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It is Impossible to Only Love One Person
And if you love someone, let them go
At some point in high school, I hatched the hare-brained notion that if I wanted to be a faithful boyfriend and husband, I had to condition myself to cut my emotions to other girls once I was in a relationship.
Essentially, I wanted to love one person.
This stemmed from the boys and men in my life that couldn’t keep it in their pants and hurt the girls and women I cared about. But it also stemmed from the religious notion that mankind is inherently sinful, so I was trying to reprogram myself out of it.
Did it work? Yes and no.
I never cheated, but I don’t know if that was due to any “reprogramming” on my part. However, in high school I found myself in an open relationship but I made an emotional connection with someone else.
For me, this was emotional cheating. I hadn’t heard of the term before but it was clear that I was doing something wrong because my actual relationship was under threat from this tidal wave of emotion.
Years later, I had a dream that I was in a back of a taxi with a girl I was very attracted to. I was still in a relationship with the same girl from high school (but we were in a “closed” relationship at this time).