Torvald doesn't just work in the capitalist world, he internalizes its values. While Nora is stuck at home keeping house and taking care of the children, Torvald is out and about in the competitive, cutthroat world of men of business, imbibing the selfishness that is required to get ahead in the capitalist system. When Torvald returns home, he brings those values with him. As a consequence, domestic life at the Helmers revolves around him, the undisputed head of the house.

Torvald claims to love Nora, but in actual fact he sees her as nothing more than a trophy wife. She exists purely to make him look good and to bolster his respectable bourgeois reputation. When push comes to shove (when the Helmers' marriage starts getting into serious difficulties), all of Torvald's selfishness comes rising to the surface.

As the sordid details of Nora's crimes emerge, Torvald's instinct is to protect himself and his reputation, not his wife. Torvald is thinking solely of his position in society and at the bank where he works. The man who once confessed that he fantasized about sacrificing his life to save Nora has ended up sacrificing nothing, even though Nora herself only broke the law as a sacrifice to help her husband recover from his illness.