Is Big Love For Real?

Thursday, September 14, 2006

I've given some thought lately to the idea that I have held for some time. I believe real, true, deep, honest love can be held for more than one person at a time. This is hard for me to get my head around since I have come to loathe polygamy of all kinds.

That leads me to think this... Perhaps the true love can only be felt for more than one partner but not practically expressed. It seems inevitable that the first partner with whom you share that love becomes disaffected and feels betrayed by the love expressed for the superfluous partner. This is interesting since, in the case of true love, no betrayal would be intended and no love would be held back from the first partner.

Why then does the partner feel betrayed by the attention given to the other partner? Is it because they feel they should be betrayed? Is it not the act of giving love to another that is hurtful but instead the lying and deceit that seems to always accompany such things?

A friend suggested today that perhaps that betrayal is self-originated. That is, that no outside force created that betrayal and that it is not even real outside the person who feels betrayed. I suggested a similar alternative to that theory. What if the betrayal is real but self-inflicted?

Maybe the love for another partner is the feeling that isn't actually real. Maybe the love for the first isn't and that's why you can love another at the same time.

I know some people claim to make this sort of thing work out successfully. I know others tell tales of disaster even when all parties enter with full-disclosure and noble intentions. I think this speaks to my belief that there's no universal set of behavior that will bring guaranteed happiness.

Like I said, I can't make heads or tails of all this since I have lots of seemingly conflicted feelings on the subject. As it is now, I have a hard enough time managing the love I have for just the one woman. Maybe this is too weighty a topic for an amateur philosopher like me to solve.

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