Your Happiness Is My Happiness: Predicting Positive Feelings for a Partner's Consensual Extra-Dyadic Intimate Relations

Arch Sex Behav. 2024 Jan 4. doi: 10.1007/s10508-023-02766-5. Online ahead of print.ABSTRACTThis quantitative study tested hypotheses derived from a previous qualitative study of the factors that facilitated and hindered compersion (the positive feelings derived from one's partner's intimate relations with others) in consensually non-monogamous (CNM) relationships. A total of 255 participants recruited from online CNM and Alt-Sex communities reported on demographic and relationship characteristics as well as individual, relationship, and metamour-related variables in an online anonymous survey. In Flicker et al. (2022), we identified various factors that predicted three subtypes of compersion: contentment with one's partner's relationships with established metamours (intimate partners of one's partners), excitement sparked by one's partner's new/potentially new intimate connections, and sexual excitement elicited by thinking about one's partner with another person. The current findings were consistent with the Flicker et al. qualitative study, with some hypotheses from the previous study more strongly supported than others. The predictors of compersion most strongly supported by the current data include closeness with one's metamour and knowledge about the partner/metamour relationship, in a positive direction, as well as jealousy, envy, and attachment anxiety, in a negative direction. Individual-level predictors were weak predictors of compersion. The sexual arousal subtype o...

Source: Archives of Sexual Behavior - January 4, 2024 Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Authors: Sharon M Flicker Flavia Sancier-Barbosa Source Type: research