Warning to Seriously Ill Women: Be Prepared to Be Divorced … Now
Why do people divorce?
According to a recent study, one reason is that one spouse, specifically the wife, develops a serious illness such as cancer or multiple sclerosis.
The overall divorce rate across the general population, including couples where one of the spouses has cancer, is 11.6 percent.
But, among married couples where the wife is seriously ill, the divorce rate rockets to a whopping 20.8 percent.
By contrast, amoung married couples where the husband is seriously ill, their divorce rate plunges to 2.9 percent.
Serously ill women are more likely to become divorced or separated than their seriously ill male counterparts – on the order of six times.
According to the study, older seriously ill women were more likely to be left than younger women, and shorter marriages were more likely to crumble than longer marriages when the wife became seriously ill.
The study concludes that men are reportedly less able to adapt to the role of caregiver than women.
Read more in this Reuters article: Men more likely than women to leave partner with cancer
