Proof That We Fall in Love Three Times in Our Lifetime

Many years ago, in 1986, psychologist Robert Sternberg published the triangular theory of love, and from there, we begin to see several psychologists and philosophers describe love in three different kinds. This is why you may have heard or seen that we fall in love three times in our lifetime.

Helen Fisher, an American anthropologist, further elucidated on the Three Loves Theory, where she argued that humans experience love in three different ways: lust, romantic attraction, and attachment. She described lust as the instinct of sexual desire or drive; romantic attraction as the love based on emotional attraction; while attachment refers to deeper feelings of union and commitment to a long-term partner.

And then, more recently, Kate Rose, an American author and relationship coach, popularized the Three Loves Theory by stating that we fall in love with three people (or three times) in our lifetime, each for a specific purpose.

Perhaps, the three times we fall in love refer to distinct phases in our life, or to three actual people, or even to generic experiences that teach us what different kind of love exists. In this post, you will see what falling in love three times in a lifetime means and proof that this may be true for everyone.

What The Three Loves Theory Means

If there is anything psychologists, philosophers, and free thinkers have all agreed upon in the context of love, it’s that we experience love in three distinct ways throughout our lifetime. While some may experience these three kinds of love with just three people, others may experience more, while a few others achieve the ultimate love experience with just a single person in their life.

According to Fisher, the three times we fall in love represent our stages of growth and maturity in our understanding of what true love really is. Lust or infatuation is the first kind of love we experience, where we are driven by our sexual desire. There is no commitment, and we may feel this love for a range of partners that meet our sexual fantasies.

Romantic love or romance is the kind of love primarily characterized by passion and intimacy. It is a refinement of the more primitive love, lust, evolved to enable us focus our mating energy or sexual desire on just one person at a time.

After the romantic love experience, we all realize that romance is not sufficient for long-term relationships, family, and child-rearing. Romance soon fades, opening us to the third kind of love, strong enough to stand the test of time—Attachment.

As Mark Manson, the American self-help author, puts it, one kind of love, say infatuation, can morph into another. By implication, each heartbreak you experience takes you closer to the third kind of love, which lasts.

The Three Times We Fall in Love in Our Lifetime

Have you fallen in love before, and how many times yet? These three-time love experience in our lifetime takes you back to your feelings and expectations in the various times you have fallen in love before, whether three, more or less.

1. The Idealistic Love: The Love That Looks Right

The first time you likely fell in love was when you were young, and probably in high school. You came across someone who portrays the ideal image you have always fantasized about love. This may have been influenced by societal expectations or the depictions of love in media, books, and fairy tales.

You stumbled across this person, and you expected everything to pick up from there. And no matter how much you try, you can’t keep them off your mind. You dream about them, fantasize about ideal happiness with them, maybe in a love paradise with flowers, until you wake up to the unexpected reality.

This is the love that looks right, because in this type of love, we prioritize how other people view us over how we actually feel. You realize that no matter how much you want to express your love, the person may not even feel the same way. Thus, this often ends in the most heartbreaking way when you realize that you emptied yourself to make them happy, but ended up getting woefully disappointed.

This love teaches us the hard truth about passion, emotions, and excitement. While they are an important part of any romantic experience, true love focuses more on a deep and authentic connection, rather than just some fantasy-based feelings.

2. The Hard Love: The Love We Wish Was Right

After the first love fails, we approach love a bit differently when another opportunity comes up. This second love is the love that teaches us hard lessons about who we are and our own emotional needs.

In this second love, we find ourselves in a situation where we do everything humanly possible to make the other person happy, even if it has to be to our detriment each time. We sacrifice ourselves and needs in an unhealthy, one-sided relationship, because we think that is the sacrifice we have to pay for love, but it ends up becoming the worst heartbreak we’ve ever had.

Our second love can often become a cycle, where we keep repeating the same experience with different people, thinking we may soon meet the one person who makes a difference. Yet, it somehow ends worse than before each time we try.

It’s the love we wish was right, and when we eventually break free from it, it opens our eyes to what it means to be valued and loved for who we are, not merely for how often we have to die to feel accepted. This is the hard love.

Kate, in her book¹Kate Rose. “You Only Fall in Love Three Times: The Secret Search for Our Twin Flame.” 2020, refers to the second love as karmic love because it’s the love where we feel like we have to do what it takes to resolve our past wrongs regarding love and relationships. But it’s temporary and hard, only serving to prepare us for the third love.

3. The Unconditional Love: The Love That Lasts

This is the love we never see coming. It sprouts from the ashes of the second love and comes to change our mindset of how we believe love is supposed to be. This love comes so easily, it doesn’t seem possible, because it’s the love where the connection can’t be explained or even understood.

This person loves you for who you are, and you can easily see that. It comes when you least expect it, and it might not even feel right because it feels too good to be true. There is no pressure on how you should act or changing your personality, and it’s the love that makes every sacrifice worth it.

This love teaches us what true love is. It is based on mutual respect, trust, and emotional maturity. Kate refers to it as soulmate love, which describes a profound connection at an emotional, spiritual, and sometimes, cosmic level. It’s called soulmate love because even if it doesn’t end in marriage, the connection lasts forever.

This third love may start as a normal, unremarkable friendship or casual meeting without any romantic intentions, but soon, it grows in the most remarkable way ever. Some say it’s the love that keeps knocking, regardless of how long it takes us to answer.

Kate Rose also described another type of love or soul connection known as the twin flame. The twin flame resembles aspects of both the second (karmic love) and third (soulmate love) due to its transformative nature. When these individuals meet, they experience a powerful bond like the third love in a way that complements their strengths and weaknesses. The challenges they encounter often push each other to drive themselves to full personal growth and development in their relationship.

Proof That We Fall in Love Three Times in Our Lifetime

It is easy to dismiss the assumption that we fall in love three times in our lifetime because we have encountered people who have been in love more than three times already. But that’s if we view the statement as a categorical statement of being in love exactly three times in a lifetime.

A study on how often and when people fall in love demonstrated a clear difference in the timing of falling in love between men and women, stating that men generally fall in love more easily than do women, with no evidence to the contrary. In this same study, it was established that men (mean age of 32) and women (mean age 30) had a total of about 4 loves at the time of the study, demonstrating no significant sex difference in the total number of loves in a lifetime.²Galperin, A., & Haselton, M. (2010). Predictors of how often and when people fall in love. Evolutionary psychology: an international journal of evolutionary approaches to psychology and behavior, 8(1), 5–28. https://doi.org/10.1177/147470491000800102

The above already exceeds three times, which means there is no supporting evidence that we fall in love exactly three times in a lifetime. But these three times or three people we fall in love with represent three distinct phases we go through in our journey to finding true love.

Again, this theory is one that has brought psychologists, anthropologists, free-thinkers, and many prominent self-help and relationship experts in unison. It is also very relatable to most people. As such, while there is no proof that we fall in love exactly three times, this universal agreement and relatability is the only proof that there are three phases or kinds of love that we experience, each for a specific reason.

Final words

This post examines what it means when we say that we fall in love three times in a lifetime, each for a specific purpose. This is not referring to three exact numbers of times, but distinct phases in our journey towards emotional maturity and finding true love that lasts. The ultimate love that lasts is one where you are valued for who you are and not because you have to give up your life to prove anything.

Some would fall in love only once and stay with each other forever. Maybe they are just lucky. While others have to go through the three love phases, sometimes even cycling through the second love several times before finding the love that lasts. But each of these experiences teaches us lifelong lessons we will be forever grateful for.

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