The following is a question we’ve been asked at Marriage Missions and the answer we gave (in an edited form).

Q: Is it possible for a man to have an equally strong love for two women? The one is his wife and the other is a very good friend.
A: It’s possible for him to have love (and hopefully commitment) for one and feel an attraction to another. “Love” is difficult to define because it can take many forms. The type of love that God expects from those who marry is Agape love — which is a Godly form of love. It’s like what we’ve previously said in a past Marriage Message:

God created marriage to be a visible picture of Christ’s love for the church. The love we commit ourselves to hold for each other when we enter into marriage is to be “agape” love— just like the love Christ has for us. He loved us so much that He sacrificed and subjected Himself to death on a cross to die for our sins. And as we take hold of the love gift Christ gave to us, we can live in the resurrected victory that Jesus also provided where we’re forgiven for our sins and have the opportunity to live a new life.

Agape love is Godly love. It never quits and is unconditional. It’s a type of sacrificial love which loves BEYOND that which seems to be unlovable. It is a covenant-holding type of love. That’s the kind of love that REAL “soul mates” hold for each other. It’s the kind of love God expects in us to live out in our marriages—a Christ-like love.

There are other types of love like Phileo — which is a friendship type of love. There’s Eros —which is a sexual attraction bio-chemical type of love. And then there are other types also.

But the kind that God expects us to commit to when we marry is Agape love (which can also include Phileo and Eros). So regardless of whether a man feels an attraction towards someone else or even if he thinks he “should have married someone other than his wife” —that shouldn’t matter. He needs to quit entertaining the enemy of our faith and put his mind and energies into loving his wife as God expects and as he committed to do in the vow he made on his wedding day.

As someone once said, “Sometimes you make the right decision and sometimes you have to make a decision ‘right.’” When this man married he made the vow (whether he realizes it or not) to honor his spouse and love her “as unto the Lord.” Even if he no longer thinks he made the BEST decision in whom he married, his vow should be enough to motivate him to put his energies into making the decision “right” to honor her and put thoughts of anyone else out of his mind.

Ironically, what often happens in a case like this is that the person who honors their wedding vow— fighting against their feelings for “the other person” —eventually falls deeper in love with their spouse. It’s “amazing” how this comes about when their mind isn’t occupied with thoughts of someone else. It doesn’t happen every time, but even if it doesn’t, at least they’re living an honorable vow-keeping life (which our society needs to see more often).

To even allow the fantasies to take “seed” is dishonoring to God, the spouse, and to the honor of the person letting themselves entertain such thoughts, because it weakens their strength of character and dishonors the vow they made.

To sum up your question: Yes, a person can love two women. But when one person is a wife and the other is someone else, then the love for the other woman is wrong and dishonoring to everyone involved and needs to be thrown out from allowing it to grow any further — both in thoughts and in actions. That love needs to be stomped out like a fire that is causing damage.

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