Compersion in Everyday Life: Finding Empathic Joy Beyond Polyamory
by Gwendolyn Watson, LMFT
What if compersion was something we all aspire to, wherever we land on the poly-monogamous spectrum? And how can the monogamous community draw inspiration from the concept of compersion to expand their love and care for others, even when they aren’t opening up their partnerships?
There is often a reaction of shock or confusion when “compersion” is explained to a monogamous audience for the first time. This concept – the feeling of joy or excitement one feels when their partner finds happiness with someone else – touches on many people’s fears:
“How could I be happy about them cheating on me…that is my worst nightmare!”
“Why would I be excited about them finding love, if it’s not with me?”
Often the reactions to compersion are reflections of someone’s relational identity as either monogamous or non-monogamous: if you identify as monogamous it’s hard to imagine feeling joy when your partner finds happiness with someone else - that moment often triggers shock, grief, rage – not excitement. In contrast, when you bring up compersion with ethically non-monogamous (ENM) and polyamorous folks, there is often giddiness, smiles, and coos with echoes of “I feel so happy for them when they fall in love.”
As a marriage and family therapist, I support my clients to strengthen their relationships with others. I don’t believe in one-size-fits-all - there are so many types of relationships that are supportive and fulfilling. I support my clients to identify their wants and needs and navigate towards building relationships with others where there’s a culture of connection, courageous honesty, and respect—the relationship structure and boundaries they create and maintain is up to them.
While polyamory doesn’t align with everyone’s relational identity, I believe that compersion is a radical invitation that anyone can explore. While someone might feel unable to access joy while witnessing their partner fall in love with another person, can we stretch the definition of compersion to feeling joy for a person who has found joy in another experience?
Can compersion be the antidote to schadenfreude (finding pleasure in someone else’s misfortune)?
I view compersion as an invitation to search inside yourself and see if you can celebrate a moment for someone else that is completely disconnected from your own wants and needs. Can you find joy in witnessing something that has zero benefit or impact to your own ego? Compersion is stretching into collective empathy and letting go of the warmth of the spotlight. Compersion’s soapbox, in my opinion, is “there is enough love and joy to go around.”
What would it be like to feel joy or excitement for my partner, when they find happiness with something else?
What would it be like, as a parent, to root for kids who are not my own?
What would it be like, as an ex-wife, to be filled with joy for my ex-husband when he finds love?
These aren’t just rhetorical questions, I am speaking from my lived experience as I navigate my own anxiety and scarcity fears, and attempt to nurture and instill a culture of abundance when it comes to the love and compassion I bring to my relationships.
Extra-Curricular Compersion
It’s a school night, my kids are sound asleep before 9, and I find my partner downstairs on the couch. Some nights my mind feels blank after getting through a full day of decisions. But tonight is different. I don’t feel drained, and I feel a genuine curiosity and excitement to connect to my partner. I want to know what her side eye during dinner was trying to tell me, if she got that email about a date night idea, and if she thinks we should be eating more fish to boost our omega-3s. My mind is skipping with questions and bouncing around topics, and eager to daydream about ways we might spend our evening, weekend, and lives together.
She looks up from her phone, and asks, “what is the difference between Retourner and Revenir?”
French. Again. I try to hide my disappointment. I originally thought her desire to learn French was a hobby, but that was a gross underestimate. She puts her whole heart behind the things she commits to, and so for French her goal is fluency. And although I know I should be supportive, I often find myself feeling bitter towards French, the femme fatale in this chapter of our relationship. Because if I’m being honest, I love the experience of being her partner when she’s putting her whole heart behind our relationship. But over the years, I have learned that I have to share her loyalty and dedication with many other endeavors. Lately, it’s been French.
She’s not learning it for work, or because we have imminent plans to move to France, or even travel there. She’s committed to learning it, because she made a commitment. It’s circular logic, but once she has set her mind to something, she’s all in. She wants to perfect the accent, the depth of vocabulary, the grammar, and the phrasing. She listens to podcasts in French, signed up for community college classes both in person and online, and spends her free time on the weekends completing written and recorded assignments. When I do our laundry, I often find post-it notes with conjugated verbs and lists of vocabulary. On good days, I admire her dedication and find it extremely endearing that she isn’t half-ass learning French, despite the fact that she works full time and co-parents my kids with me. Her plate is full, but that doesn’t impact her level of dedication to a goal.
But tonight, instead of admiring her dedication, I feel threatened. I don’t want to talk about French, I want to talk about us. I want to spend our one-hour before adult-bed-time dropping into deep conversations and shared vulnerability. Essentially, I want her dedication to be redirected towards us. And tonight, I’m feeling threatened by reflexive verbs.
She reads the crestfallen expression on my face and expresses her confusion. I try to salvage the moment, but I don’t have the courage to fess-up that honestly, I’m craving attention…her attention…and I want to feel in the spotlight. So in a classically passive move, I deny my feelings and respond with, “it’s nothing, what were you asking?” I play this off as being flexible, but the truth with deep relationships is that your partner can read your masks just as well as your truths. She doesn’t understand why French was so off putting for me, but has sensed the low-enthusiasm and her own excitement also cools to neutral. We eventually head to bed, and I feel bleh. Yup, that’s an official feeling on the therapy feelings-wheel, I promise. I notice how my own energy really impacted the potential for connection. I was jealous of French. I felt threatened by her joy and excitement. And all these feelings just ended up taking the joy out of an evening moment which could have been full of connection.
Did her dedication to French really carve out any of her dedication to me and our relationship? Not at all. Instead of accessing compersion-ful excitement for her racing towards her goal of fluency, I let my scarcity mindset take the wind out of both of our sails.
For Christmas that year, I gave her French flashcards with a companion recording of the words to perfect the pronunciation. It was my olive branch, my commitment that I wasn’t going to be jealous of a language, that I wanted our relationship to celebrate our individual and shared lives, not prioritize one over the other. And that I wanted to love her fully for who she was, not just through a lens of insecure-anxious attachment that needed to be in the centerfold of her experiences in order to connect to joy and excitement for her life.
Courtside Compersion
Watching my son play basketball, I was confronted with noticing my own reactions. It’s the occupational hazard of being a therapist: noticing my feelings, all the time. On this particular Saturday morning, what I was noticing was defensiveness, protectiveness, and an inner-eye-roll when another kid got the ball.
I did my best to hide these emotions, I knew enough basketball-mom social norms that we were supposed to model: team spirit! But there was a loud voice in my head narrating the moments with “that kid is taking it down the court again? He doesn’t need the spotlight, he’s the all-star. Can my kid have a chance for once? It’s not fair.” As I was brewing with my defensive-mom feelings, my son surprised me. All-Star kid attempted a three-point shot, with the ease and confidence of someone dreaming to go pro, and surprisingly it went in. And my son? He leapt for joy. His whole body lit up with celebration, and excitement, and he reached out a high-five to All-Star kid. Witnessing his 7-year-old generous spirit, I was left sitting in the stands wondering where my protective-basketball-mom battlecry had been coming from.
Scarcity. It was coming from scarcity. The distorted belief that somehow All-Star kid being celebrated for his basket meant there was less of a spotlight for my kid. That my role as a mom was to fight for my kid to be seen, and make sure the imaginary resources of celebration and respect were equally doled out. The mindset that “6 year old basketball on a Saturday morning” was an individual experience instead of a collective experience.
So if that defensive energy wasn’t wanted or needed by my son, then who had it been drummed up for? This one was a harder pill to swallow. My defensiveness wasn’t for him, it had been for myself. My own insecurities, my own past wounding, that drove the belief that there wasn’t enough attention to go around, and that fighting for playing time was needed to avoid being forgotten.
The other thing that I couldn’t deny was it felt terrible. Sitting in the stands, scanning for injustice and silently defending my son’s right to equal dribbling time with my silent huffy thoughts, felt terrible. Instead of enjoying the hour, I was embodying the Grinch and shrinking my heart. My body felt tight, cranky, and deflated.
The next Saturday morning, I experimented with a shift. This is the occupational benefit of being a therapist: I enjoy experimenting with behavior changes for myself just as much as I enjoy suggesting interventions for my clients. I was going to lean wholeheartedly into celebration, in team spirit not just for modeling sake but truly from my heart. Any basket for the Fire Hoops was worth a woohoo, and any whiffs of scarcity mindset were going to be left at the door.
When I shed my Grinch lenses, I surprised myself multiple times over. First, I started having fun, cheering for All-Star, my son, Tiny-Tim, and Growth-Spurt-Greg. And then, the collectivist mindset expanded even further. I was cheering for the Shooting Stars as well, admiring the rebound from Bouncy-Ben, and encouraging the attempts from Akward-Ken. My body felt loose, energized, and I found myself smiling at strangers. I wish that part was hyperbole, but it’s true. The feeling of collectiveness stretched beyond the insular belief that my only focus was myself and my son. The court as a whole held space for celebration and I was enjoying feeling connected to it all.
Ex-Husband Compersion
That Sunday evening I dropped both my sons off at their dad’s house. He looked well rested. He had cooked a healthy dinner that was waiting for them inside, and had a smile on his face as he talked about his weekend. He and his partner had discovered a great new restaurant and enjoyed a hike along the coast. I stood across from him, taking in this image of my ex-husband and noticing the joy I felt for him. I knew that feeling of adventure and discovery, that is so welcome to tap into as working parents. I was so happy he got a slice of that, and that his relationship with his partner seemed to invite this culture of adventure for each other.
Years ago, when we announced to our families that we were separating, many people were shocked. The deep compassion and friendship we shared had been palpable. We had experienced growing pains, especially during the pandemic while parenting young children, but our relationship had been sound - a foundation of strength through it all. They didn’t understand. I got concerned check-ins from my parents, was I ok? Was I safe? He got a similar line of questioning, how was this possible?
Ultimately, the energy behind our separation was one of compassion and empathy. Out of love and respect for each other, we noticed we needed to change our relationship. My sexuality had shifted over the years, however our desires to be in a monogamous relationship had not. My ex witnessed me expanding my social circles, my wardrobe, and my sensuality. He expressed awe for the metamorphosis he was witnessing, alongside his heartbreak. I mourned the conclusion of something so dear to me, while also knowing that separating was something I wanted to support my needs as much as it was a choice to support him. I had always held him in my heart, and now I was making space for someone else to take my place. I deeply hoped for him to find a future partner that would love him fully.
My queer friends also didn’t understand, couldn’t we just open up our marriage? Couldn’t we avoid heartache by being polyamorous? But that part of my identity, and his, wasn’t flexible. We both knew that polyamory wasn’t a band-aid to be used to avoid a break-up, it was an identity. Our compersion would be feeling love for each other and wanting each person to freely explore new partnerships. Even if that freedom came at the cost of our marriage ending.
Through the paperwork, the division of items, and moving into new homes, compersion was a guiding light. I accompanied him to open houses, and he expressed a longstanding commitment to our friendship. I held a compassionate ear for his dating anxieties, and he invited me to movie nights when the Sunday hand-off of our sons felt too painful. Our first Christmas after separating, he hosted me and my partner, along with my past-in-laws, in his home. My partner was flabbergasted, was she really invited? Yes, I explained, that’s who he is. His love for family stretches beyond his individual experiences of loss. He envisioned family as a collective feeling, and my partner was a part of that.
Fast forward back to the present: Sunday evening, standing on his doorstep. He is glowing and I am grateful. It’s a wonderful feeling to witness my Ex loving and being loved by someone who’s a beautiful complement to him. And it’s equally beautiful to experience his celebration of me and his joy at witnessing my love for my partner. There’s a flow of empathy that moves between all of us in this blended family. It shows up when his partner makes soup for me when I am sick. It shows up when my partner asks with sincerity how my Ex is doing, and about his parents and their well-being. There’s an expansiveness, and a security with how empathy and love is offered and received. As I hand over the back-packs and various toys we transition from house to house, I give him a hug goodbye. In that hug, I notice a love for him and his new relationship, a joy for me and mine, and a sense of abundance for us both, and for us all.
In Conclusion: From Scarcity Mindset to Collective Compersion
In our world, the dominant culture focuses on gaining power and influence. Compersion encourages us to do the opposite. It is a mindset that relishes in the joy and gratitude of witnessing someone else’s joy or achievements even when they don’t directly connect to our own aspirations and goals.
Each of us can shift out of a competitive mindset where resources for attention and validation are scarce, into one of abundance that sets aside anxieties about getting our own needs met. We can choose to believe in our own ability to name and fulfill our needs, while maintaining the spaciousness to celebrate and rejoice in someone else’s fulfillment.
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We don’t need to open our marriages, or change our identities, to practice compersion.
Instead, we simply need to notice where our empathy and love can stretch and expand into a collective one.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Gwendolyn Watson is an LMFT (#147312) currently working in private practice supporting clients in-person in Petaluma and via telehealth across California. Her practice focuses on relationships and anxiety, supporting both individuals and couples to increase connection. As a therapist, she draws from her training in EMDR, Gottman Method Couples therapy (Level 1), and as a Certified Sex Therapy Informed Professional from ISTI. She transitioned careers to become a therapist after a decade working in Business Development at Google. Across sectors she has found that learning how to build empathy, connection, and flexibility are powerful practices that create change.
