You Don't Choose Who You Fall For
You do not choose who you fall in love with. No matter what stage of life you're in. No matter how deeply loyal you are in your relationship. No matter how ethical you think you are. You have no control over who you fall for. It's so automatic, so natural, so evolutionarily wired that you can't even register it happening. It happens beneath your awareness. Through the unconscious.
You can choose who you stay in a relationship with. Who you marry. Why you marry. How long you stay married. These are all pragmatic decisions. They require you to weigh a great deal. Starting with compatibility. Relationships are complicated because an entire machinery has to work for one to succeed.
Love, on the other hand, is simple. People who think love only happens once. Or that it happened to them before and won't happen again. They are lying to themselves. They have shut every door on that possibility by neglecting themselves. They simply haven't met, in reality, the person they admire in their mind. Every individual carries that version in their mind, one they never speak of. The version of a perfect person. Or if not perfect, at least someone who carries those qualities.
In psychology, Carl Jung called it the anima and animus. Your reference point. Your ideal image of a person. You think you cannot fall in love again, until one fine day that person stands right in front of you. You feel those butterflies again. The worst part is when that person reciprocates. Or responds in a way that fuels the butterflies further. You're powerless in that moment.
When you encounter such a spark, your mind goes blank. You have no template for handling such emotions. You know what the right thing to do is. You know you cannot afford this, because you might already be in a relationship. But goddamn, it feels good. That's love. When you can't sleep without thinking about them. When their presence ignites something inside you, that's when you know you've encountered something truly magical.
I call it magical because it is still purely psychological. Pragmatism hasn't entered the game yet. It's purely animal instinct toward the person. Like you've finally met your match. The moment you introduce practical considerations, you lose the heart to pursue it. Love is what you feel about that person. Relationship is the guardrail that keeps it locked in place.
Can love happen again? Yes, because love is a feeling. You will always feel hunger. You will always feel desire for another woman. You will always need to feel good about yourself. That's evolutionary. It's basic biology. What you do with such an intense feeling determines how you are perceived.
You have to think about your existing commitments. You have to be pragmatic about the consequences. You will always be right to prioritize your stable relationships. That's beside the point. The point has always been this: you have no control over who you fall in love with. Not at all.