Women in distress turn to their partners for support, regardless of relationship satisfaction. Despite this, there has been little research on couples' elicitation of social support. As part of a larger treatment outcome study, 50 couples facing early stage breast cancer completed a 7-minute support exchange, coded for elicitation styles and relational processing to determine: 1) effects of men's ability to attend to cues for support on women's satisfaction with support, and 2) effects of elicitation strategies women employed on support satisfaction. This investigation involved creation of the Couple Elicitation Coding System, CSECS, and the adaptation of the Relationship Schematic Processing (RSP) coding system. Women's satisfaction with support from men was associated with higher quality RSP ratings for men. Women primarily used indirect elicitation and this was associated with higher support satisfaction.