The problem that is recurrent here that you have is the lack willingness to put yourself in another's perspective, you say the MC should have been playing and shit, yea its all clear and obvious from the perspective of a fucking adult, but from his perspective at the time you refuse to understand he did the best he could, yea he couldn't magically wish away the abuse Lacey suffered, how quaint, he was a little kid, expecting them to be rational and enlightened with the wisdom of full grown adults is ridiculous. By the time he was himself an adult he was already indoctrinated in this way of living, expecting him to magically turn into a healthy fully formed adult is senseless.
How much therapy do you think it take to do away with every singular issues the MC has? Over a decade, this story isn't going to be that long, so you magically expecting him to in months maybe be fully healed from a lifetime of psychological issues is insanity, he is a broken man, and he is still going to be fucked up by the entire time until this game end, so expecting a happy ending for him to be based on the perspective of him being able to achieve a state of fully mentally healthy individual is stupid, all he'll be able to get by the time this game end is whatever. That is without considering the fact his issues began being formed as a 6 years old, realistically he is very likely to die of old age and still suffer from mental issues, their is no magical solution to do away with his problems.
Empathy is more than just a word, its a capacity to feel what others feel, including fictional characters, I get the impression alot of you lack complete sense of empathy, you project your perspective, your desires on the characters and refuse to acknowledge the perspective and desires of the characters themselves, you judge them all from your perspective, but never from their perspective. The major recurrent issues is so many of you can't understand how the MC think and feel, just how you'd feel in his shoes without his baggage and what you'd want for yourself under such circumstances.
Now you hold me in derision for me saying the MC will kill himself if he end up alone, because you wouldn't do so, because you refuse to understand how he'd feel after ending up alone. Right now he need someone at his side, for many years even with ongoing therapy within that reality he'll need someone at his side, its not up to you to declare he won't, its fact. If you think extremely deep mental issues are resolved in a snap, you haven't studied psychology in College, unlike me. Now its been a long time, and it was more along the line of a few classes on the side, but I clearly understand the problematic of mental issues better than you do if you expect before what could be reasonably believed to be the timeframe of this game for the MC's issues to be solved.
My mother suffered abuse as a child and teen, and she is still fucked up today by it, in her 60s, over 40 years later, the chances the MC will have attained a point of being mentally healthy before he dies are less than certain even with regular therapy over decades. One of the factors is, how willing is he even of moving on from his co-dependency? The answer doesn't look great, he might know he suffer from it, but would be willing to move on from it if it meant it could be hurting some he care about? Doubtful.
