\n<\/p>\n
J<\/span>ess never dreamed that she was going to get sick, nor did she consider what it would mean for her love life if she did. When she first started dating her boyfriend, they were both in their late 20s, living busy, active lives. \u201cSport was something we did a lot of and we did it together: we worked hard, played hard, we went for bike rides and went running and played golf together.\u201d<\/p>\n But around a year into their relationship, all that stopped abruptly when Jess was diagnosed with long Covid, the poorly understood syndrome that in some people follows a\u00a0Covid infection. For her, it meant \u201ca general shutdown of my body: lungs, heart, stomach, really bad brain fog\u201d. She went from being a sporty, independent 29-year-old with a successful career to sleeping all day and relying on her boyfriend for everything.<\/p>\n \u201cI couldn\u2019t leave the house, I couldn\u2019t see my friends, so he became my emotional and physical support. I\u00a0needed him to do everything around the house and bring me things when I couldn\u2019t get out of bed, and he was also my social contact because I wasn\u2019t seeing anyone else. It was an instant dynamic shift,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n Three years on, Jess has recovered enough to return to work part-time, though she still struggles with chronic fatigue and spends much of her free time resting. What knocked her for six, however, is that, having nursed her through the worst of it, her boyfriend broke up with her just when she seemed to be getting better. Six weeks on from the split, Jess is still struggling to process what happened and why.<\/p>\n \u201cOne of my friends did say to me: \u2018This is quite savage, but if I was one of his friends I\u2019d be telling him to think twice before proposing to you, because if this lasts for ever then your relationship will be different for ever, and how will your health affect kids and the future? If you struggle to work, how will that affect the responsibility he might have to shoulder?\u2019 It was tough but it\u2019s true,\u201d she says ruefully. \u201cIn the end there were a number of reasons for our breakup, but I think it\u2019s hard to not trace almost all of them back to my illness.\u201d<\/p>\n Everyone\u2019s telling me my husband is the same person, but really I\u2019m living with a corpse<\/p>\n Though her friends reassure her that she will find someone else, Jess struggles to imagine how she would describe herself now on a dating app: suffering from a\u00a0condition with no agreed cure and no settled prognosis, she simply can\u2019t be sure what her future looks\u00a0like. \u201cPreviously I\u2019d say, \u2018I love cycling, being outdoors\u2019, but I haven\u2019t been able to do these things for a\u00a0while. Is it false advertising if I say those are my\u00a0hobbies? My hobbies currently involve napping on\u00a0the sofa.\u201d<\/p>\n Tellingly, she knows other long Covid sufferers in similar situations. \u201cYou\u2019re going round in circles and thinking: what if I hadn\u2019t been ill? Would we actually have broken up sooner and realised we weren\u2019t compatible? Or would we have lasted for ever?\u201d But in the end, she says, it\u2019s impossible to take illness out of the equation: it changes both of you.<\/p>\n Couples vow at the altar to stick together in sickness\u00a0and in health, often at an age when the prospect of having to live up to that promise feels remote. Yet the reality can be considerably less romantic. Though some\u00a0couples \u2013 married or unmarried \u2013 are brought closer by adversity and others muddle through well enough, buried in cancer support forums, anonymous Reddit groups and Mumsnet threads are entirely different stories: tales of rage and guilt, of getting dumped by text\u00a0in the middle of chemotherapy, or cheated on at your lowest point, interspersed with tentative questions from spouses who were secretly planning to leave before their partners got ill and now feel morally obliged to stay.\u00a0And what\u2019s striking is how often someone\u00a0will respond that it\u2019s not only a\u00a0common story but a gendered one, frequently citing the statistic that women are six\u00a0times more likely than men to be abandoned when\u00a0they get sick. But is it really\u00a0that\u00a0simple? The\u00a0stereotype of heartless\u00a0husbands\u00a0and wronged wives obscures a\u00a0much more complicated web of emotions running beneath the surface of relationships, including those that survive a diagnosis.<\/p>\n The idea that men are more likely to run away from caring responsibilities can be traced back to a 2009 US study of 515 people with cancer or multiple sclerosis. It was led by two oncologists who had noticed how often their female patients\u2019 relationships seemed to crumble. Sure enough, their suspicions were confirmed by the finding that 20.8% of the female survivors ended up divorced or separated, while only 2.9% of the men did, though couples who had been married longer seemed more resilient. The authors speculated that women commit earlier than men to relationships, meaning they were quicker to form an unbreakable bond.<\/p>\n Since then, a 2025 study of 25,000 European couples aged 50-64 from the University of Florence found a\u00a0higher risk of breakup if the woman reported poor health, but no significantly increased risk if the man did. This is in line with \u201cthe idea that men struggle more than women to adapt to a caregiving role\u201d, according to lead author Giammarco Alderotti, but also with the fact that women are more likely to be financially dependent on their husbands.<\/p>\n Given that a systematic review of more than a\u00a0quarter of a million cancer patients\u2019 records in 2022 concluded that they were (with the striking exception of cervical cancer patients) if anything slightly less likely to get divorced than average, perhaps all that can be said with certainty is that more research is needed. Nonetheless, the idea that men leave when women get sick has become firmly ingrained in the culture, with\u00a0studies that reinforce it going viral in ways that studies contradicting it don\u2019t. It evidently sounds true to many that women are more loyal to ailing partners, if only because nursing is still stereotyped as \u201cwomen\u2019s work\u201d. The 2009 study is still being echoed everywhere from the popular Diary of a CEO podcast \u2013 whose host Steven Bartlett discussed it in an episode this summer \u2013 to TikTok videos full of dire warnings about desertion.\u00a0\u201cAs\u00a0a divorce lawyer I can tell you that when sickness comes a lot of men don\u2019t stick around,\u201d says the Texas divorce lawyer Lena Nguyen in a post with more than 42,000 likes. \u201cThey loved who you were, not who you become when life gets hard.\u201d Too many men, she argues, are used to being taken care of, not the other way round.<\/p>\n But when the Guardian asked readers for their experiences of care within a relationship, both men\u00a0and women responded with tales of selfless devotion in\u00a0some cases, and of deep-seated anxiety or resentment in others. <\/p>\n Wendy\u2019s husband, John, was in his mid-40s when he suffered a brain injury in a road accident. Though his broken bones mended, he came home from the hospital a different person, she says: more like an impostor pretending to be her husband.<\/p>\n At first, she put that down to the stress of recovering from surgery. But, slowly, it became clear that his head injuries had caused personality changes, and that the person she fell in love with was gone. \u201cIt\u2019s so hard to explain to people. You tell them one thing and they\u2019ll say: \u2018Oh, that sounds like my husband.\u2019\u201d But the whole point, she says, is that it doesn\u2019t sound like hers. \u201cI\u00a0think: \u2018Well, you might have married an arsehole but I didn\u2019t.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n A decade and a half on, John exists almost entirely in the moment: he can follow a familiar routine but can\u2019t plan ahead or problem-solve. \u201cIt\u2019s like his get-up-and-go has literally been removed from his brain. You spill something, and you would automatically wipe it up; he would have done too, before, but he doesn\u2019t now. If it\u2019s my birthday, he doesn\u2019t think even slightly to acknowledge it.\u201d Domestically, he leaves a trail of chaos in his wake \u2013 \u201cIt\u2019s like living with an enthusiastic eight-year-old\u201d \u2013 and loses his temper easily. \u201cIf he\u2019s pulling at a drawer and something gets stuck he\u2019s, like, \u2018Fucking hell, fucking hell\u2019, he\u2019s so frustrated.\u201d A highly educated professional man, he couldn\u2019t cope at work and had to retire. Wendy, a psychologist now in her late 50s, pays all the bills.<\/p>\n I was ashamed of getting dumped and having cancer \u2013 like, what\u2019s wrong with me?<\/p>\n Their sex life ended \u2013 she found sleeping with someone who both was and wasn\u2019t her husband disturbing \u2013 and they rarely go out together, since he finds noisy or stimulating environments overwhelming. For Wendy, it\u2019s like living with a doppelganger trying to gaslight her into thinking he\u2019s really her husband. \u201cEveryone\u2019s telling me I\u2019m living with the same person, and really I\u2019m living with a corpse in the room. I have gone from being in a happy marriage to being a widow who is also a carer.\u201d He showed no obvious sympathy, she says, when she lost her father. \u201cHe never says the word \u2018we\u2019. He has no thoughts about the future or us together. He never says, \u2018Why don\u2019t we paint the bathroom?\u2019 or \u2018Why don\u2019t we go on holiday?\u2019 or \u2019Do\u00a0you fancy doing this?\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n Wendy has considered leaving him, and friends have asked outright why she doesn\u2019t. But she feels too\u00a0guilty:\u00a0they don\u2019t have children, so there is nobody else to look after him, and if they separated they would both be broke.<\/p>\n Wendy doesn\u2019t cry during our interview: she has learned, she says, to keep up a front. But she can\u2019t look at photos of her husband from before the accident, or\u00a0listen to music they used to enjoy, without breaking down. Though she doesn\u2019t envy friends with happy marriages \u2013 \u201cI don\u2019t want their relationships, I want mine\u201d \u2013 secretly she envies widows, whose loss is at least easy for others to see.<\/p>\n Ben tells a similar story. His bright, busy wife had a stroke in her mid-40s that left her paralysed down one side, with some cognitive impairment: she can\u2019t leave the house unaided, or make lunch for herself. He has become effectively a single parent to their three children, now in their teens and 20s, and employs care professionals so he can work part-time. Only in the last few months has he started to face the fact that she is unlikely to get better. \u201cWhen you are reasonably successful in your career and you\u2019ve got a lovely family, in your head you kind of step forward and imagine what it\u2019s going to look like [in the future], and nowhere is there something like this,\u201d he says. \u201cWe would have been thinking now that in a few years the kids would have flown the nest, we could start enjoying a bit more freedom \u2013 dreams like that have been shattered.\u201d<\/p>\n He does, he admits, feel down and even angry at times. \u201cWhere once you would share life\u2019s chores, now it\u2019s all me, and that gets a bit much. I do feel quite niggly at the kids sometimes, which is not me at all.\u201d He has had counselling, but relies mostly on a stiff upper lip: \u201cIf I do think, \u2018Woe is me\u2019, then I think, \u2018Oh shut up, Ben. Think about her.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n Ben stays with his wife for now \u201cbecause I have to\u201d, though he finds that painful to say. \u201cThere\u2019s the kids, but there\u2019s also almost a sense of duty, I suppose. If I\u00a0was to say, \u2018Oh, sod this\u2019, and go, then I am not sure what her life would look like. She couldn\u2019t look after herself.<\/p>\n \u201cBut I am married to a different person, and I couldn\u2019t contemplate putting her in a home. So I\u2019m stuck.\u201d He doesn\u2019t feel he can talk about any of this with their friends. \u201cThe honest answer is I don\u2019t know what it will be like without the kids, when they go. They\u2019re probably a lot of the glue at the moment, and when that\u2019s gone \u2026 I genuinely don\u2019t know.\u201d<\/p>\n Wendy and Ben aren\u2019t alone in their feelings, nor in keeping them a secret. \u201cWhat the research tells us about partners is they\u2019re often silent in their grief, their anxiety, because they don\u2019t want to appear disloyal,\u201d says Dany Bell, a strategic adviser in cancer care at Macmillan Cancer Support, which recently launched a\u00a0campaign highlighting how long-term illness affects sex and relationships. About half the calls to the charity\u2019s helpline are about emotional issues, she says, rather than treatment or the illness itself.<\/p>\n As a breast cancer surgeon, Liz O\u2019Riordan had plenty of opportunity to observe how couples dealt with bad news. But it wasn\u2019t until she was diagnosed with the disease herself, a decade ago, aged only 40, that she understood the full impact it has on a relationship.<\/p>\n \u201cI think it would be about a fifth or a sixth of my patients where the marriages ended,\u201d she says. \u201cWas it a marriage that wasn\u2019t great before, and this is the final straw \u2026 or was it cancer? It\u2019s really hard to say. But I think, especially for the younger women, who have just got married, it\u2019s a really big thing \u2013 [partners having] affairs seem to be more common.\u201d<\/p>\n A cancer diagnosis can, she points out, bring with it multiple pressure points: if the patient has to give up work it often means financial stress, while younger couples can struggle with the impact of treatment on fertility. What is also hard to talk about is the impact on a couple\u2019s intimate relationship.<\/p>\n After her surgery, O\u2019Riordan didn\u2019t want her husband, Dermot \u2013 who is also a surgeon \u2013 to see her naked. \u201cI would get changed in the dark. I would look at the scars and I would say: \u2018Don\u2019t touch me, because I don\u2019t find myself attractive,\u2019\u201d she remembers. \u201cAnd he said: \u2018Look, don\u2019t be silly, I\u2019m not going anywhere. I love you.\u2019 But you do feel it\u2019s your fault that things have suddenly changed.\u201d At her lowest point, she told him he should divorce her and \u201cgo and marry a woman with two breasts and a libido, because I felt guilty about what I\u2019d done to the marriage\u201d.<\/p>\n Luckily, he ignored her advice. They\u2019re still happily married, and he is a silently supportive presence next to her as we talk on the phone. But when O\u2019Riordan started talking publicly about those feelings, she was swamped with messages from other cancer survivors saying they had experienced something similar. A common theme was the impact of drugs given to prevent a recurrence of the cancer, which trigger early menopause with all its potential side-effects. \u201cThe vaginal dryness, the loss of libido \u2013 it is huge,\u201d says O\u2019Riordan. She also heard tales of husbands sleeping in spare beds because they were frightened of hurting their partners, or even of \u201ccatching\u201d cancer. \u201cI think we need to prepare women and their partners because this is going to have a\u00a0massive impact on their relationship. At a time when you need them most, you either want to push them away or they distance themselves.\u201d<\/p>\n For couples navigating cancer, she says, the key is communication. \u201cIt\u2019s talking and asking: what\u00a0do\u00a0you need? How can I help you? And having those conversations around the dinner table, not in\u00a0the\u00a0bedroom.\u201d<\/p>\n Bell, at Macmillan, agrees that couples need to be unafraid of having difficult conversations. An awkward question for many, she says, is whether a partner should take on intimate tasks like washing or helping their spouse to the loo, and what effect that might have on their relationship. \u201cI always say to my husband: \u2018If I\u00a0can\u2019t do my own personal hygiene I don\u2019t want you to do it.\u2019 For me, there\u2019s something there about maintaining your dignity, even though we\u2019ve been together a long time. But it\u2019s a personal choice \u2013 many people work through it.\u201d<\/p>\n Cancer can cast a surprisingly long shadow, well after the immediate crisis is over. \u201cPeople get anxious \u2013\u00a0there\u2019s always that thought in the back of their mind about the cancer coming back. And some treatments do have long-term side-effects,\u201d Bell says. \u201cThere\u2019s a\u00a0high percentage of people who don\u2019t get back into the same work, or work at all, after they\u2019ve had cancer.\u201d<\/p>\n Surviving a near-death experience, meanwhile, may inspire some to make dramatic changes to the lives they almost lost \u2013 including, in some cases, ending a\u00a0relationship. One small Israeli study of breast cancer patients who had subsequently filed for divorce found that many saw the illness as a wake-up call alerting them to what was wrong with their marriages. Given a\u00a0second chance at life, they wanted to live it differently. The study concluded that, for some, being sick had emboldened them to put themselves first, while others described a newfound confidence, concluding that as they had coped with almost dying, they could certainly cope with being single.<\/p>\n The breakup gave me an opportunity to be, like, \u2018Right, I\u00a0don\u2019t have to consider anyone else\u2019s feelings now: what do I\u00a0need?\u00a0What do I want?\u2019<\/p>\n Antonia was only 24 when she was diagnosed with thyroid cancer, after a three-year struggle to pin down the cause of symptoms \u2013 including repeated episodes of anaphylactic shock \u2013 that had caused her to drop out of university and move back in with her parents. Back then, she was in a serious relationship with her childhood sweetheart, but around the time she started radiotherapy, her partner broke it off.<\/p>\n \u201cIt felt like the world was against me,\u201d she says over Zoom from her home in Jersey, where she grew up. \u201cThroughout my cancer journey I\u2019ve tried not to go down the route of \u2018Why me?\u2019 because it\u2019s a really negative route, and that was the only time I even looked in that direction.\u201d Sitting in a radiotherapy room by herself, being told she couldn\u2019t hug anyone because she was radioactive, was lonely enough already. But, above all, what she felt was shame. \u201cA lot of people are\u00a0ashamed about getting dumped in general, but getting dumped and having cancer \u2013 you\u2019re, like, what\u2019s wrong with me?\u201d<\/p>\n It was only when she plucked up the courage to talk about it on TikTok, where she was already documenting her treatment, that she realised how common her experience was among cancer survivors. \u201cSo many people were saying: \u2018Oh my God, me too. I\u2019ve never told anyone about this because I was embarrassed.\u2019 And that\u2019s how I felt. I\u2019d dropped out of uni, I couldn\u2019t work, all my friends are getting engaged, buying flats, having babies, and you just stick out like a sore thumb \u2013 it almost felt like another failure.\u201d<\/p>\n Yet even at the time, she was anxious that her ex shouldn\u2019t get the blame for walking away, a feeling that has only grown. Two years on, in remission from cancer and living happily with her new boyfriend, Antonia is working as a journalist and is an ambassador for the\u00a0Teenage Cancer Trust. Last year, she made a\u00a0Valentine\u2019s Day video for Macmillan Cancer Support in which she reflected on why she now sees that breakup as for the best: at least it meant she could focus wholly on herself, and getting well.<\/p>\n \u201cI know people who have stayed together throughout the cancer journey, and when they get to the stage where\u00a0they\u2019re cancer-free, they split up because the person\u2019s so resentful,\u201d Antonia says. \u201cThe truth is that the kindest thing someone can do for you is to be honest, saying: \u2018I can\u2019t give you what you need \u2013 I care enough to let you know that.\u2019 When battling cancer, my focus was: I need to live. Anything else is trivial to me.\u201d<\/p>\n Among the young cancer survivors of both sexes she knows, Antonia thinks it\u2019s the women who are more likely to have been dumped after a diagnosis. \u201cThe men just can\u2019t handle it \u2013 they see their friends going out and they\u2019re, like: \u2018I want to do that.\u2019 That being said, I\u00a0think girls return to dating quicker than men who have had cancer. Sex is a massive thing \u2013 your hormones have changed, you might not feel the same as before \u2013 and a lot of men struggle with that because it\u2019s more of a\u00a0performance anxiety thing.\u201d<\/p>\n Dating again, however, wasn\u2019t easy for her. To keep the life-threatening reactions that complicated her case at bay, Antonia will need monthly treatment for the rest of her life. She can\u2019t work full-time, and has been left with serious allergies. \u201cI can\u2019t wear certain makeup, I can\u2019t dye my hair, I can still only eat certain foods. I\u00a0thought: how can I go on a date and explain I can\u2019t drink alcohol?\u201d Strong emotions can also trigger a physical reaction. \u201cIt\u2019s hard in a romantic situation \u2013 some people can play it cool but I can\u2019t; I literally break out in hives.\u201d And she won\u2019t know exactly how treatment has affected her fertility until she tries for a baby.<\/p>\n She met her current boyfriend through mutual friends, which meant he already knew about her cancer before they started going out. Her advice to anyone dating after serious illness is to be upfront about what\u00a0that involves, on the grounds that to the right person it won\u2019t matter. \u201cWhen I did meet my current partner, I was, like: \u2018I\u2019m allergic to alcohol, I\u00a0can\u2019t do this, I can\u2019t do that.\u2019 If I didn\u2019t, I might have started a relationship under false pretences and slowly but surely realised it was only working because I was being\u00a0inauthentic.\u201d<\/p>\n Yet ironically, she says, it was only going through a\u00a0life-changing illness that gave her the courage to be so open about it. \u201cI used to be such a people pleaser. I never stuck up for myself. I never cried when I got a diagnosis because I was comforting everyone around\u00a0me, and I\u00a0think about that a lot,\u201d she says. \u201cI think that breakup gave me an opportunity to be, like: \u2018Right, I\u00a0don\u2019t have to consider anyone else\u2019s feelings now: what do I\u00a0need?\u00a0What do I want?\u2019, rather than sort of keeping everyone at bay.\u201d<\/p>\n It\u2019s perfectly normal, Antonia stresses, to rage at being dumped: to feel heartbroken, hurt, to wonder why this had to happen to you. But, two years later, she\u2019s at peace with it.<\/p>\n \u201cThere\u2019s nothing wrong with me. That\u2019s a big thing that I had to come to terms with \u2013 we just weren\u2019t right for each other. But a lot of things would be less heavy if we talked about it, and it was more normal to just go: \u2018Oh, I got dumped.\u2019\u201d Especially, perhaps, if you\u2019ve already survived far worse<\/p>\n <\/em>Some names have been changed<\/p>\n Macmillan Cancer Support helpline: 0808 808 0000. Get long Covid support at longcovid.org.<\/p>\n