5 Reasons Why We Fall In Love With Other People (Even When We’re Already In A Happy Relationship)

True or False: Falling in love with someone else when you are already in a relationship means that you don’t love the person you’re currently with.

To most people, that answer is true. Many believe you never truly loved the first person if you fall in love with someone else, but I digress. Falling for another person doesn’t mean that you don’t love your current significant other. As much pain and guilt you may feel for falling in love with someone else (even if that other person isn’t “the one”), there are reasons why it happened. There are reasons for everything. It’s not that your significant other wasn’t good enough, or that they didn’t love you well enough. You just may not have realized what other qualities or needs were important to you, especially when you believed that what you already had was enough. Here are 5 reasons why you sometimes fall in love with other people when you’re already in a healthy relationship.

1. You have a different love language.

Perhaps your needs are incredibly different from what your partner has been giving you. You value quality time spent together, and you haven’t been receiving it. It’s not necessarily their fault – they simply might not have the time or bandwidth at the moment. But when you know they love you, and you fall for someone else anyway, it means your love tank needs a little filling. Person #2 was probably able to give you something you weren’t already receiving.

2. You need more intellectually stimulating conversations.

Whether it is because neither of you can ever be serious enough to have one of these discussions, or because one of you continuously discredits the other, having these deep, intellectual conversations strengthens a couple’s connection. Relationships can survive without it, but being able to bond over engaging topics, while still having differing individual opinions, is key to a relationship.

3. You are interested in different things.

This is partly tied to #2 above. If you are not interested in the same things, or don’t at least have similar backgrounds, it may be difficult to understand one another, especially if stubbornness runs in both parties. Opposites may attract, but having similar interests is important for any relationship.

4. Your values do not coincide with your significant other.

When you realize that you’ve fallen for Person #2 partly because of the beliefs they embody, you know that something is off here. You have a different “goal” to life than your current significant other does, and your motivations for those goals may differ even more. You may see things in a way that they don’t, and vice versa.

5. You are at a different point in your life than your significant other.

When people say timing is everything, they aren’t necessarily wrong. We are all at different points in our lives, whether it be spiritually, career-wise, or age wise. It could also simply be in terms of how well each of you know yourself. They could understand themselves very well, and may be ready to move forward, whereas you may be in a spot where you are still trying to figure out your tendencies, your preferences, and your strengths.

Maybe these realizations will always arise whenever we fall in love with another person. Nevertheless, these differences between you and your current significant other are often magnified when you fall for someone else. No two people are the same, and each person comes with different sets of strengths and weaknesses, and different ways of loving you. It’s up to you to decide what you really need.