The Comment:
What’s your take with this quote “If you love two people at the same time, choose the second. Because if you really loved the first one, you wouldn’t have fallen for the second.”? Is it really possible to love two people at the same time?
Well, I’ve never heard this quote before now…. and my initial reaction isn’t positive.
There’s a lot of unknowns attached to this quote…a lot of context that’s missing. Does the person you love first love you back? Or, have you been pining after them for a long while and they aren’t showing any interest? In this case, of course, choose the second.
But, I also think that this quote is some weird justification for affairs. Saying that if you’re in a committed relationship where you love someone and then, over time, someone else comes along that you find yourself really starting to be into…that it’s perfectly acceptable to go after that second ‘love’, because that’s who you’re really in love with. Bogus.
I think the thing that we forget about love is that it’s a choice. Too often we’re making decisions based on our emotions and our feelings of love. Too often we are quick to fall in and out of love, letting our emotions drive us. Too often we back out of commitments, out of relationships, out of jobs, out of parenting….all because it didn’t feel ‘right’ or because we had lost a lot of the initial charm.
Is it possible to love two people at the same time?
Sure. It’s possible to have romantic feelings for two people at once.
But is it possible to be truly committed to two different romantic relationships? I don’t think so.
So, I guess you have to look at love differently than just as this emotional connection with someone. That’s there, yes… and you want it to be there. But, you have to be willing to acknowledge that it’s not always going to be there in every moment of the day. Relationships can be hard at times. People are messed up and broken and sometimes when that becomes the prominent thing we are living out of, love becomes harder. It isn’t always just fluffy and ooey-gooey and feel-good. But, it’s committed. It’s a desire and a commitment to stand by someone’s side no matter what. It’s not something to back out on when something ‘better’ seems to come along (remember how the grass is always greener on the other side, but when you get there, it’s not actually everything you thought it was going to be??).
We can’t be wishy-washy people who worm our way in and out of relationships based on our feelings, fears, insecurity. We have to be loyal, dependable, and trustworthy. People who honor our commitments.
We also can’t let quotes be anything that we base our lives/decisions on. Bad theology equals bad decisions. There’s nothing true about this quote. Nothing that suggests it has any credibility to be taken as an absolute for how we ought to live our lives. There’s too much at stake, too much unknown.
Don’t be someone who tries to foster two romantic relationships at once, even if you’re just trying to “keep your prospects open”. Your actions affect other people. Your actions speak of your respect of other people and your concern over their lives/well-being. You have to be conscientious of this as you enter into dating relationships. You have to be honest, you have to be transparent, you have to establish trust from the beginning.
Mostly I’m just trying to say that oftentimes you probably still really love the first (there’s a reason you wanted to be with them in the first place, right?)….but in the moments where it isn’t as easy/wonderful as it once was, it’s easy to think that maybe it’s not right. And, on top of those feelings, if there’s someone else who seems wonderful, it’s even easier to think that they might be more right for you than the person you’re currently with. And maybe, if you’re dating, it could be true.
But, friends…
Once your married?
Once your married, who you’ve committed to be with for the rest of the life is the person who you must choose to love for the rest of your life (no matter what you might feel for someone else). They are the person you are supposed to be with, until death do you part.
Let’s honor our commitments.
Let’s not be wishy-washy.
Let’s not be selfish.