Couple are married.
Husband becomes seriously ill.
Wife continues to love, honor and cherish, in sickness as in health.
Wife commits to caregiving.
Another couple are married.
Wife becomes seriously ill.
Couple is headed for divorce.
These two very different, gender-driven scenarios emerge from a recent study out of Iowa State University.
The study reports that the divorce rate rises 6% when a wife acquires a serious illness compared to when she is healthy.
It is worth noting though that it is not necessarily the husband who files for divorce in this situation.
Illness may trigger wives’ dissatisfaction with their care or alter their perspective on their marriages.
Interestingly, couples’ divorce rates are not impacted when a husband develops a major illness.
Read more in this Phys.org news article: Marriage more likely to end in divorce when wives get sick, study finds
