My sister in law got emergency gallbladder surgery and couldn't get out of bed for 2 days to do anything without a lot of assistance. Her husband decides to volunteer to go to work the days she needed him the most. He was fully aware needed his help and he had agreed to it. Thankfully her mom, my mother in law, was able to rush to help her. But without my MIL, my SIL would've had to wet the bed and not eat or drink anything because she couldn't move without help.

When asked why he didn't stay home to help his wife like he said, he just shrugged and said "I dunno I just thought having more money would be good". They were not in any financial distress. They were ahead of payments, the surgery was covered by insurance. There was no reason for him to just elect to go to work.

After a while it sort of became apparent that he was emotionally very stunted. We discovered that he has extremely, almost frighteningly, low levels of empathy. My SIL ended up having to get a divorce. Well he was really mad because he didn't believe in divorce. His friends and family emailed my SIL to chew her out and say things like "how could you leave him he is perfect", "you're a sinner", "you're probably cheating there's no other reason you'd force this", and a lot of stuff. I saw the emails. It was painful.

But once she left and said she'd pay off his student loans and he could keep most of their stuff (that she bought because she worked while he went to school), he backed off and recovered really quickly, unsurprisingly. He was more concerned with image than the actual marriage. My SIL is now with a really great guy now!

But her ex seemed nice enough they just got married really fast so the deeper problems weren't as apparent or she ignored some red flags. She wasn't perfect either, just to put that out there, but he... I just can't imagine ditching someone who really needed you for basic human function, especially if you already agreed to help them. It's so horrible...