I always want to point out that not abandoning your wife is the lowest possible bar, and husbands who don’t do it are unfortunately not necessarily supportive beyond this bare minimum—I once read a blog article by a guy who volunteered at a breast cancer resource centre (he was their first male volunteer, ever) and who wrote, about the boutique where the women tried on wigs:
Many clients came in with female family members or friends. These clients only came in with female family members or friends. During my two years at the center, I never once saw a client go into the boutique with a husband or male relative. I asked the staff about it. One manager said, “Same as the volunteers: guys won’t go near the wigs. Guys are wimps.” Sometimes a woman would come in for a wig… nervous, uncomfortable…and she’d get help from me or the staff, total strangers… and you could see her husband out in the parking lot… sitting in the car, listening to the radio; they couldn’t even come inside.
I’m also reminded of that study on organ donation rates across Europe, that found that among married hetero couples, 36% of women who could donate a kidney to their husband did so, while only 6.5% of clinically suitable men donate a kidney to their wives.
