Does a wife's illness lead to divorce?

Conclusion This US cohort study of older married couples (over the age of 50) finds links between the onset of serious illness in the wife and subsequent divorce, but the same link wasn't found with illness in the husband. Meanwhile, serious illness in either spouse was, rather unsurprisingly, associated with a higher risk of widowhood in a subsequent assessment. This study has the strength of using a large, nationally representative dataset. However, it cannot prove direct causative links, and does not prove that wives are more likely to stick with their spouse during serious physical illness than husbands. Though the study finds a link between illness onset and subsequent divorce, there are likely to be a wide variety of unmeasured factors involved in any link. For example, this could include: personality characteristics of both the husband and wife the nature of the illness – for example, the severity, prognosis, and impact on function and disability it may not necessarily be the "healthy spouse" who is the instigator of the end of the marriage – for example, the person who is ill may want to get out of an unhappy marriage to be able to cope with illness better mental health and other physical illnesses in the "ill spouse" physical and mental health of the "healthy spouse" lifestyle, activities, social and family connections, and external support the strength of the relationship between the couple The ...
Source: NHS News Feed - Category: Consumer Health News Tags: Lifestyle/exercise Mental health Source Type: news