Men more likely to abandon sick partners

The researchers found a shift in the relationship when a woman was diagnosed with chronic, debilitating or fatal disease like multiple sclerosis or cancer.

Marc Chamberlain, M.D., director of the neuro-oncology program at the Seattle Cancer Care Alliance (SCCA) stated, "Female gender was the strongest predictor of separation or divorce in each of the patient groups we studied."

Researchers at three medical centers, the SCCA, Huntsman and Stanford University School of Medicine recruited 515 patients in 2001 and 2002 and monitored them until February 2006.

The subjects were divided into three diagnostic groups. The first comprised of those with a malignant primary brain tumor (214 patients), the second with a solid tumor with no central nervous system involvement (193 patients), and the last with multiple sclerosis (108 patients).

Approximately 50 percent were female patients.

Observations by researchers
The researchers found an 11.6 percent overall divorce rate among cancer patients. However, the surprise was a gender disparity in the divorce rates. It shot to 20.8 percent when the woman was the patient and dropped to about 3 percent when the husband was sick.

The study also found an association between age and duration of marriage with divorce or separation. Though the study found longer marriages to be more stable, it also revealed that an older woman was more likely to battle for life alone.

Reasons for men abandoning their spouse
According to the investigators, the reason for men abandoning their spouse is that they struggle to accept the role of a caretaker and look after the house and hearth.

On the other hand, women can adapt themselves easily to the role of a caregiver because they are more sensitive.

Chamberlain stated, "Part of it is a sense of self-preservation. In men that seems to operate very highly and they don't feel this codependence, this requirement to nurture their significant other who has this life-threatening illness, but rather decide what's best for me is to find an alternative mate and abandon my fatally flawed spouse."

Impact on health and quality of life
The quality of life of those facing separation was affected. The patients had a much higher rate of hospitalization, took more anti-depressants, sought alternate treatments, skipped clinical trials and were more likely to die a lonely death.

The authors stated, “We believe that our findings apply generally to patients with life-altering medical illness. We recommend that medical providers be especially sensitive to early suggestions of marital discord in couples affected by the occurrence of a serious medical illness, especially when the woman is the affected spouse and it occurs early in the marriage.

“Early identification and psychosocial intervention might reduce the frequency of divorce and separation, and in turn improve quality of life and quality of care.”

The study “Gender Disparity in the Rate of Partner Abandonment in Patients with Serious Medical Illness” will be published in the Nov. 15 issue of the journal Cancer.