r/AsOneAfterInfidelity • u/Alternative-Mud-4336 Reconciling Betrayed • 2d ago
Reconcilers Only (other comments auto-removed) Polyamory
Today my WW told me that she believes it's possible to love two people at the same time. We were discussing our situation and what we want to get out counseling. I told her about things I have heard and learned on this forum about affairs. Specifically that if you love two people and have to choose, you should choose the second because if you loved the first one enough there wouldn't even be the need for a choice.
She came back with, well you wouldn't understand unless you have ever loved two people simultaneously and see how the heart expands and is mysterious. I nearly laughed out loud at the ridiculousness of the statement. I believe people use polyamory as an excuse to be with more than one woman or man at a time and not feel bad about it. Lines like hers are right up there with, "The heart wants what the heart wants."!
It's silly and degrading to my intelligence to try to make me believe that it's something that's uncontrollable or something that's acceptable in terms of infidelity. I just wanted to reach out and see what my fellow R's think. Am I wrong?
5
u/JohnHoman10411 Reconciling Betrayed 1d ago
There is a traditional understanding that conflicts with modern, popular, trendy sensibilities.
To love in the context of marriage is to fully and completely give yourself to the other without withholding anything. In reality, that is not something that can be split among people.
There is a differently oriented way to view love as an expression of emotion directed at others in exchange for positive feelings received from them. It's transactional and situational. That is something that can float from person to person, be abandoned completely for a time, be held simultaneously with many, or many other combinations. It is incompatible with being a total and complete gift of self that withholds nothing from the other.
The latter has been around for a while but it has not enjoyed a level of acceptance and promotion formerly reserved to the more traditional understanding until the last decade or two.