Couples issues arise with a chronic illness. They effect each part of the relationship: the man, the woman and the relationship itself. Here's the example of Sally and Tim.

Sally says she has a headache but doesn't believe that she usually has it more frequently than ever before and that it's been over nine months from the first one. She may withdraw and not communicate as much as before.

And Tim, her husband,  has his own experiences associated with chronic illness of his father, who never pursued treatment. This means he feels stress, free-floating anxiety and fear because there wasn't any hope of his father's improvement or management of the illness. Then its likely conflict wil increase in the couple as he points things out to Sally the headache frequency, her not telling the doctor at the last visit, etc.

But Sally and Tim have the option of improving the emotional "tone" of the relationship to reduce stress of a chronic illness. Tim can work on the criticism or overprotectiveness a spouse often feels. And together they can can experience greater intimacy and closeness with an illness than before.