BOSTON -- The marriage vow 'In sickness and in health' takes on a new meaning when breast cancer unexpectedly invades a marriage.

When we talk about breast cancer, we often and rightly focus on the patient, but a breast cancer diagnosis impacts many people, including the men in those patients' lives.

Jim Silver was one such man. "There's a little hill here. Julie and I went for a walk, and I had to literally pull her up the hill. Maybe that's a good symbol of it. I had to pull her up a hill a bit on our walks."

"We definitely had to spend a lot of time talking about how we were going to handle it." Jim said. "Helping each other through it, it definitely brings a certain connection intimacy that changes things."

NewsCenter 5's Kelley Tuthill reported that breast cancer certainly does change relationships, and sometimes not for the better. In the past year, at least three women have approached her with their stories of husbands who left them during treatment. None wanted to appear on camera, in order to protect their privacy.

But Dr. Donald Morris, who has been performing plastic surgery on breast cancer patients for two decades, has heard the stories as well. "The vast majority of men come through it and are supportive, but there is a small subset of men who really have trouble with that. They can't cope and relationships end up not surviving the process of getting treatment," Morris said. "I wouldn't call it common by any means but I certainly wouldn't call it rare either."

Morris said health professionals working with cancer patients should be aware of the effect on spouses and try to provide support when possible. But it's no secret that support groups for men don't always help the men who participate.

Julie Silver, a breast cancer survivor who has also written a book about life after cancer said, "It's private, but you can talk about it. And guys just don't talk about it. They just won't talk about it."

Hester Hill Schnipper works with breast cancer patients as a social worker at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, where her husband, Lowell, is a medical oncologist. Their perspective on the disease got very personal when Hester was diagnosed in 1993.

"A really helpless place to be," said Dr. Lowell Schnipper. "Again, Hester and I, despite being the fix-it man, the fates have determined that I really can't protect my wife. And that is an astonishing realization."

Hester added, "I've heard from women that they wish their husbands would stop trying. He was a fast learner and recognized that you can't fix things. But it's really not so helpful when your husband jumps in and is being overly reassuring, because sometimes all of us need to worry and need someone to listen to that."

The Schnippers tell other couples, "What men really need to do is be willing to do something that they don't often do very well. Which is be quiet and listen and be supportive."

Hester said it's a skill her husband was wonderful at doing. "I have a clear memory," she said, "Of one time at dinner saying 'Can't we talk about something else?' And me saying, 'No, no we can't.'"