Fevered battle

Robin Waller, a Spokane wife and mother, remembers exactly what happened in her house the last time she got sick.

It was last December. Tonsillitis.

“I watched ‘Perry Mason,’ ” she says. “I got up and made myself soup. And then he (her husband) came in and said he was sick, too.”

Nobody fluffed her pillows on the couch. Or made her a pot of tea. Or fetched her a magazine.

Despite feeling crummy, Waller says she kept up with the cooking and cleaning and household chores.

“Life does not stop, and nobody else would do it,” says Waller, who adds that, despite this one aspect, she enjoys her relationship with her easy-going husband of 19 years.

There’s no denying that a major, life-threatening sickness can set a relationship into disarray. But everyday illnesses — the colds and flu and stomach bugs that are gearing up for high season now — can highlight weak points in even the best of marriages.

“These situations will expose whatever vulnerabilities there are,” says Spokane psychologist Andrew Haffey, who wrote his doctoral dissertation about how families respond to illness. “If there’s a major argument or hurt feelings, then there is a sign there’s something else going on there; that something else needs to be addressed.”

When one spouse is laid low by a bug, the other is not only expected to pick up the housework but also to be kind and compassionate to the ailing mate.

In some relationships, that just doesn’t happen.

Coeur d’Alene counselor Al Turtle recalls a client whose father often got sick, apparently just to get the attention of his doting family. Now, whenever someone close to her gets sick, she gets angry “because they’re getting away with things,” Turtle says.

“These old reactions that come out of childhood frequently intrude into a relationship with couples,” he says.

In some cases, a stuffy-headed spouse will bring out the “mothering” or “fathering” instinct in the other, Turtle says. In other cases, it can trigger old resentments and feelings of unfairness.

“The biggest issue I’ve found in couples is maintaining a sense of fairness,” Turtle says. “To be fair, both of you have to take turns being generous, and both of you have to take turns being selfish.”

Turtle looks at good will in a relationship like a bank account: Do kind things for your spouse, and you’ll keep the account well-stocked.

“If you get into the habit of keeping your partner kind of ‘full,’ of keeping your account full, then you can make a withdrawal easily,” he says.

So, when it looks like your spouse is coming down with something, ask him or her, “What can I do to help?”

“What you’re doing is putting the sick person into the position of being selfish and verbally saying so,” Turtle says.

That’s exactly what Clifford and Kathi Phillips say they do with each other.

The Spokane couple have been married for five years. Clifford, who admits he’s more of a whiner than he should be when sick, says he has learned to ask his wife, “What can I do for you?” when she’s not feeling well.

But, still, he admits, “She waits on me, I would say, half again more than I do for her.”

Kathi Phillips, a home-health nurse, agrees that her husband certainly makes any illness well known. But she says they do such a good job of taking care of each other, that doesn’t bother her.

“When he’s sick, he just really wants to be taken care of,” she says. “He wants to be babied. He wants to be doted on.”

Everybody has a different “sickness style,” the way they want to be treated when they’re feeling lousy. Some people just want to be left alone in a quiet room. Others want kind faces around them, offering help and comfort.

Figure out what style you are and make sure your mate knows it, Turtle says.

“When you’re taking care of your partner, it’s good to meet their style,” he says. “All of this is relationship stuff. It has nothing to do with the body recovering from germs.”

Telling your partner what you need means that no one ends up feeling like a victim.

When Christina Smith tripped down some stairs four months ago and broke her leg so severely it required surgery, her husband, Stuart, stepped up and took over all of the household chores.

“He basically had to,” says Smith, who lives in Spokane. “I hardly moved for about two-and-a-half months.”

Her husband’s cooking improved over the months, after a memorably bad incident with some lemon-pepper marinade, Smith says. And he kept up with the gardening and keeping things tidy.

Smith counts herself lucky. Her sister-in-law visited while she was laid up and said there’s no way that her husband could’ve taken over all of the duties.

“She told me, ‘I would have to get help in,’ ” Smith recalls.

Waller, a former stay-at-home-mom who now works full time with the Spokane Neighborhood Action Project, says she makes a beeline away from anybody who’s sick so she won’t catch anything. She knows her house would fall apart if she couldn’t keep it up.

When she had her appendix removed five years ago, the doctor recommended she stay with her mother for a couple of days because she’d never get any rest at home, she says.

“I bring this on myself,” she says. “I really am at fault for spoiling them rotten.”

But Waller admits she enjoys being a caretaker; that’s just part of who she is.

“I mother him to death when he’s sick,” she says. “You feel needed.”

Whether you simply grin and bear it and fix some tea when you’re mate’s felled by the flu, or whether you love to play nursemaid, it’s important to remember that a minor illness should be seen as a chance to be a good partner, Haffey says.

So, when your husband or wife’s sniffling and snuffling and whining and complaining are keeping you up at night, remember this:

“It’s an opportunity to practice compassion and an opportunity to practice patience and an opportunity to become the kind of partner you want to be in a marriage.”

Plus, at least you can take comfort in the fact that a cold won’t last long.