Can You Have More Than One Love of Your Life?

Drake with
Drake with “the love of my life” Nicki Minaj. (Photo: Getty Images)

Drake took several people onstage with him when he accepted the Billboard Music Award for Top Artist on Sunday night, including Nicki Minaj. And after thanking Lil Wayne for being his mentor, Drake gave Minaj a special shout-out onstage: “I got the love of my life up here too.”

But fans were quick to point out on Twitter that Drake said something similar about Rihanna at the 2016 MTV Video Music Awards, declaring that the “Work” singer was “someone I’ve been in love with since I was 22 years old.”

That quick turnaround seemingly contradicts the notion that someone gets only one “love of my life,” but experts say there’s nothing wrong with Drake’s take on the concept. “It does seem possible to have more than one great love in a lifetime,” licensed marriage and family therapist David Klow, owner of Skylight Counseling Center in Chicago, tells Yahoo Beauty. “Sometimes people find it with one person and the relationship grows over time. Yet others move in and out of relationships and find people who better match who they currently are.”

Clinical psychologist and author of Should I Stay or Should I Go? Ramani Durvasula, PhD, tells Yahoo Beauty that the idea that there is one person for everyone is “sheer nonsense.” “We live long lives, we grow and change psychologically, geographically, and spiritually, and there are nearly 7 billion people on this planet — you do the math,” she says.

Durvasula says the phrase “love of my life” is “dangerous,” though, because there is a singularity to it. “At any moment, if you are deeply in love with someone and they are the love of your life — because that is your life at that time,” she explains. “There is a good fortune in having more than one glorious love story in a life, just as much as those who have that one glorious love story that spans the years.”

Relationships are complicated, Klow notes, and if someone thinks he or she has found the love of a lifetime, that person is entitled to that feeling. But there can be a downside to thinking you’ve found the One — namely, if things don’t work out. That doesn’t mean someone is out of luck in love in the future. If you were with someone you thought was the love of your life and it didn’t work out, Durvasula recommends focusing on what you can take away from the experience. “If they were the love of your life and it did not work out, you learned something about yourself, the world, and what love is,” she says. “You may have learned what you value and will make wiser and more informed choices in the future.”

Many people give up if they think they’ve lost their “one true love,” but that mentality can close someone off from the world, Durvasula says, which is why she urges people to get back out there after a significant relationship didn’t pan out. “Fact is, once you fall in love again with a new ‘love of your life,’ the old love will likely be eclipsed,” she says. “Love stories have a way of overwriting the past ones.”

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