I've been determined to see this through because of wrongful imprisonment and blame for something he didn't do. Adoptees don't kill unless they happen to be like Sheila had been from day one and that was passed around like a parcel after already suffering separation and attachment disorders. Even with June there was a steady stream of people who had to care for the baby Sheila when June was ill, then add together the way of life when she was growing up and all the rest of it into her teens and adulthood. Not exactly the life for a beautiful girl who got no encouragement from her mother then had the dirty done on her by her husband when they first married. Then her mental illness. It was never going to end well.
And all the time everyone's focus was on Sheila, Jeremy's needs were put on hold. Sheila got to choose what she did. Jeremy didn't -certainly he was allowed (took) a couple of years out, probably in the hope he'd have sown his wild ones and come back content with sewing domestic ones, but from then on, his life was planned- his future was the one they'd laid out for him, in farming. Someone less inclined towards farming might have been difficult to find but it seems not to have been noticed.
Going back to his childhood, no sooner had he been told of his adoption, than he was being sent away to boarding school. How much more proof did a small boy need to prove to him that he wasn't good enough to be kept at home. Interesting that by the time he realized there was no escape, he did everything possible NOT to be there and by his own admission had only lived there for 3 months after his two years of globe trotting.
Whilst Sheila's problems were given expression, Jeremy was internalizing his. I wonder how often he voiced his dissatisfaction at Sheila's freedom to do what she wanted whilst he was chained to a job he wasn't suited to. For one with so much invested interest in him, I fail to see how you, too, can possibly overlook the damage inflicted on him, and your belief that he came out of it, unscathed and emotionally sound.