How to Support Your Partner Through a Health Crisis

Jonny and Ashley Bottorff were only 24 when Ashley found a lump in her breast. They had been dating for two years, but that time together couldn’t have prepared either of them for what came next: a call from her doctor in September 2025 confirming she had stage 2 HER2-positive breast cancer.“You’re joking,” Jonny said when Ashley called him with the news. Then reality set in, as did the tears and thoughts of worst-case scenarios. “You just don’t imagine that in a million years happening,” Jonny says.What followed was a whirlwind. They decided to move back to Kansas City, Kansas, to be closer to family and friends during Ashley’s treatment. They got engaged, froze embryos, and planned a wedding in just three weeks. On October 11, 2025, they got married—three days before Ashley started chemo. “Getting married before we started what was obviously going to be an unbelievably difficult challenge was important to both of us,” says Jonny, who originally planned to propose at the end of 2025.Jonny and Ashley Bottorff.Photo courtesy of Jonny and Ashley Bottorff.Jonny and Ashley Bottorff.Photo courtesy of Jonny and Ashley Bottorff.The Bottorffs’ instinct was to face this crisis as a team. When one person gets a serious diagnosis, it doesn’t just change their life—it changes their partner’s life, too, often in ways nobody warns you about.No two experiences are the same, but loving someone through a health crisis tends to raise similar questions: How do I show up for them? How do I take care of myself? What happens to us now? To help find answers we spoke with couples experiencing health crises and a therapist who specializes in supporting couples as they navigate life changes. Here’s what they want you to know.There’s no quick fix—and that’s okayJonny felt a lot of hopelessness throughout Ashley’s treatment. “You want to be a problem solver and make all the pain go away, but you just can’t,” he says. That loss of control can be really challenging for a partner to sit with. Brady Robinson, 33, of Brooklyn, New York, had a similar experience when his then-future wife, Jessica Schiffer, 35, first opened up about her chronic pain. Jessica’s pain predated their relationship, beginning in 2020 and intensifying three months into them dating after a spine surgery made some existing problems worse and set off a cascade of new issues, including six months of insomnia. Even after multiple surgeries, her chronic pain is often debilitating and impacts her face, throat, neck, and shoulder.“I felt helpless at first,” Brady says of those early days. “When the person you love is in debilitating pain, all you want to do is help them and take it away. I quickly learned that being by her side, believing her, and validating what she was feeling was how I could best support her.”This type of emotional attunement—focusing on listening and understanding rather than fixing and controlling—is one of the best ways for partners to support their loved ones through a health crisis, says Stephanie Simon, PsyD, clinical psychologist and clinical director at City Lights Psychology. It can also be one of the hardest, especially when your instinct is to launch into problem-solving mode. “When we quickly go to solutions or logistics, then the support may become unintentionally controlling, like, ‘Did you call the doctor? Did you take your meds?’” says Dr. Simon.Share your fears and feelings“Partners might feel that they need to be unwaveringly strong, but emotional shutdown often feels more isolating than honest vulnerability,” says Dr. Simon. So don’t shy away from discussing the elephant in the room and expressing things that feel hard or scary.“I used to be afraid to share how I was feeling because I didn’t want to overwhelm her,” says Brady. “But when I eventually shared my concerns and fears with Jess, she made it clear that it didn’t add to her stress.”Jonny also learned that honesty was often the best course. “Literally the only thing we could say sometimes was, ‘Man, this sucks. This is terrible,’” he says.Even though it can be tempting, avoid relying on sheer optimism to try and lift the mood. Jessica has been living with severe pain for six years and says well-meaning reassurances like It’s going to get better can sometimes feel more hollow than hopeful. “I have so much evidence that they’re not true,” she says. She doesn’t want Brady to be a downer, but she’s found solace in him focusing on the present moment rather than a future neither of them can guarantee. Dr. Simon agrees: “Being blindly optimistic misses an opportunity for connection.”Show up in practical waysSometimes it’s the unglamorous, everyday acts that help the most. For Jonny, providing functional support during Ashley’s six rounds of chemo meant becoming a one-man cold-capping operation. Assisting Ashley with her cold capping (a process that can help prevent hair loss during chemo) gave Jonny a lifeline during this experience: a concrete task in a situation that otherwise felt completely out of his hands. “There are so many things you can’t be in control of when you’re supporting someone,” he says. “So those things I was able to do—honestly, I think that mentally helped me during it all.”That also extended to daily tasks Ashley often didn’t have the energy to handle. “He did all my laundry,” Ashley says. “He pretty much cooked me every meal, cleaned up after me without a single complaint.”For Brady, showing up in practical ways can also look mundane but meaningful. On Jessica’s hardest days—when facial pain makes it difficult to speak—Brady handles canceling appointments, fetching medication, and retrieving ice packs and heating pads. “There are so many chores and errands that now fall to him,” Jessica says, “But he has never made me feel guilty or bad about that.”Simon notes that people often underestimate this kind of everyday, pragmatic support. “Small moments matter more than you can imagine,” she says. “Bringing food, sitting quietly together, handling an errand, scheduling something on the other person’s behalf, making them laugh, staying physically affectionate.” It all adds up. “What matters most isn’t flawless caregiving but repeated attunement, engagement, and responsiveness,” Simon says.Make sure to check in on your needs tooCaregiver burnout is real, and it’s something to keep an eye on. “It’s not a sign that you’re failing at supporting,” says Simon. “It’s more often a sign that you've been emotionally overtaxed and extended for too long without adequate self-care and replenishment.”Replenishment doesn’t need to be elaborate. It can look like “maintaining at least some continuity within your life, even if it’s something as small as making yourself a coffee in the morning or as big as going to the gym once a week or twice a week,” suggests Simon.Brady’s outlets include running and playing in a soccer league every week, which helps him decompress. Similarly, Jonny found that working out helped his mental health throughout this process, as did calling friends and family whenever he was close to breaking down. “They were all incredible about listening to me,” he says.Brady admits it can be hard not to feel guilty sometimes when he gets frustrated or tired, knowing everything his wife is going through. “What helped me was realizing that difficult emotions don’t mean I love Jess any less. They’re part of being human in a difficult situation.”Consider seeing a therapistA health crisis can be a pressure test for even the strongest couples, and therapy is a great place to process what you’re experiencing—together and separately. Jonny was resistant at first. “I thought, ‘I’m just going to shove all this down and put on a brave face every day,’” he says. “That’s not feasible. You can’t do that.” Eventually, both he and Ashley spoke with therapists, and he credits those conversations with helping them through this journey. “I would encourage anyone going through this to do that.”Couples therapy can also be helpful for learning to navigate the ways your relationship is changing. “In this context couples therapy is often less about fixing conflict and more about helping two people stay connected while navigating something overwhelming,” says Simon. “It’s important to keep in mind that it doesn’t mean that you’re failing in your relationship and it doesn’t mean that you’re not going to make it out of it,” she adds.Find reasons to celebrateGoing through a health crisis can be all-consuming, so it’s important to find ways to keep enjoying your lives. “The goal is not to necessarily pretend that the illness isn’t happening but to help the relationship remain larger than the illness,” says Simon.When Ashley finished her first cycle of intense chemo—a milestone that happened to fall on her birthday—Jonny arranged for her friends to be there when she rang the bell. A month later Ashley returned the gesture with a surprise of her own: sharing their story on TikTok to try and collect gift donations for his birthday. The video got over 7 million views and led to quite the haul. “Celebrate every victory,” Jonny says. “It’s a long battle and process, but those celebrations can keep you going, for sure.”To Brady, that looks like leaving Jessica surprise love notes and treats, exploring the city together when she’s having a low-pain day, or finding ways to make her laugh. “I think one of the most lifesaving things he’s done—and I say lifesaving because there have been some really dark times for me mentally throughout this—is making me laugh throughout it all,” says Jessica. “It’s not a funny time, but he’s helped me be able to goof around and find joy even in the shittiest moments. I really don’t know how I would’ve gotten through this without him.”Ashley says going through this experience with Jonny confirmed that the two can handle anything. “We still smiled every single day. We still laughed every single day. Most weeks we went out and did something fun together,” she says. “Life went on in a lot of the ways that really count and really matter.”