Abstract
When a member of the couple is diagnosed with cancer, it has a significant impact on their partner. In this journey, both members of the couple usually face a series of physical, psychological, economic and family organizational challenges that can only be faced if they have a relational resource that characterizes close relationships: mutuality. According to Top-cu Uzer et al. (2020), this construct is defined by cognitive, emotional and behavioral aspects of which the present study took up the last two. Thus, the objectives of this research were: 1) To examine the possible differences in cancer patients and their partners regarding their mutuality, their emotional correlates (partner accompaniment, emotional support and empathy, satisfaction with the support received) and their correlates behavioral (sharing time, frequency of sexual intercourse, affectivity and co-regulation of negative emotions), 2) Explore the relationship between emotional and behavioral correlates with the mutuality experienced by the participants, and 3) Identify the main predictors of the mutuality from the aforementioned correlates. For this, there were 195 heterosexual couples where one of the members had been diagnosed with some type of cancer, who responded to a battery of tests for each correlate and who participated voluntarily, confidentially and anonymously. The findings showed similarity between both members of the couple regarding the aspects studied, significant relationships were observed between all of these with mutuality and finally, the accompaniment of the couple, satisfaction with daily support, harmonious communication, affectivity and share time as its predictors.
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