Compersion For Beginners
Can you imagine taking pleasure in your boyfriend's feelings for someone else? That's compersion.
Amidst a crowded dance floor, a slender blonde woman leaned over to whisper in my ear. "You're a very attractive couple," she purred. I smiled at her—an ego boost is always nice—and continued dancing with my boyfriend. The man with her gave me a high-five and kept flashing smiles my way. Was he trying to hit on me? It could not have been anymore clear: I was there with my boyfriend.
For the next half hour every time I looked up, I felt one of them trying to make eye contact with me. When we left the bar my boyfriend asked if I'd noticed the couple. "I think they were trying to hit on me," he said.
"No, they were hitting on me," I replied. Then it dawned on us: they were hitting on us as a couple. That's funny, we both thought. And then he looked at me and said, "I don't want to share you with anyone."
"Neither do I," I replied. Exclusivity with one partner is where I'm comfortable in a romantic relationship.
The model for romance in our culture is so dominated by the monogamous male-female relationship that most people subscribe to it without stopping to consider the alternatives. But not everyone is uncomfortable with sharing his or her partner.
People in open relationships often feel joy or pleasure when their partner has romantic adventures with other people. This feeling is sometimes called compersion. The Keristan Commune, a now defunct San Francisco-based polyamourous community, gets credit for coining the term, which is often defined as the opposite of jealousy. The word compersion is widely used in poly circles, but anyone in a non-monogamous relationship can experience joy from a partner's other love interests.
When Shara Smith started dating Brian Downes, he was already in a relationship with someone else and he wanted to be careful about respecting Stephanie, his first partner. "He wanted to take all the right steps, and that made me more attracted to him," said Shara, who describes compersion as a "positive emotional reaction to a lover's other relationship."
"I love to watch his face light up when she calls because I know how much he cares about her." Shara doesn't view other partners as competition. "Every relationship is unique and nobody can replace me, because they are not me."
"It's like a parent watching their children spread their wings and fly," says Anita Wagner, of the joy she feels when someone makes her partner happy. Anita is a polyamory skills educator and advocate who decided to go the non-monogamous route in her 40s, after two marriages and divorces. "I like the openness and honesty polyamory offers. I'd rather share my partner openly than be cheated on."
Openly sharing love is the essence of compersion. After a dinner with her partner Tom, his new girlfriend Mary and Mary’s husband Clint, Anita said she "couldn’t help feeling happy for [Tom’s] happiness. I could see how appreciative he was that I had gone out my way to put Mary at ease and signal my approval. His happiness at being free to develop a relationship with Mary was so warm and his love for me so evident."
Everyone gets jealous but not everyone allows jealousy to rule their thinking or cause them harm. Jealousy is better used as a sort of litmus test of how things are going in the relationship or the person. For instance if I feel jealous of a partner my husband has I am free to express my feelings, in a polite non threatening way, and then as a couple we can decide if there is an imbalance in the relationship, I have issues with the person who he is seeing for whatever reason, or if the problem if mine to deal with. It requires both of us to be mature and open to self criticism and I will also point out that it also requires that I give my husband and life partner the same right to express their feelings.
Jealousy has been a wonderful thing in our lives, it has provoked many thoughtful and deep discussions as well as prompting beneficial change in our combined lives. It can be a bit sexy as well for the partners ourside our marriage as well, they get to see the effort we put in to making each other feel safe, secure and loved and it gives the partners the confidence to believe that we will make the same effort for them.
You have no idea how much this makes sense to me. I wish I would have opened my eyes to this possibility before getting married to a conservative catholic and having a child. I love my wife with all my heart and soul, and I will not do anything to hurt her or to cause a lack of stability for my little princess (daughter).
I have cheated more than a few times. Flirting and then giving and receiving pleasure feels so natural when its mutualy conscented with an adult woman who knows what she wants. Nevertheless, I wish I could feel fulfilled after satisfying my needs. That is not what happens though, I feel like a liar, a cheater, etc.
I have openly spoken to my wife about poly lifestyle and the possibility of thinking different, of thinking we dont own each other but rather help each other to achieve all our desires and feel happy about it.
Cheating was a mistake and so was talking about polyamory to my wife. Her confidence went way down and that is because of the way she thinks, she is very catholic and conservative.
She is a very inteligent young woman but does not have any intention to explore a different alternative.
So I have decided to fight to be monogamous and to like it. Its not working very well, but at least I have achieved some stability in my home in order to let my child grow among a loving couple; this is my first and most important priority.
Any suggestions? Ideally I would like to have poly friends that are capable of opening our eyes as a couple.
I understand how you feel! I have feelt and feel the same way you do. I have also done the same thing you have. I can differentiate the change between love and sex. I enjoy having sex with my wife, but her unadventourous nature limits our sex life. She also thinks that love and sex are intertwined. I am at a loss on what to do with our relationship!
The open relationship is how they described it so well below. The lovers talk and agree on a vision for their own relationship, and how they want to handle other lovers. Compersion is happiness at your lover's happiness with their new lover. It does sound strange, and sometimes it does take a while to work through the social conditioning we grew up with, and is still reinforced wherever you turn, that jealousy is the appropriate response to your lover being happy with someone else. Right now, I do not get jealous. I tell my lovers, just keep me informed so I know if we are still on the same page or not. xo
Compersion is actively feeling joy at one's partner's joy in other romantic relationships.
An Open Relationship an umbrella term for a wide variety of relationships that allow the participants in the relationship to have some form of romantic and/or sexual relationships in addition.
What little information you have provided sounds as though you may be in a DADT or Don't Ask Don't Tell relationship, where outside sexual partners are ignored or overlooked. Although this works for some people, many polyamorists feel that this style offers too many health risks that come with lack of information.
Polyamorists prefer a more open and honest style of multi-partner relating. In addition to lowering the health risks with openly disclosing one's sexual status, some of us actually feel joy and happiness at opening up our relationships and having our partners invest in other relationships. This is compersion. Some of us find a great deal of enjoyment and fulfillment when we can greet our partners' other partners as friends of our own.
~Joreth
http://www.theinnbetween.net/poly1.html
http://joreth.livejournal.com/tag/polyamory
Shameika, open relationship is a term that covers a variety of kinds of non-monogamous relationships, but in this instance we are talking about a committed long-term relationship, married or not, between two people who have agreed that it's OK to form romantic relationships with other people so long as this is done openly and honestly. Jealousy is something many people feel who are in open relationships - it's a very human reaction. We just don't believe it has to control us or our relationships. We have learned ways that work for us that help us control if not resolve jealousy entirely. And as to hiding one's feelings, we would never recommend doing that - quite the opposite. Hiding feelings, especially difficult ones, is sure to end up causing a lot of drama. One of the essential aspects of open relationships is that everyone involved be able to effectively communicate how they are feeling and what they need in a loving and respectful way so others can understand what is needed and do their part to make sure it happens.
To find out more, visit my website at practicalpolyamory.com. There are many documents there that explain a lot of this, especially the one on making peace with jealousy. Also follow the link to my blog which includes links to many more websites on this subject.
Olive:
1) Some people are just not prone to jealousy.
2) Many poly people who do get jealous, do not get jealous over the same things as monogamous people
3) And for those who do get jealous, we merely seek to understand the underlying cause of the jealousy. We use jealousy as a tool. It can either tell us that there is a problem with the relationship, or there is a problem with us, internally, and either way, by knowing the root cause, we can fix the problem.
Jealousy is also less of a problem when you do not view your partners' other partners as competitors or rivals. Some of us see those people as potential to bring in someone very cool to the family, someone to have fun with, someone to learn from, and someone to help. There isn't much room to be jealous when you are actually looking forward to building a relationship with "the other woman". And yes, some of us really do think and feel that way.
Polyamory is not an easy relationship style in a society that lies to us and tells us that it's not possible, or that there is something wrong with you if you love more than one. There are lots of cultural programs to get past. But, for those who are "naturally" polyamorys and/or those who are interested in undoing those cultural programs, polyamory is a very rewarding way of living.
~Shara Smith (from the article)
http://www.theinnbetween.net/poly1.html
http://joreth.livejournal.com/tag/polyamory
Actually Olive, it's not that we don't get jealous. That happens sometimes, too. It's just that we've figured out how to work through those feelings - they don't have to be a dealbreaker. I know that's hard to imagine. It was for me early in my poly life.
For me, when it shows up at all jealousy shows up in the early stages when Tom is seeing someone new. It has to do with uncertainty about whether and how that relationship might effect my and his relationship. Once I get to know his new sweetie, feel comfortable with her, can see she doesn't intend to come between us and that, in fact, she supports our relationship, jealousy pretty much evaporates. If she doesn't impress me favorably, then Tom is even more cautious about how that new relationship develops. He knows he's got a good thing going with me and doesn't want to jeopardize it. (Smile)
