The Chronic Pain Couple

February 13, 2023
Eloff, a psychology clinic cofounder, offers chronic pain sufferers advice for maintaining successful relationships in this compassionate debut. After she was struck by devastating joint pain a few years into marriage, Eloff realized that not only was her health suffering—so was her relationship, which had become stagnant and passionless. Here, Eloff lays out strategies to get beyond a “dull, survival-based coexistence” and build fulfilling partnerships despite pain. She begins with the need for open communication, whether discussing emotional or practical needs, or arguing more effectively by responding, not reacting, to one’s partner. A section on mental health offers ways to support caregivers, such as by encouraging them to maintain a social life outside the relationship. As well, Eloff explains how chronic pain can damage sexual desire (due to fatigue, stress, medication, and more), and recommends connecting through “everyday foreplay” (small, affectionate moments of touch). While relationships change after chronic pain enters the equation, Eloff assures readers that joy and pain can coexist. Though there’s a disappointing lack of concrete advice and couple-specific exercises, Eloff’s attitude toward chronic pain is frank, encouraging, and based in solid psychological principles. Sufferers and their partners will find reassurance, though they’ll be left wanting a few more actionable tools.

May 10, 2022
Karra Eloff met her forever partner while she was struck with chronic pain. Since that time Eloff, a health professional, founded the Chronic Pain Couple, an organisation that delivers practical support to people with chronic pain. This is the accompanying book, a practical guide written by an understanding expert and based on years of experience. Eloff’s aim is to change perspectives, and to help couples have ‘a remarkable relationship’ rather than simply dealing the best they can with chronic pain. By generously telling stories from her own life, before and after pain, Eloff provides the reader with an inside view of how she and her partner achieved their own remarkable relationship. Her story is always truthful and doesn’t shy away from the hard bits. While reading this book I was staying with friends, one of whom deals with chronic pain. Seeing them adapt to a new life with pain is impressive yet daunting. For them, it often feels as though there is nothing that will help, or that help will be patronising or distant. Eloff, however, is neither. Readers who found solace in The Five Love Languages by Gary Chapman or Why Has Nobody Told Me This Before by Julie Smith will get a lot out of The Chronic Pain Couple. Rebecca Whitehead is a freelance writer from Melbourne.