Disability, Caring and Marriage: The Experience of Younger Couples when a Partner is Disabled after Marriage

Correspondence to Prof Gillian Parker, Nuffield Community Care Studies Unit, Leicester University, 108 Regent Road, Leicester, LE1 7LT Summary Despite a large literature on marriage and growing ones on disabilityand on caring there is little which specifically examines theexperience of disability and caring within marriage. This paperdraws on evidence from a small-scale qualitative study of couplesunder pensionable age where one partner had become disabledsince marriage. Partners were interviewed both together andseparately allowing exploration of ‘both sides’of the relationship. The paper first examines the couple's sexualrelationship and the ways in which impairment and caring affectedit. Both partners' views about the nature and meaning of marriageand how this related to their continuing relationship are thenexplored. Finally, by comparing different marriage and by comparingthe same marriages at different points in time, factors whichmight predispose marriages to break up after one of the partnersbecomes disabled are discussed. The research shows that marriedcouples are left virtually unsupported, either practically oremotionally, at times when their relationship may be under considerablestrain. Sexual relationships may falter or cease because oflack of knowledge, embarrassment or not knowing whom to approachfor help. Other couples may be left in an empty shell of a marriagebecause no practical alternatives to their situation are offered.