@TheForbiddenfruit
The idea of polyamory is essentially that we can love many people and most likely will love many people in our lifetime.
But ‘love’ is distinct from ‘relationships’. Love might be how we feel about other people (or how we feel about ourselves also - ‘self-love’); and relationships is what we ultimately decide to do about it, or how we act upon those feelings. We can fall in love with people without necessarily being in a relationship with them. And you can be in a relationship with a person without being in love.
[If] we are in love with one person and happily in a relationship with them; while at the same time in love with someone else - there’s no reason why that feeling (of love) that we have for both people cannot be true at the same time. If we feel exactly the same way for two people in every respect, but then somehow conclude that how we feel about person (a) is ‘love’ because this person came into our lives first, and how we feel about person (b) is ‘not love’ because they came into our lives second - We are merely deluding ourselves to reach a contradictory conclusion.
However, if we promise ourselves exclusively (monogamy) to the first partner then that necessarily creates an obligation in our actions from pursuing a relationship with other people irrespective of our feelings. If we pursue love with others after vowing to love only our partners, then this is a betrayal of the love that we promised our partners. Love is sacred, and honors its promises. The element of secrecy in the situation you described is troubling. Usually there are not any healthy loving reasons for keeping secrets from our partners; particularly if it pertains to our feelings of love/attraction for other people. That might be indicative of shame/fear of crossing a boundary in the relationship.
In short, I do think it’s possible (and even very probable) to love many people at the same time and there’s evidence of it happening in relationships all over the world right now. What matters is what they do about it; and how people reconcile that feeling (of love for another person not their partners) within the boundaries of their existing relationships.
CatsInTheCradle