
That's what will happen if your partner had a dear person before you, and that 'dear person' had separated from your partner in an 'untimely' way or in not a good terms...
But I don't think that your partner should forget his existence, nor you should ask your partner whether you could substitute in for him.
I mean... if you force your way the backlash will be bigger, let time slowly heal him first and accompany him throughout that ordeal... thus letting your presence in him grow bigger steadily

Can't both of them see that they're stubbornly the same... and annoyingly the same?
Ah well, personally speaking I'm okay with roguish behavior but can't stand a nosy control freak..... I'm okay if he's just concerned about controlling himself but when it breached another person 'space'... Let's see what will happen....

What else could be done? There's not much back story provided even until this point of time.
But, lemme mind you: almost everything could be solved when you have money... that's our sad reality.
When we have no superpower or anything close to it, then money will be one of your biggest capital.
Then again, yeah... I do feel the MC is getting farther and farther from his main goal, but... once the ball was rolled it will roll and roll until it... [ends].
And on another POV, It IS interesting to learn about global monetary-financial crisis of 1997/1998 using this method, if the content was based on real information, that is.
another rambling of mine:
In the end, I always feel that recording of history weren'r objective AT ALL.
To be honest...
I
ADMIRED
IT
SO
MUCH