Yes, You Can Feel Jealousy and Compersion at the Same Time
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I was recently browsing polyamorous social media when I read a post from someone who was celebrating a revelation. For the purpose of this anecdote, we’ll call this person “X”.
X’s partner was out on a date. It was their first date on their own, and X had been having a hard time dealing with it. X wasn’t currently seeing anyone, and so they were stuck at home, depressed and alone, coping with all the new emotions stirred up by their partner being off having sex with someone else for the first time. But that wasn’t why X was posting. X wasn't posted to vent about all the insecurity and jealousy they were feeling. They were posting because despite how hard they were finding their evening, they were ecstatically happy for their partner.
X had, much to their surprise, discovered that it’s possible to feel compersion at the same time as jealousy.
Compersion is a funny thing. You would think that the idea of being happy for our partner’s happiness would be a no-brainer. But there are certain kinds of happiness that mono-normative society has conditioned us to believe we own. Certain things are not supposed to make our partner happy if they are already happy with us. Emotional and sexual connections, we have been taught, are a unique bond between two people, and those two people only.
(We’ll ignore the fact that, throughout history, this has never actually been the case. But society likes to pretend it does.)
So, when our partner starts finding those connections with other people, it can be hard to break the conditioning that tells us something is wrong. As much as we can be objectively okay with our partner making new connections without us, it can be a very different thing when it's actually happening. Because that’s when all the internal insecurities can come rushing in, trying to convince you something is wrong.
And that’s okay. Because as hard as it can be sometimes, these feelings don’t stop you from feeling happy for them.
The truth is that jealousy and compersion are not mutually exclusive. It’s possible to feel both at the same time!
Understanding compersion in polyamory
Compersion isn’t some state of polyamorous nirvana, only achievable to those great polyamorous masters who have been able to set aside human emotions. Compersion is an emotion and is just as complex and confusing as any other. For some people, it can come easily. For others, it’s a lot harder.
And while I’m not a scientist, one thing I do know about the human brain is that it’s possible to experience more than one emotion at the same time. Even positive ones, like compersion, alongside negative ones, such as jealousy.
Understanding jealousy in polyamory
Jealousy is something that gets talked about a lot in polyamorous circles. I’ve had long discussions with friends and partners about it, and it’s been the topic of multiple articles I've read and that I've written.
I go into more detail here, but in a nutshell, the emotion we call jealousy (at least, in my opinion) is actually a mixture of envy and insecurity. And while “jealousy” as a concept in relationships is not healthy in itself, it’s not toxic, unhealthy, or weak to feel it. This is especially true in polyamory, where we are forced to give up a lot of the structures that have been put in place around monogamous relationships to make us feel secure. It takes work to come up with replacement ways to face that insecurity.
Experiencing jealousy and compersion in polyamory
So how is it possible to feel good about the fact our partners are experiencing sexual and emotional connections with someone else if them doing this makes us feel insecure? Surely, it can't be possible to feel happy for them while they are making us miserable?
I’m no psychologist. I’ve never claimed to be. My writing comes from my personal experiences, my engagement with the polyamorous community, and my layman reading and research. I can’t cite studies or use fancy scientific words. But I can put it in the way that I have come to understand it.
It comes down to the fact that, in a healthy relationship, you and your partner don’t suddenly become a single entity. You might be a "couple", but you remain separate people. And so your internal and external feelings also remain separate.
Compersion is an external feeling. You are seeing your partner happy outside of their connection to you. And even though it has nothing to do with you, seeing this happiness makes you feel good.
Jealousy is an internal feeling. It comes from your personal insecurities and envy, whether it comes from personal traumas or societal conditioning.
These feelings are related, but they are not connected. You are not sliding a dial alone a line with "Jealousy" at one end and "Compersion" at the other. They are two separate dials with their own inputs. They might sometimes feel like they are moving in tandem, but that's coincidence.
Your insecurities don’t prevent your partner’s happiness, and your partner's happiness doesn’t cause your insecurities.
It’s perfectly natural to feel both jealousy and compersion at the same time.
While I don’t consider jealousy to be healthy in relationships, it’s not unhealthy to experience it. We all do, especially when we’re exploring something new that shakes up as many assumptions about relationships as polyamory.
But that doesn’t mean feeling jealousy means you can’t feel excitement and happiness. Feeling jealous or insecure isn’t a sign that you’re not cut out for polyamory. It’s simply a part of the journey. Some people find it easy to work through their jealousy, while others find it next to impossible. We all have personal situations and traumas that affect how easy it is for us to face the difficulties around this topic. But just because you find it hard doesn’t mean you can’t also feel the joy and excitement.
You don’t need to wait until you’ve defeated jealousy before you can start enjoying ethical non-monogamy.
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