong feelings of love will match the loving actions the offender is giving to make up for the hurt and pain he or she caused.

Can you love more than one person at a time? Yes, if we allow ourselves to. But we can’t be loyal to both.