No, ur totally correct. After reading under the oaks tree, I totally understood this guy. I really felt sorry for him, he thinks that his wife was forced to live in poverty with him. He thinks she hates him for that, he must have said it in the jail coz he want her to forget him and live free from him who gave her nothing but miserable life.
Yeah but, I get a feeling that he was the one to request the marriage and it came as an imperial order?
No he didn't request it, did u read chapter 6? He was really nervous and was in anxiety that he can't afford her. Maybe this is the emporer plan.
He wouldn’t dare. That’s why he worked so hard fighting monsters to get their cores, sell them and give her all the earnings…
OP Hikari covered all possible and necessary points.
I find this easier to accept/believe compared to the husband in “What it means to be you” because they are literally poor. But the fact that he still ignored his wife for so long for trying to fulfill something he decided on his OWN is still weighing hard.
He was NOT ignoring her. He was constantly at war and never home and both his mind and body literally broke. You can easily see it. He was suffering from major depression and was getting crushed from the responsibilities of saving his home just so his people can feed themselves. And by the time he returned he no longer seemed human.
And then I'm guessing his mother fed him lies and manipulated him in his state of depression so he was cold to her till the end.
So I reread the first chapter and found that he returned back home from a long war during mc’s second winter in the state. This means he went to war only few months (at least since it is a long war after all (at least a year)) after their wedding. So I guess it is understandable that they didn’t have much time to get to know each other. And it didn’t help that he came back with ptsd/depression. I guess this makes it better now then (f’ed up but it makes him more redeemable, for me)
I now understand the ML, he was rough at their first night because it was his first time (he's soo pure in this liftime), and he didn't want the child because he couldn't afford her wife because their territory is poor, so child would be miserable too, and when he said last wards before death about his heir, i think its because he was thinking about their child and wife, cause if the child is alive it means his wife too (●'◡'●)ﾉ
buut it's all my viwepoint, and thoughts(〜￣△￣)〜