A Letter from Polyam Author Kathy Labriola Explaining Her Own Compersion Spectrum
Another way to think about the spectrum of jealousy-compersion in non-monogamous relationships
The author Kathy Labriola and I have become pen pals of sorts, exchanging emails over the last couple months about our shared love of writing about non-monogamy and discussing possible Bay Area event collaborations.
Kathy Labriola is the author of:
Love in Abundance: A Counselor's Advice on Open Relationships
The Jealousy Workbook: Insights and Techniques for Managing Open Relationships
Kathy recently wrote to me in response to chapter five of my Composting Competition book club, where my metamour Salina and I explore Marie Thouin’s expanded “Spectrum of Compersion”:
This approach builds on the original compersion model from Hypatia from Space, as mentioned in Marie’s book, What is Compersion?:
With Kathy’s permission, I’m republishing an edited portion of the letter she wrote to me to highlight another way to think about the spectrum of compersion in non-monogamous relationships. She reiterates, “As I mentioned, Marie and I have co-presented on compersion and we absolutely love and respect each other and appreciate the different ways we are each approaching this very important topic.”
I also love hearing different perspectives and thought her message to me was a valuable one worth sharing:
“Dear Aria!
I am very excited by Marie's book, and so glad you are really "digging into it" to help the people in your whole community really work with the "comperstruggle" which can be so challenging! It really helps people to be able to have a forum to talk about this and try out tools for personal change and enhancing their quality of life as they manage some intensely confusing and distressing feelings.
I also wanted to add my thoughts to the model Marie presents of starting with jealousy, moving towards neutrality, then towards attitudinal comperson, and eventually (hopefully) to embodied compersion. This is a great framework and I am so grateful to Marie for articulating this. I wanted to add that I have been using a slightly different model, which is the evolution that I see happening with many people. It goes something like this:
Intolerance: When someone first tries to navigate CNM relationships, they experience intense jealousy, including terror, rage, and despair. During this phase they find their partner having any sex or relationship with anyone else to be intolerable and they don't feel they (or their relationship) can survive this development. I call this the INTOLERANCE stage.
Coping/Tolerance: Over time and with hard work and support from their partners and metamours, they move towards being better able to cope with their partner having other relationships, but they are still experiencing significant distress and pain 24/7. They often say things like, "I hate this, but I can live with it." I call this the COPING or TOLERANCE stage.
Normalization: Next they discover that the immediate threat level in their hearts and minds starts to subside as they see that their relationship with their partner has not only survived but has grown stronger through their working together and processing so much about the poly situation. There are still periodic crises and spikes of jealousy and particularly fears and insecurity, but most of the time, they start to feel that polyamory is much more manageable, and I call this the NORMALIZATION stage, as their partner having sex and relationships with other people starts to seem like a normal part of the relationship.
Neutrality: After a period of NORMALIZATION of polyamory in their lives, they start to feel pretty neutral about their partner having sex and relationships with other people. It no longer triggers them or affects their everyday life, so I call this the NEUTRALITY phase, as they feel somewhat indifferent to whether their partner has outside relationships or not. I often say that most people are very lucky to get to this stage, and that any of us should be content and happy to be able to "get to neutral." I tell people that rather than seeing compersion as "the holy grail" that all poly people "should" fully experience, instead it is a huge achievement for any of us to get to neutral, and to NOT be experiencing constant pain over our partner's poly relationships.
Compersion is wonderful, but not at all necessary to have a happy and healthy CNM relationship.
Acceptance: The final stage which only a small percentage of poly folks really achieve is ACCEPTANCE, which I see as a form of COMPERSION. In this stage, someone is actually happy about their partners having other relationships, and can fully support them in their sexually and romantically poly lives.
Compersion: Most people do experience attitudinal compersion to greater or lesser degrees throughout all of the previous stages. So I emphasize that people nurture that attitudinal compersion by BEHAVING AS IF they feel embodied compersion. Don't try to legislate what you or your partners "should" feel or experience, because we can't force ourselves to feel a certain way, but we can try to behave well when our partner has another relationship. Feelings are not under our conscious control, but our behavior is, so we can do our best to give our partners the freedom to pursue outside relationships, ask for reasonable and realistic boundaries and agreements, and not try to control them or sabotage their other relationships.
Marie and I have done a number of workshops and groups together on compersion, where we present our somewhat different approaches to compersion, and that has been a lot of fun.
I usually start those presentations by saying "Compersion is overrated, it is not necessary to successful poly relationships."
I believe that Marie's book is a quantum leap in polyamory theory and practice and I am her biggest fan, and I also have had a slightly different experience with my clients so I express it differently. It's great that there is room in our poly world for different points of view!”
-Kathy Labriola, Counselor/Nurse
I love the idea there is space for different points of view, and as I mentioned to Kathy in my email reply to her, I actually find it helpful to see even more steps BEFORE even reaching neutrality. The word "intolerance" accurately describes the experience of some of my clients, often those who are newest to non-monogamy who find themselves in loops of what Polysecure author and therapist Jessica Fern calls "primal panic."
It’s helpful to see all of the many ways that the feelings of jealousy and compersion can evolve over time, reminding us that personal growth is rarely linear and always deeply individual. What do you think about Kathy’s model compared to Marie’s spectrum? Do you see yourself—or your partners—reflected in any of these stages?
I think this is brilliant, both authors adding to this concept. I like how Kathy’s spectrum broke things down a little bit more as it gave more definition to what I initially felt in my poly journey. Thanks for sharing this!