Psychology Today50%
Is Love Really a Zero-Sum Game? 7%
By Aaron Ben-Zeév Ph.D.9%
7/11/2026, 1:15:11 PM
BS Summary: This article contains 10 faulty reasoning types, including Hasty Generalization, Confirmation Bias, and Composition/Division, with Optimism Bias as the most egregious example at 15.8% saturation with 168 hits. Analysis detected 521 faulty-reasoning hits from 1,066 analyzed words, generating a BS Score of 22.9% and a BS Rank of 7% (14,559 of 15,532 articles). This article is better (less manipulative) than 93.70% of the article peer group.
Aaron Ben-Zeév Ph.D.
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While relational resources are finite, the capacity to love may be surprisingly flexible.
Satisfying sexuality can generate an emotional surplus rather than simply consume finite resources.
Positive emotions foster personal growth and well-being.
Widows and widowers often describe loving both their deceased spouse and their new partner.
“ The more I see you, the more I want you; somehow this feeling just grows and grows .”—Chris Montez
We often imagine love as a pie: When one person receives a larger slice, someone else must receive less.
This intuition fuels jealousy , supports expectations of exclusivity, and shapes many objections to consensual non- monogamy .
But is romantic love truly a zero-sum game?
Or is the heart capable of expanding even when the resources required to sustain relationships remain limited?
Romantic Capacity Versus Relational Resources
“ The heart is not like a box that gets filled up; it expands in size the more you love .”—Samantha, Her
The belief that romantic love is zero-sum assumes that directing affection toward someone new inevitably reduces what an existing partner receives.
Love becomes a fixed pie: Every additional investment comes at someone else’s expense.
This view overlooks a crucial distinction between romantic capacity and relational resources.
Romantic capacity refers to our ability to love, and relational resources include time, attention , emotional energy, physical presence, and commitment.
These dimensions follow different rules.
Relational resources are finite—there are only twenty‑four hours in a day—but the capacity to love is often remarkably elastic.
The heart may expand even when the calendar cannot.
Recognizing this distinction clarifies many disagreements about jealousy, monogamy, and non‑monogamy.
People often assume that because time is limited, love must be limited too.
Yet emotional capacity and practical investment do not necessarily expand—or contract—in the same way.
Source: Pexels-Darina-Belonogova-8764912
The Expanding Nature of the Romantic Heart
“ Thousands of candles can be lit from a single candle, and the life of the candle will not be shortened .”—Buddha
Human beings routinely demonstrate that love can expand.
Parents commonly love multiple children without loving any child less.
Romantic love differs from parental love in its exclusivity and investment, but the example indicates that affection itself is not inherently diminished by being shared.
A particularly illuminating case is widows and widowers who fall in love again.
Many describe themselves as loving both their deceased spouse and their new partner.
The deceased partner continues to occupy a meaningful place in their heart, while a new romantic bond develops alongside it.
Because the relationship with the deceased partner requires little ongoing investment of practical resources, it shows how emotional attachment can persist without competing for daily time and attention.
In this sense, death does not necessarily end a romantic relationship , even though the relationship is no longer reciprocal (Ben‑Ze’ev, 2019).
This distinction also clarifies debates surrounding consensual non‑monogamy.
Critics often assume that love must be divided among multiple partners until it becomes diluted.
Yet the greater challenge may lie not in emotional capacity but in the finite resources required to sustain several intimate relationships simultaneously.
Time, attention, commitment, and physical presence are often zero‑sum—even if love itself is not.
If romantic capacity can expand, what psychological mechanisms make such expansion possible?
Two theories offer insight:
Barbara Fredrickson’s broaden‑and‑build theory proposes that positive emotions broaden our momentary thought‑action repertoires and build enduring psychological resources over time (Fredrickson, 2001).
Love doesn’t just feel good; it fosters growth.
Arthur Aron’s self‑expansion theory suggests that people naturally seek to enlarge their sense of self through close relationships.
Partners enrich one another by incorporating each other’s perspectives, abilities, and experiences into their identities (Aron and colleagues, 2013).
Love, in this view, is inherently expansive.
The Expanded Nature of Sexual Desire
“ While having an affair, I was sexually aroused and began to notice other men noticing me.
Even my husband was more attracted to me.
When it rains, it pours .”—A married woman
Sexuality offers another example of expansion rather than depletion.
One of the strongest contributors to relationship satisfaction is sexual afterglow —the positive emotional state that lingers after satisfying sexual experiences.
Research suggests that this lingering warmth predicts relationship quality even more strongly than orgasm itself.
In newlywed couples, sexual afterglow often lasts about forty‑eight hours, and couples who experience stronger afterglow report greater marital satisfaction over time (Muise and colleagues, 2014; Danovich, 2017).
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Sexual afterglow illustrates an expanded pie: fulfilling sexual experiences often increase vitality, confidence , affection, and openness .
These changes strengthen existing relationships and may also make individuals appear more attractive to others.
In this sense, satisfying sexuality can generate an emotional surplus rather than consume finite resources.
“ When you’re smiling, the whole world smiles with you .”—Frank Sinatra
Love is neither entirely a fixed pie nor an endlessly expanding one.
Our emotional capacity appears remarkably flexible, allowing us to care deeply for more than one person.
Yet close relationships depend on scarce resources that cannot be expanded indefinitely.
The essential distinction, then, is between the heart and the relationship .
The heart may grow, embracing several people at once.
Relationships, however, require time, attention, commitment, and physical presence—resources that remain limited.
Understanding this distinction can help us navigate love with more clarity—and more compassion.
Aron, A., et al.
(2013).
The self-expansion model of motivation and cognition in close relationships.
The Oxford handbook of close relationships , 90-115.
Ben-Ze’ev, A.
(2019).
The arc of love .
University of Chicago Press.
Danovich, T.
(2017).
Afterglow: Is what happens after sex more important than foreplay or the orgasm?
Aeon , 21 November 2017.
Fredrickson, B.
L.
(2001).
The role of positive emotions in positive psychology: The broaden-and-build theory of positive emotions.
American Psychologist, 56 , 218-226.
Muise, A., Giang, E., & Impett, E.
A.
(2014).
Post sex affectionate exchanges promote sexual and relationship satisfaction.
Archives of Sexual Behavior , 43 , 1391-1402.
Aaron Ben-Zeév, Ph.D., former President of the University of Haifa, is a professor of philosophy.
His books include The Arc of Love: How Our Romantic Lives Change Over Time.
Personal Website , Facebook
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