Tough choice?

I had a similar viewpoint to yours with respect to travelling to Cuba.  I don't want to support a communist dictatorship.  But as @frillyfun pointed out, my visiting or not doesn't really affect the politicians.

I can still go to the resort and pay tips to the locals, the tour guides, buy the goods of the locals and even patronise home businesses for meals and lodging.  It all adds income to the pitiful monthly income they're given by the central gov't.  

I do admit to a love for Cuban cigars, so my morals aren't completely incorruptable.  I rationalise that as burning his crops.  

   

Oy.  OK, I can relate.  Hang on.  This could get rough.

I married a horsewoman.  There was no man on the planet happier than me the day I married her. I teared up when I saw her walking down the aisle hand-in-hand with my step-kids.

9 months into the marriage she abandoned me physically and emotionally because she suddenly decided she had enough energy for me or the horses and the horses were more important.  

Of course, she never told me that.  After almost 4 years of doing anything and everything to try to recover a marriage when I had no clue what the problem was, I left.  That was almost 7 years ago.  I walked away from everything I ever worked for in my life and started completely over at age 50, simply because I couldn't emotionally handle the prospect of having to fight her in court.  The adoration and love I felt for that woman mutated into pure, unadulterated hatred.  

I knew about her passion for horses, too, and I supported it.  But I never, ever expected that I would be replaced by it.  If the horses were so important, where was the emotional abuse and disrespect while we were dating?  She could control it, she could balance it, so why did that end after the marriage?  It was like she waited until she got the 110% commitment, because she knew I would walk if it happened during the engagement.

Perspective-wise it's like you had an affair, but maybe worse.  Some men can recover from an affair, they can become they guy their wife wants to have an affair with (the MAP).  But how do you compete with a horse?  How do you become so awesome that your wife says "I want to ride you instead of that 1200 lb. package of muscle and steel that gives me such huge dopamine and never, ever asks anything in return!"  

Maybe it's possible.  But I've met enough horsewomen that I believe, in most cases, it's unlikely. The vast majority of men simply cannot compete in the dopamine department.  

You recognized it and fixed it yourself.  But that kind of resentment is hard to overcome.  Honestly, after that 4 years of Hell, I don't think there is anything that my ex could have done to make it right with me.

Something that jumped out at me was that you asked him to marry you and then convinced him to elope.  I'm going to suggest that he "went along with it" probably because the sex was so good and he didn't have any other options at the time.  

That, combined with his affair, online shenanigans, gas-lighting and other disrespect of you points to him carrying a whole lot of resentment around.  Like he thinks he missed out on life by marrying you.

That's on him, but something you need to understand you might never be able to overcome.