How Getting Really Sick Can Impact Your Marriage

As if the illness itself weren't bad enough...

Better bolster your immune system, ladies. According to a study published in the Journal of Health and Social Behavior, when a wife becomes seriously sick, her marriage is more likely to end in divorce.


 Using raw data from the University of Michigan’s Health and Retirement Study, researchers at Iowa State University and Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis examined 2,701 couples over the age of 50 and found that chronic illness in the wife meant divorce was six percent more likely. When the husband got sick, though, there was no greater risk of the marriage ending.

Unfortunately, the general causes of resulting marital discord are predictable: Caring for a sick spouse is super stressful, and the income lost when one half of a couple is out of commission—or if both have to forego work—can take its toll. In short: Marriage quality plummets with the female spouse’s health.


But that doesn’t explain why marriages in which the husband falls ill seem to weather the storm better. Although the data doesn’t illustrate which spouse filed the divorce papers, researchers think that women might be generally disappointed with their husbands as caregivers. It’s also been found that women seem to experience chronic illness with more pain and depressive symptoms than their male counterparts.

There are limitations to the research: The analysis looked at just four chronic diseases: cancer, heart disease, lung disease, and stroke, so not all illnesses were considered. The couples examined were all in a later stage of life, and of course certain qualities of their union up until that time couldn’t be measured (and even factors that were measured were self-reported, which isn't the most reliable form of data collection). Also worth noting is that since the couples were all over 50, they were probably more likely to adhere to gender norms than younger couples may have been.

Thankfully, women are less likely to contract a serious illness than men, and research shows that marriage may help make you healthier. But if you do become sick, don't hesitate to ask your husband to step up and take care of more things than normal—including you.