I'm in a love triangle...

Can you be in love with more than one person at once? I've been asked this question many times. When it comes to love, I don't believe in hard, fast rules that will apply to every person, every situation, and their journey to romance. Each person has a different experience with love and the lessons it will come to teach them as they continue to walk it's path. Is it possible? Sure, why not. For some.

 However, I do believe, in my own personal experience, there is always a front runner when we force ourselves to look at the truth of our situation, which I will explain in a moment. I believe that we were created to love and be in romantic partnership with one person. As a little girl, teen, and into adulthood, I don't remember fantasizing about creating a beautiful life and having a wedding with two grooms, but that's just me. Personally, I just don't have enough energy or patience to deal with two relationships at once. Keeping one successful relationship is enough of a challenge, lol.

However, I believe we ALL have the capacity TO LOVE anyone and everyone if we choose to. We are beings created to love. Yet, there are great misunderstandings when it comes to if we, in fact, love someone or are IN love with someone romantically. Many people don't identify the distinction between the two. They may often feel they are the same. When we connect with someone on a heart and soul level, especially when it comes out of nowhere, we assume this connection is meant to be a romantic one, especially if we find this person attractive. Yet, this may not always be the case. There are many reasons people come in and out of our lives, many lessons we are meant to learn, many experiences and opportunities we are meant to create, but truthfully, who stops to ask themselves, why is this person coming into my life and actually hear the answer? Most don't. If there is  any attraction, we will most likely start dating or create a friendship to explore this connection. Normal right? Of course. Then we find out we have nothing in common, everything in common, or just enough in common to keep the attraction going.

But what happens if we start dating two people at once? Or worse, what happens if we are dating someone, and we meet someone else out of nowhere, a mutual connection sparks with this stranger, making us question how this happened when we were content in our other relationship? We don't want to just exit our relationship that we love but we do want to explore what this is and why it's happened. You get sucked into something that you didn't necessarily intend. Perhaps you thought, it would only lead to friendship and now you have developed feelings for this new person. Now you are stuck in a triangle. You're confused. Who do you choose? How did this happen? Did you really fall in love with someone else? Does that mean you don't love the person you are with already, maybe you never did? All these questions cause one big mess in your mind.

Stop and take a breath. Instruction number one.

This is a normal situation believe it or not. As I said, human beings are created to love. Share and spread love. Give and receive love. And NOT just for romantic purposes. Connections, whether from your heart, soul, or mind are there for a reason. We just need to distinguish which it is and not always make it mean it's for romance. There is a  difference between loving someone and being IN love with someone. As you can literally love anyone.

Here's the difference: Loving someone suggests there is a deep connection. A deep caring about a person and their life. You care about what happens to them. You think about them. You want the best for them. Most times you want to be around them. They add value to your life. You enjoy their company. There's a shared bond. The list goes on...the overall experience of this person tends to be a reciprocated and loving one. The love we share for them is based on  a seemingly equal exchange of commonalities, kindness, friendship, trust, etc,...

Or sometimes, it's based on  a sense of "should love." Should love being... We have a lot of history so I should love them... They've done a lot for me so I should love... They love me so I should love... Even if we don't necessarily like them, we have REASONS why we "should love" them, when in fact "should love" turns out to be the reason we may realize later on that we don't actually love them unconditionally...but that's another story.

So which is it? How do I know if I'm in love or just love? When you ask yourself, Do I love them or am I IN love with them, what comes up for you first? Maybe neither. Maybe you're not in love with either of them. The possibilities are endless. :)

Well, maybe the next question is "how would I know?" Well, your intuition will tell you if you don't over think the answer. The first answer you come up with in your head is usually the right answer before you start over thinking and ultimately confuse yourself.

Before my spiritual evolvement,  I THOUGHT that I was in love with two people at once when in fact I really wasn't. I loved one. Deeply. We had a connection that I felt in my soul, the attraction wasn't necessarily there but I convinced myself that because I loved him, I was supposed to be with him and attraction would come. I mean, you couldn't just walk away from that kind of connection, right? The other one, I loved. Not from a deep soul connection kind of way but a strong attraction. There was passion and excitement. Overtime, our relationship grew and so did our connection. Ultimately, I had to choose one. It always ends that way right? Inevitably you have to choose, or they will choose for you and you may be left with neither. Not such a bad thing sometimes.

Inevitably, I chose. They both taught me great lessons about myself. And yet, the end result was my relationship didn't last with either of them. And let me tell you, it was for the best.

Now, I love a lot of people and I am able to recognize the difference in my connections with people who come in and out of my life. I have deep soul connections with a select few people who have become my greatest friends and I love them with every bit of my heart and soul. They  are my soul mates for sure. Some I've been attracted to and some the attraction wasn't there. But the Love was undeniable. When this happened, it made me question if I was actually meant to give it a romantic go ahead. After some reflecting, I realized I just couldn't. Our relationship was not made for that purpose. It was made for something different and quite purposeful none the less.

So, Why do we have trouble distinguishing love from being in love?

Because love is powerful.  Quite frankly, it's so big that it tends to not make much sense to us, especially if we don't know that we can require specific answers of it. We typically don't think we can walk into love with our eyes wide open, choosing to fall in love. We think it's an emotion that overtakes us and we have no control. Well, maybe. And maybe not. However, we do have control. We control the questions we ask of love and we choose to see the answers it reveals. And it ALWAYS reveals what we ask if we are willing to see the truth.

"Okay okay," becomes the most common statement of my clients who have asked me these question and have then been schooled on how to identify the difference between love and in love. I smile of course, because there are so many scenarios that it could make anyone's head spin... and then the next statement is... "what do I do now? I'm already in this complicated triangle."

Good question...

So, how do we truly know which relationship is for us when we've found ourselves in this predicament? How do we get out of it once we've developed feelings for both people and they've returned those feelings?

It's a difficult situation, I will give you that, and yet the answer is relatively simple.

PICK ONE.  Or Pick NONE.

This brings me back to the front runner. When you find yourself in a love triangle, you may have truly convinced yourself that you are IN love with two people... maybe more if you're living your life like  you're on an episode of the bachelor/ette.

Yet, in reality, there is always someone who you feel more connected to. Someone more predominant. This is what I tell my clients: Answer immediately and Without hesitation... clear your mind and picture yourself in bed, turning over to kiss the one you love the most, who did you see?

Now, unless you see all 5 of your lovers in bed with you, you'll have your answer.  If you do see all 5 of your lovers in bed with you, perhaps you're just not a soul cut out for monogamy at this time. You might have some other deep rooted issues to be worked out and in that case, perhaps the only relationship you need to build on is the one with yourself.

There are many reasons we may get ourselves involved in a love triangle.

1) Fear of letting someone down- therefore we don't know how to break it off, even when we know in our heart we don't want to continue a relationship with that person.

2) Fear of actually having what we say we want- and when it actually shows up, we self sabotage.  This is a big one. Many times we will want something, pray for it, envision it, search it out, and inevitably get it. That's how the universe works. We get what we say we want. Yet, the predicament becomes if we get exactly what we want, the loss of losing it is greater. This causes us to project fear and we begin to convince ourselves it may not be what we really wanted. The pain of losing what we want may be greater than losing something we were not fully invested in, so to protect ourselves, we chose the one who may hurt us less subconsciously.

3)You like attention and want to be loved by many people- refer to "other deeply rooted issues" if this is you. :)

4)Each person has a little of what you feel you want and need. Therefore having both of them makes a whole person.... This is an illusion. Do yourself a favor. Don't choose either of them. No relationship should fill a need, just a want. If they aren't all of what you would want, they are not for you.

 

All in all, be fair to the person you choose to love. Put the shoe on the other foot. It may be hard to get out of a love triangle but how would you feel if the person you chose to be in love with, couldn't choose between you and someone else.  Romantic love should be shared between two people. A non competitive relationship. Honor yourself and honor the one you choose to love.

BE Love. BE Beautiful.

LoveNElise