Partners Care, Couplehood, and Intimate Life

In this chapter we turn to the experiences of the partners of men treated for prostate cancer. The chapter focuses on the social and practical dimensions of the disease and how partners understand their own and the men’s reactions to the disease, its implications for couplehood, and for intimate life. More precisely, the chapter aims to describe and analyse partners’ understandings of the disease, its gendered implications, and impacts on intimate life. The results show that many heterosexual partners are highly involved in the men’s treatment and rehabilitation process. The women describe a discrepancy between the men’s reactions and senses of emasculation due to the disease, and their own understandings of anticipated side effects and how they perceive the men. Though the changing conditions of intimacy and sexuality are talked about in terms of acceptance and often related to an anticipated part of a general ageing process, there are also women who express a longing for an intimate life that includes penetrative sex.