i just can't wrap my head around how most of these characters think. its fucking infuriating
E-thot is your average e-thot. She hates responsibility, so she literally avoids it by any means necessary. Her relationships are shallow, and her son's picked up on this ages ago. She's trying to get MC by pushing her avoidance strategy on him and denying him information that would keep him around his family.
Wife is an overgrown child. Also hates responsibility, and she wants literally anyone else to take it for her. She'd be the perfect sub if not for the fact that she's also got the
temper (and apparently sexuality) of a child. She craves normality because that's what everyone expects, despite the fact that she's a psycho bitch who literally can't imagine what "normal" even is in the first place.
MC is an avoidant. Avoidance is a running theme here, but in MC's case, it's about people. He'll do almost literally anything, for any period of time if it means he can avoid conflict. It's probably why he hasn't gotten divorced yet. The wife gave him that old, "Don't cross on my side of the tape!" thing kids do, and since it gave him a way to avoid daily fights with his wife, and a chance to keep seeing his daughter, he quietly took the deal.
As it stands, none of them want to take the reigns and actually break the cycle of abuse, and everyone would very much rather everyone else do something about it. E-thot wants MC to leave his wife, wife would rather keep the status quo if it means having to
choose to divorce, and meanwhile MC is the only one who's mature enough to understand that he has a part in all of it. Not a big one, mind you, but he knows his cold nature isn't helping an already shit situation. But at the same time, he loves his daughter, and he's stuck avoiding yet more conflict with his psycho bitch wife, which is really all he wants.