You can love your ex and partner at the same time, expert says

Serious relationships in the popular context is the exclusive, one partner-at-a-time type.

Although they are hardly eternal, they’re expected to be private affairs, shared between two people who have chosen each other to the exclusion of all other persons. So if you are in love with your partner, it would be expected that that’s where it should stop. You’re allowed to love someone else, but only when that relationship ends. And when a new relationship begins, the love, affection and feelings are moved over to the new partner, the old one forgotten.

You can certainly still be in love with your ex and also be in love with your current partner[Credit: Getty Images] Pulse Nigeria

That’s what we’ve always known, right?

Well, that was it until Dr. Gary Brown, a couples’ therapist in Los Angeles shed some light on a different, new perspective we may not have thought about before. He tells Elite Daily that: “you can certainly still be in love with your ex and also be in love with your current partner — this is actually a very common theme for many people.

“This is particularly true if there are some genuinely good things you miss. That is completely normal.”

If this is your reality even though you have started dating someone new, it’s important to not deny your process.

“What you want to do is to acknowledge your fondness for your ex, but also realize that that relationship has ended,” Dr. Brown said.

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He adds: “Accept that it is over, and also accept that, depending upon how deep your love was for your ex, that they are likely going to own a piece of your heart for a long time.”

It is understandable if you love an ex, but being in love with them is an entirely different thing. [Credit Shutterstock] Shutterstock

But here is the most defining thing about this whole ex business – you need to leave it only at a distance level.

Loving them for what they were to you and the period you shared with them cannot be wiped off your memory instantly, but you have to be self-aware to decipher if it’s just missing them, or wanting more.

One is good, the other is not. You can love them and not be in love with them.

“You don’t have to be in love with your ex to still love them for who they were and what they meant to you,” Dr. Brown explains.