rainshaded

Personally, I tend to believe the Doctor does in a sense love them all, but that's not to say he felt the same about each one. There's nothing wrong or debasing in that - I love my family, but I don't feel exactly the same way about my father as my brother. Can love two people 'equally' as it were, but in different ways and for different reasons. I dare say love from family (adopted, blood or otherwise) is no damn less than romantic love, but romantic love gets a lot more attention as a relatively newer... Freedom, I guess, since marriages were a lot more arranged back in the day.

I suspect a lot of the 'one true love' soulmate stuff a lot of media tries to sell us is part of the reason for the need in some to make the Doctor's love for char A be greater than B.