It took her longer to realize that after the anniversary dinner she was afraid that her husband would expect her to become sexual with him, and that was something she wanted to avoid. Only the ones that we would go to the trouble of suffering for are the ones we get sick for. Most of the time it has to do with our parents, especially our mothers. But it is possible to be sick for your father, your brother or sister, your spouse, your child, your boyfriend or girlfriend, even your neighbor. Almost anyone whose opinion matters to us is someone we can be sick for.
Mothers hold an especially prominent place because being sick is an attack on one's body.
Illness destroys body and body is what we have received from our mothers. The seed, or the spiritual blueprint, comes from the father, but the tissues, the material out of which the body is constructed, comes from the mother. So it is that body, being a gift of the mother, represents our relationship with her. And just like when you don't like someone, you may wish to throw their present out, so illness is a way of trashing the gift that comes by way of the mother, depreciating the body, mistreating it, using it as a worthless, painful nothing. Often the role of the mother is fulfilled by another important woman, the wife or girlfriend.