A few years ago, my partner at the time and I decided to see other people.
It’s about how people in these types of open relationships deal with jealousy.
The concept is calledcompersion.
What is compersion?
The wordcompersionis loosely defined as the opposite of jealousy.
This is an instinctual feeling for most of us.
Instead of sparking jealousy, it sparks earnest empathetic joy.
“There are a ton of mudita meditations, which is something else I recommend to people.”
That means that for many, compersion is a feeling or skill set that takes conscious practice.
Why people experience jealousy.
Blue compares feeling jealous to having an alarm bell going off in your head.
“It’s very similar to a fire alarm in your house, right?
And you know in a similar way, it’s very disorienting,” she explains.
But ultimately, it’s alerting you to something.
… Is something actually on fire, or is it a false alarm?
Same with jealousyit’s alerting you to some sort of discomfort."
Other times the alarm goes off over misperceptions or just our own insecurities.
“Some people have more of adisposition for jealousy1,” Blue adds.
“It’s a character trait.
Do polyamorous people experience jealousy?
Research showspeople in consensually non-monogamous relationships do experience jealousy2; they just experience lessdistresswhen it happens.
“Ultimately there is no such thing as not experiencing jealousy,” Blue says.
“Jealousy is part of the human emotional spectrum.
To say ‘I never feel jealous’I don’t think it’s realistic.
I haven’t ever really truly met anyone who’s said they haven’t felt jealousy.
It doesn’t trigger them into jealousy.”
The main difference between poly and monogamous folksdealwith jealousy.
Jealousy is treated as a powerful, ugly emotion that we believe can consume and crush us.
A lot of it just comes down to practice, she says.
Non-monogamous people just spend more time processing their feelings of jealousy and have more practice with dealing with it.
With enough practice, it stops being so big and overwhelming.
And, perhaps in time, compersion can appear in its place instead.
How to practice compersion.
“The baseline for everybody is different, but we know that we also have neuroplasticity.
“For some people it will come easily.
Here are a few ways to embark on that process:
1.
Some people are born with a ton of empathy; some aren’t.
Intellectually reason through it together.
My partner and I made compersion an active practice, a skill that we both worked on together.
“You attempt to understand what it could be and then sort of move into that space.”
We found a lot of ways to support our intellectual belief in compersion with actual psychological rewards.
Support each other through jealous moments.
For a person to feel compersive, they usually need to feel safe and secure in their relationship.
(Not a blanket rule, but for the uninitiated, it’s usually a good prerequisite!)
“Listening I think is really important, listening without judgment and without being defensive,” Blue says.
“Separate your stuff from your partner’s theories.
When you hear that, some of us feel accused as if we are doing something wrong.
Encourage each other to make requests, she adds.
If your partner’s jealous, ask them: What do they need from you?
What does it look like?
What requests can they make that you could accommodate so they feel safe and secure again?
Compersion in monogamous relationships.
Compersion is life-changing even for people who want to stick to monogamy.
It doesn’t really hold any power at all over us.
It’s going to make your life easier.
It’s going to bring you closer to joy and lightness,” Blue says.
“Wherever you are, it’s a practice.
It’s a worthwhile practice.”
