When “In Sickness and in Health” Becomes Real
Navigating Marriage When Illness Changes Everything: A Conversation About Communication, Vulnerability, and Staying Connected.
“In sickness and in health.”
Those words sound one way on a wedding day.
They sound very different when sickness actually comes.
October is Breast Cancer Awareness Month, and this conversation is personal for me. As a young adult, I watched my mother face breast cancer twice. My father battled colon cancer. They were husband and wife, business owners, entrepreneurs, and parents raising five children.
Life did not stop because cancer entered our family.
Years later, I would experience illness from another perspective when my husband suffered two strokes.
And one thing I know for sure is this:
Illness can change the way a couple communicates.
Sometimes one spouse wants to talk, and the other doesn’t.
Sometimes you’re both scared, but you’re expressing it differently.
Sometimes somebody is trying so hard to “be strong” that they don’t say what they’re actually feeling.
And sometimes you’re simply tired.
There are appointments, decisions, finances, family concerns, and questions neither person may know how to answer yet.
Meanwhile, you’re still husband and wife.
That’s the part I want us to talk about this month.
Because communication during illness does not always look pretty.
Patience can get thin.
Roles can change.
Conversations can become short.
And even strong marriages can find themselves navigating some rough communication terrain.
That doesn’t automatically mean the marriage is over.
Sometimes it means two human beings are trying to adjust to something they never planned for.
Throughout October, I’m talking honestly about what “in sickness and in health” can look like inside a marriage—diagnosis, caregiving, changing roles, and protecting the “us” when life suddenly looks different.
No perfect answers.
No pretending.
Just real conversations about real marriage.
Because sometimes Talk. Listen. Connect.™ gets harder when life gets hard.
And sometimes that’s when we need it most.
— Coach Trinette L. Collier-Greene
Relationship & Marriage Communication Coach
