Affairs of the Heart: What to Do When You Are in Love with a Married Person
by Moreah Ragusa

I don’t think that anyone sets out to fall in love and become intimate with a married person, but it does happen all the time. As a therapist, I see it frequently. An affair is bound to shine the light on everyone involved, and it will inevitably illuminate any “cracks” in a matrimonial union that one needs to see, take responsibility for and hopefully repair.

Whenever I sit across from a person engaged in a love triangle, I open my heart in compassion. I see that he or she is usually consumed by guilt, overrun with pain and confusion and literally torn between two lovers. I begin by saying that being in love with two people is not really a “sin.” In fact, I offer as an insight that the affair can be used to uncover the issues and unmet desires of everyone involved. Affairs ensure that everyone can review themselves and their relationships and move towards the relationship they deeply desire — and deserve. A love triangle can be Love’s way of waking us up to a hunger we have been denying.

So, why do you fall in love with someone, married or not? I believe there is a primary reason: we are magnetized towards love, searching for connection and deep intimacy. We are seeking someone who loves what we love, who has values common to our own, who can feed our emotional hunger and who will communicate about the inner workings of his or her being, while also listening to our inner processes. At the heart of the matter we want to be with someone who thinks that we are fabulous and who appreciates all that we are — the good, the bad and the ugly.

If for whatever reason our yearnings are not being met in our committed relationship, we will unconsciously go looking for this. Since from a soul perspective love is unbounded, free and unlimited, all people (regardless of the “human” commitments they have made to another) are lovable and open to interaction.

From the perspective of the soul, falling in love with a married individual is not necessarily a tragedy or a sin. In fact, it can be at times the only thing that will cause a person who is “falling asleep” or becoming complacent within his or her matrimonial union to wake up and do some deeper heart searching and life reviewing.

We must be careful in the assumption that to interact with and then fall in love with a person who has made a promise to love someone other than ourselves is a tragedy. The heart knows no boundaries; our values and our ideals do. But let’s not confuse values and ideals with love; they are safety nets.

Now, some will argue that commitment is an aspect of love. Love is committed to itself and to all of life. Love and life (not to be confused with living) are synonymous, and they are all inclusive. I usually say that love is not an exclusive proposition, so if we are committed to love we are “safe,” but our commitment to a person will usually only last if we are getting something in return for that commitment. Is that love . . . or barter?

Most individuals who find themselves in a love triangle soon discover that they have become torn between the head’s ideals and rationalizations and the heart’s wisdom. The heart can love more than one person at a time, but the ideologies we have adopted say, “No way! Pick one.”

At this point, depending upon our security (fear) factor, we will choose either where we feel we will be “safest” (meaning, most comfortable) or where we feel we will be most able to live in the honor of our heart, the doorway to our inner wisdom.

For more people than I can count, the big question is, “Is this love or infatuation?” I wish I could get a dime for each time this question has been posed. There is another question one might consider asking: “Is it really love that I have with the person I am already committed to?” It may well not be. You could discover that in fact you are not in love with either person!

Some people confuse love with security and safety — you know the known! This is not love. You know you are in love when you do not possess, when you get fed by loving another, and when you do not love just to get something in return. Love is its own reward.

If you find yourself in a love triangle, ask yourself, regardless of your placement within the threesome: How does this serve my soul? What is it about the person I love that is so attractive? What is it about this person that I do not like? What does this person offer me that seems so valuable? What does my future feel like without this person in it? And lastly, what is it that I have been hungry for? In answering these powerful questions, you will be well on your way to seeing why you (your soul) have attracted this dynamic into your life. Without judgment, allow it to be, and trust that it is the doorway to a better life.

Love is uncompromising and will force you to get honest. It will crack open every relationship you are in, to see if love truly dwells within it.