Madly in love
Rahul and Tina have been together for a year. They met at a college fest. Now they’ve graduated and have just recently started jobs at different offices.
Rahul is still madly in love with Tina. Tina too has the same feelings for him.
Off late, Rahul can’t help but notice his new colleague at work – Riya. Whenever Riya is around, Rahul feels giddy. He has even started fantasizing about her!
Rahul admits to himself – he has a crush on Riya.
Guilt pangs
Now Rahul has guilt pangs about these feelings for Riya. He also wonders if this is because of problems in his relationship with Tina? Nah! They are still very much in love.
Does it feel like a page from your own life? In love with your partner but still have a crush on someone?
But before you fret, know this: just because you have a crush doesn’t mean there are problems in your relationship. And it doesn’t mean you’ll act on it.
Our advice to Rahul is the same!
These are the findings of a recent Canadian study. The researchers were curious to see just how common crushing is for people who are partnered up – and what that means, if anything, for their relationship.
Common feeling
It turns out that having a crush on someone other than your boyfriend or girlfriend is actually pretty common. Eighty per cent of the participants in the study said they’d had a crush on someone else during their current relationship.
Their crushes were often someone they worked with or a friend of a friend. Usually they’d known him or her for a long time.
Crushing on that cute colleague doesn’t mean things aren’t going well with your partner, the research also showed. People who had crushes were generally happy with their relationship and sex life and committed to their boyfriend or girlfriend.
Not a recipe for disaster
What’s more, having a crush doesn’t spell disaster for a relationship – and it might actually be a good thing. Crushes don’t necessarily lead to cheating, for one.
In the study, under 20 per cent of participants said they would actually run off with their crush if given the opportunity. More so than a reflection of a willingness to cheat on a partner, crushes might be about seeing someone regularly, your mood, and a host of other factors.
They can also be a source of excitement or entertainment in a relationship, say the researchers. Fantasizing about someone else could boost sexual desire, something that’s well-known to decrease in long-term relationships, all well staying committed to a partner.
Reference: Roving Eyes: Predictors of Crushes in Ongoing Romantic Relationships and Implications for Relationship Quality. Journal of Relationships Research. Published 2019.
To protect the identity, the person in the picture is a model and names have been changed.
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