The limits of "love"

Here's something funny that's been on my mind the last 24 hours.
In our American society... then again, you could apply this in several European societies as well... love between lovers draws lines between you and every other person you ever meet. There's the occasional couple who is mature enough to have no trouble with a partner's "friends" and of course the swingers and otherwise, but, for the rest of us doves, it's still a monogamous thing, and possession thing, a security thing.
What are the reasons? What makes us believe that our lover relationships interfere with our ability to make friends? Most may tell you that they've been burned before by being trusting of a person who insisted that the co-worker or the secretary or the barista was just a friend only to find that if you look through the coffeehouse after hours or stop by the office to drop off some dinner that friends with benefits just entered into the contract you never signed. I think we all feel this one...
But how does that happen? Has the limited scope of our view in the roles we play handed us choices that needn't be made? In other words, did we get the idea in our head to "cheat" because we didn't have some appropriate way to include someone seemingly significant in our lives. Roll your eyes, if you want, and I'll even roll mine in remembrance of things past... Some people are dishonest slobs, but for the few who love us and make mistakes, did they feel there were no other options?
I know women, some women, have a slightly tidier compartment in which to store "friends" and "boyfriends"... Hell! Most of gals have used that as an excuse for breaking it off with men who took them on dismal dates. I can't say I have myself... or, at least I don't remember using that excuse, but that's because I didn't buy it. I knew that friendship was rarely ever an option... not so much because I didn't want the friendship... more because I knew that the person with whom I was involved could see nothing less than a romantic endeavor with me.
And then there's the ones of us keep this lack of progression at a stand-still by not allowing ourselves to trust those who do love us to have friendships outside of the romantic commitment. This is a scenario I think most people, the ones who have been hurt or never took the chance to be hurt, know something about. My pathetic but potent example is my relationship with my mother. After my father left us (I was six months old) and we had the struggle of my childhood and pre-adolescence, my mother became a teacher giving her a chance to be acquainted with other children. The bond between women and young children is both maternal and scribal... taking notes and writing volumes of behavior, experience, patterns, etc. My mother is a kind and loving person who became fond of a little girl here and there that reminded her of me. Rather than see that my mother was able to form a teacher-student connection between these kids, I could only see and understand the mother-and-child combination and felt hurt and threatened. My mother could never love another child like she loves her own children, and while I know that, my inability to see the scope of possibilities of her relationships with others accumulated into fear and resentment of potential loss. We have a lot of "there can be only one" mentality about some of our strongest bonds.
While this is gorgeously human, it limits love. Love doesn't sound like the sort of force that should/could possess people. Love is meant to be freedom itself... allowing for happiness and light in every form that person can offer. We have so few words to describe its many forms... maybe that's the culprit! Those charming gentlemen towards the end of the Renaissance who had the brilliant idea of standardizing the language. Not to say English of the Renaissance and Early Modern period couldn't use the help, but where are the words for love? The French have a handful of words for types of affection and, as we all know, Eskimos have several words for "snow".
I'm not saying the scope of what love can be should ever be bent into something destructive. Moreover, I'm not saying I'm nearly mature enough to confront the possibilities of where love, in this society and others, has to go. I do know that I love other people in ways that are unique to each individual. No one is my best friend like Anya, yet no one is my Penelope or Beth. No one is my love as David, yet no one has been there as my artist once was a great, sweet collaborator and friend or my Russian teacher very much a father or uncle to me. Yet, we all have a responsibility to those loves, the great and unique, to find the expressions that belong singularly to them that the love we have for others will merely belong to them rather than threaten those we love most daily.