Couples assume that "in sickness and in health" means that a mate will be a comfort during illness. But a doting spouse may actually intensify chronic pain.
Herta Flor, a professor of neuropsychology at the University of Heidelberg in Germany, examined 20 married subjects with chronic back pain; half had partners who paid attention to the ailment by offering medication or massage. Subjects with attentive spouses reported much more pain in response to an electrical shock than did those with spouses who ignored their discomfort or tried to distract them from it. Those with solicitous spouses also experienced more activity in the anterior cingulate, a brain region that helps register emotions and pain.
