I get what you mean but some people in a relationship can’t just ‘leave’.
If you think about it , mc sacrificed his future career for ml a long time ago and has no job. How will a sick man support himself with no job?
Also people in abusive relationships usually have different mindsets like ‘things will get better’ or ‘if I do better maybe he’d love me like he did before’.
Mc has no one except ml: his parents, grandfather etc are all gone. This can lead to a heavy dependence on ml. Mc has spent most of his years with ml and this can lead to thoughts such as ‘who am I without him?’
I can somewhat agree that he doesn’t have much self respect, but this would be due to circumstances I just listed - which I believe cannot be judged by people who are not experiencing the same exact situation. ╥﹏╥

i've reached ch30 and all i can say that the mc have 0 self respect
idk why he is staying with him after he got slapped, raped twice...