Do people - even English people - actually behave like this?: Parade's End

Noting again the weirdness of the narration of Ford Madox Ford's Parade's End, as chapter two of volume two ends with Tietjens learning that his estranged wife, Sylvia, has arrived at his outpost to visit him - highly controversial and unusual, no women allowed anywhere near the huts - but we know that she has connived and charmed her way past many barriers - but does he go see her? or does he dispatch her? No, he goes on with his business of managing the many Canadian troops that are now his charge - he turns out to be a very efficient and effective military officer, somewhat surprising given his blundering and self-righteous personality, but part of the maturation of a man, and of the nation, that FMF is trying to convey. One plus is that Tietjens spends a few moments/pages pondering his marital state, which allows for a good summary for puzzled or forgetful readers - basically he goes through his wife's infidelities, her return to him, their mutual refusal to divorce even though they have no love for each other and no physical contact; then the weird night before T. returned to the front, in which she gives him permission to go to the young woman, Valentine, whom he's been yearning for - and she, Sylvia, goes off to a convent; T. goes to V. but for various reasons they never consummate anything - so here he is now in France, near the front, has no idea where he stands with either woman, a complete confusion and mess. Do people - even English people in 1914 - actually behave like this? In his obsession with maintaining his marriage (because of the son, who may not actually be his, and whom he barely sees?) and his crude approach to the young Valentine - "will you be my mistress tonight?" - not caring that this offers her nothing good in her life unless he in fact is willing to divorce - I think T. is a unique and strange case, although maybe an example of how the war disrupted and distorted every aspect of private and domestic life. Part of his role as an officer is to grant leave (or not) to various men who try to make the case that they have to go home to straighten out a marriage, to see their dying mother, etc. - this queer little narratives that T. listens to and then, godlike, acts upon, are a counterpoint to the domestic, psychological drama that upturns his own (and his nation's) life.