What Compersion Feels Like
Compersion is best defined as sympathetic joy. Simply put, it is the joy you feel when someone you love or care about is happy, even if their positive experience doesn’t have anything to do with you (or may not even benefit you). It’s a common word used in non-monogamous circles, first coined by the since-disbanded polyamorous Kerista commune in the early 1990s, specifically for the joy one feels when they see their partner being happy in their sexual or romantic relationship with someone else.
You’ve probably felt compersion before in a non-romantic context, even if you didn’t have a word for it. Perhaps your best friend got a promotion they’d been wanting for ages, or a family member achieved a new goal, or your pet dog was friendly with a stranger on the street. You feel happy for them, because their happiness is your happiness. As the author R.A. Salvatore once said, “Joy multiplies when it is shared among friends, but grief diminishes with every division”. Compersion is a fundamentally unselfish feeling, because it is a wholehearted celebration of someone else’s sense of fulfilment in life.
I happen to be a person who feels a lot of compersion in my relationships. In my first open relationship at 17, I recall being genuinely excited for my partner when he had a great date with someone else. I glowed when he told me about what a good time he had, the interesting conversation topics they touched on over drinks, even the great sex they had. Anything that made my partner happy, made me happy as well, and I would also feel happy for the people he met. These days with my current partner, I feel compersion even in the earliest stages of dating. I cheer for him and say “Nice!” when he matches on Tinder with someone. We high-five when he progresses from the chatting stage to actually arranging a date. I help him get ready for his dates, suggest places for them to go, and hug and kiss him goodbye before excitedly watching him leave. When he comes back, I want to hear all about it and share in his joy. In a swinging context, I also feel compersion when seeing my partner have sex with an attractive person, and my social circle can personally attest to seeing me grinning from ear to ear while it’s happening. It makes me think, “Wow, what an amazing experience this must be for him. I’m so happy he’s having a good time, and I’m so happy that this other person appreciates him exactly like me, and gets to personally experience what a fantastic partner he is.”
A lot of people say compersion is the opposite of jealousy. To some extent, this is true – generally speaking, if you aren’t tied up in feelings of jealousy, you are more likely to feel compersive feelings for your partner. However, it’s not helpful to think of your feelings as a sliding scale with ‘compersion’ and ‘jealousy’ at opposite ends. It is entirely possible to feel compersion and jealousy at the same time, and many people have reported feeling this way. Emotions are complex, and positive and negative emotions can coincide. It’s a lot like feeling a bittersweet joy when your friend moves away because of a job promotion; you’re happy for their professional success, but you’re also sad because you’ll see them less.
It’s important to note that while compersion is an amazing feeling, it is unhelpful to pedestalise it, or to gatekeep people who don’t experience it as not being ‘poly enough’. A lot of people see compersion as the ultimate poly relationship milestone, and while it is one worth celebrating, it should be seen as a nice bonus, rather than a goal that everyone should aspire to reach. A lot of people feel fairly indifferent about their partner’s other partners, and you don’t have to be jumping for joy every time you see them together to be ‘truly polyamorous’. Setting compersion as a goal can also incentivise people to be dishonest about how they’re feeling, and to pretend to be happy for their partners because they feel that’s how they ‘should’ feel, when in reality they are struggling on the inside.
So, how does compersion come about? From my personal experiences with compersion and speaking to other people who have either felt it or are working towards it, I’ve generally found there are three main things to cover.
1. Make sure you are getting your needs met
It is on you and your partner(s) to communicate about how much time and attention each of you need in your relationships, and to manage your time carefully to accommodate everyone involved. Typically, it’s easier to feel positive feelings when you are generally feeling content about life, and this is why it is important to assess whether you are getting your needs met in a relationship. People generally struggle to feel compersion, and are a lot more likely to feel jealousy, if they don’t feel that they are getting enough time, attention, sex, and so on. For example, it would probably be difficult to feel happy for your partner when they’re spending time with someone else, if they’re already spending very little time with you. On the other hand, if you are getting your needs met, it wouldn’t really cost you much if your partner chose to share the excess love they have to give with others, as long as your needs aren’t compromised in the process. An analogy you may find helpful is to imagine you’re eating at a feast. If you’re not getting enough food, you might hesitate to share, but if you’re content with your meal and full to bursting, giving away the excess food presents no loss to you!
2. Build a secure attachment
A lot of people struggle with their partners being with others because they fear abandonment. It is therefore important to build a secure attachment with your partner. This is easier said than done, of course, and the steps on how to develop secure attachment are beyond the scope of this article. Learning to trust that your partner loves you and will not leave you is a process that takes time and lots of communication. Understand that your partner’s attraction to someone else does not always mean they feel less attraction for you, and remember that the entire point of polyamory is that as long as there is love, no one gets replaced by anyone else, because you are freed from the obligation to ‘just pick one’! If you are secure in the knowledge that your relationship is strong and solid, other people being with your partner seem far less of a threat.
Another reason why people feel anxious and unsafe in their relationships is when they feel that they are in direct competition with their metamours for their partner’s love. The way I have explained it to partners in the past is that there is no need to compete at all, because by being my partner, they’ve technically already ‘won’. They are already my partner, and no one else is ever going to challenge that position no matter how many people either of us see, because of the love we share and the time we have invested in each other through our commitment. As long as we continue to show up for each other, neither of us have anything to fear.
3. Get your happiness from multiple sources
It is important to develop individuality and independence in your relationship, no matter what type of relationship it is. If you literally depend on your partner to feel happiness and fulfilment, and use them as an emotional crutch, of course you would feel utterly devastated when they are not around. Develop more friendships and important connections outside of your relationship, and make sure you have some hobbies that bring you personal joy. Having happiness come from multiple sources in your life will mean that you never have to rely on any one of them for life satisfaction. If your partner is on a date with someone else, instead of wallowing in your sadness, it may help to work on your personal projects, do a self-care ritual, or talk to a friend.
My therapist once explained to me that in a healthy relationship, two people should be able to stand on their own, and by coming together, they enhance each other’s happiness. She asked me to visualise it like the letter H, where the two “I”s were connected by a bridge of love, but stood straight and tall on their own. An unhealthy relationship would look more like the letter A, where the two “I”s are not only connected but also leaning on each other for support. Take one “I” away, and the other collapses. (You can read more about this “alphabet relationships” theory here.)
Do you feel compersion? How does it show up in your relationships?