Chronic illness changes relationships. When spouses transition to caregiver and patient roles, they often face the loss of that singular intimate relationship and the companionship it brings. Spousal caregivers spend more hours caregiving each week, doing more intense tasks, and with less outside assistance, than other types of caregivers. The financial impacts of caregiving are different for well spouses from other types of caregivers too - often the partner with illness AND the caregiver must give up paid employment (at the same time that expenses increase due to medical costs). Caregiving for your wife, husband, or partner impacts the decision to have children, the way children are raised, and where and how one lives, works, and retires. There are few areas of life that are left untouched by the caregiver/patient role in partnered relationships.