Empathy and kindness during sickness and other hard times is something I’ve always found so important in partners as well as friends/family and if they don’t have that - I’m out.
My dad lacked empathy towards my mum when she was recovering from her c-sections and it’s something she would comment on often so from a young age I had it in my head to avoid men like that . I have two brothers and one of them has taken after him in that respect.
The last straw was when I was hospitalised during a solo trip abroad, I was severely ill with an unexpected illness that had a 1 in 3 chance of death. He was very dismissive when I contacted him. He essentially said “yeah that sucks sis, hope you get better soon. Bye.”
There was no offer to fly over, no offer for him to call the hospital to try and check on me, no enquiry about if I needed anything for when I left the hospital etc, no offer to call my insurance for me. Just nada.
And btw he’s a doctor so would’ve known how serious it was.
I decided to cut him off and I’ve been no contact for almost a year now. Of course there have been other things that led to that decision but much of it links to this lack of compassion. He is very strange and I don’t want that energy in my life.
I can only sympathise, it must be awful being married to someone like that but sadly seems to be a common thing many women go through. Research shows men are much more likely to leave a female partner going through a serious illness than when it’s the man who is sick.
To me a husband that only likes me for my usefulness isn’t a true life partner at all.