Where the word comes from
Compersion was coined by the Kerista community in San Francisco, a polyfidelitous group that needed a word for a feeling its members kept having and the dictionary did not cover. It spread through polyamory writing and is now used across non-monogamy, and occasionally by monogamous people who recognise the feeling from friendship: the pleasure of seeing someone you love be delighted by someone else.
What it feels like
People describe it as warmth, pride, relief, or simple gladness, the same thing a parent feels at a child’s joy or a friend feels at a friend’s good news, pointed at a partner’s other relationship. For some it arrives only after the fear has been talked through; for some it is there from the start; for some it never comes and they manage jealousy instead, which is also allowed.
Compersion and jealousy together
The two are not opposites in practice. Most people in non-monogamy report feeling both, sometimes within the same hour: glad the partner had a wonderful night, and afraid of what it means. Treating jealousy as information about a need, for reassurance, for time, for a rule, lets the compersion grow around it. Pretending to feel only compersion is a common way to get hurt.
Can you learn it?
Mostly, yes. It grows with security: with evidence that a partner comes back, with agreements that get kept, with hearing about the other relationship in doses you chose. It also grows when you know and like the other person; compersion toward a stranger is hard, toward a metamour you have had dinner with it is easy. And it grows when your own needs are met, because it is difficult to be glad for someone else while you are going without.
Questions people ask
Is compersion the opposite of jealousy?
That is how it is usually described, and the two feelings do pull in opposite directions. In practice people feel both at once. Compersion is better understood as a feeling that can grow alongside jealousy than as its replacement.
Can monogamous people feel compersion?
Yes. The feeling is not owned by non-monogamy; it is the same gladness you feel when a friend falls in love or a sibling gets the job. Monogamous people simply rarely point it at a partner’s other partner, because there is not one.
How do you pronounce compersion?
Com-PER-zhun, with the stress on the middle syllable, like the second half of “dispersion”.