Cancer diagnosed in a wife/mother affects the entire family system, disrupting its functioning. Until recently, however, breast cancer was treated by women as their private trouble – they rarely talked about their illness with their husbands, and concealed it from their children. Most often, they sought support from mothers and sisters or in patient associations. The changes currently taking place in Polish society are conducive to the appearance of greater openness and intimacy in marriage, also in the situation of illness suffered by a wife. In Poland, no scientific research has yet been carried out regarding the issue of husbands’ involvement in the role of an informal caregiver of a wife with breast cancer, at most it was noted that husbands constitute the most important source of support for chronically ill partners. The issue of dyadic coping has been studied in the West for at least two decades, while in Poland only mass media mentioned it. The aim: The aim of the study was to identify the subject positions offered to husbands of sick wives, described in features in women’s magazines on the experience of breast cancer. The analyses were also supposed to provide an answer to the question of whether the marital relationships shown are a proper example of dyadic coping with a wife’s illness in Polish society. Method: The study used the method of critical discourse analysis and focused on examining the subject positions of husbands of chronically ill wives. Results and conclusions: Four features from women’s magazines describing the experiences of women with breast cancer were subjected to research. These features appeared between September and November, that is when mass media implement a social mission to raise awareness about breast cancer. Critical analysis of the press discourse has identified three main subject positions of the husbands who take up “marital work”, which cannot be described explicitly as dyadic coping with breast cancer in their wives. The women’s magazines published features showing the changes within the marriage, and at the same time, as is typical of this type of mass media, does not acknowledge its occurrence.