It's just the culture nonsense folks on their hate train down rating everything and trying to cancel them. He wants to do erotic things with the
at the same time he doesn't want to push to far to something they would hate
It's quite a tough complex in his mind between being kind to them, wanting to do erotic things and holding himself back so he doesn't go to far, he recognises he's doing something wrong
He does develop a spine with the girls. Also all the girls have serious problems and he resolve them.
In each case he has the stones to confront each of the offenders
Well he is draining energy from her every time so she has to do a lot to recoup. He does seem to care for her more than husband who treats her like an object and doesn't seem there for her
It's a frontier region and they are next to an enemy nation. We also see in this chapter that they get very few supplies and are very much left in the cold even though they are the last line of the defence for nation