How Chronic Pain Impacts Romantic Relationships
/By Crystal Lindell
The more you love someone with chronic pain, the more likely it is that their pain will cause you emotional distress.
That’s according to new research published in the Journal of Health Psychology, which looks at the ways middle-aged romantic partnerships are impacted when one person has chronic pain.
The researchers collected twice-daily surveys over the span of 30 days from 147 couples who were at least 50 years of age and had one partner who suffered from chronic back pain.
Using the couples' answers to questions about distress and relationship closeness, as well as reports of pain severity from the pain-affected partner, they examined how emotional, behavioral and cognitive closeness affected the quality of couples’ daily interactions.
On the positive side, researchers found that emotional closeness between couples dealing with chronic pain led to more marital satisfaction on days when the couple felt close.
However, on the other side of things, the closer the couple felt emotionally on any given day, the more likely it was that the non-pain partner experienced more distress. The non-pain partner apparently feels empathy for the pained partner, which results in them feeling stressed.
As anyone who’s ever been in love knows, empathy is the required price. When your partner is sad, you will also tend to be sad on their behalf.
This is not inherently a bad thing. Feeling empathy for your partner when they are dealing with pain makes it more likely that you’ll work harder to ease their pain, by doing things like advocating for them in healthcare settings and allowing them to rest while you do the household chores.
The researchers framed this as something to avoid though, which I guess makes sense if it’s happening excessively.
“Couples have to find a balance that is ideal for them in managing closeness versus independence — this is true for all couples, not just those dealing with the impacts of chronic pain. But for those dealing with chronic pain, we can help them learn how to balance the benefits of closeness with minimizing shared distress stemming from a chronic condition,” lead researcher Lynn Martire, PhD, a professor of human development and family studies at Penn State’s Center for Healthy Aging, said in a press release.:
The findings suggest that methods could be developed to help couples find the right balance in closeness, which would protect them from causing more pain and distress for each other. Martire and her colleagues plan further studies on the roles of behavioral and cognitive closeness.
“I’m excited to dive deeper into the other research questions we can examine from this data set,” Martire said. “We gathered data using different measures of relationship closeness, how they differ between patients and partners and how relationship closeness changes over time. We are poised to learn a great deal about the impact of pain on couples.”
Prior studies show that closeness is associated with many positive and beneficial relationships, including higher levels of commitment and satisfaction, and a lower risk of the relationship ending.
However, researchers also say their findings suggest that too much closeness may transfer negative emotions and physical symptoms between partners.
“These findings illustrate a complex interplay between closeness and personal well-being in couples managing chronic illness and suggest the need for interventions that target both the benefits and potential costs of closeness,” they concluded.
Yes, indeed, there are “benefits and potential costs” in any close relationship. It’s a contradiction that countless poets have spent centuries trying to navigate.
Love comes at a price, but most of the time, the price is worth it.
