A spouse in the nursing home: The conflicting experience of separation

Abstract

Being the spouse of a patient in a nursing home may be a conflicting experience. This article uses life-history interviews and the understanding of Bourdieu to understand and explain the phenomena. The data consist of five life-story interviews with two women and two men. The article looks at love and marriage structures during the lifetime of the agents. We also look at the development of the nursing home from a historical perspective. The research is based on Bourdieu’s theory with the purpose of understanding and explaining the experiences of the spouse: ‘Why is the experience of having a spouse in a nursing home often conflicting?’ The ambition of praxeological optics is to objectify subjectivist and objectivist factors. The understanding is constructed as a habitus based on the trilogy of Bourdieu. In order to endure and cope with the challenges, spouses need to be strong. According to our analysis lived life expressed in attitudes and actions in marriage and at the nursing home are closely linked. ‘For better or worse, in sickness and health’, is a key element in these relations. Staff need to focus more on spouses in order to avoid conflicts both between staff and spouse and between the spouses themselves.