….. they’ve been there.

They can't get past the hydrogen atom.

What am I missing?

Is because it's too hard. I wonder if a similar principle is at work here with the hydrogen atom?

Models in general are intended to be an approximation of reality. It turns out that to go beyond hydrogen you basically smooth together multiple hydrogen models and use computers to generate a numerical solution.

Nobody understands it and it can’t be real….

Or did I misinterpret you?
No matter (pun unintended)

I stopped taking physics courses first (and last) year of grad school. My math skills fell off a cliff.

I later got into classical optics and electronics. My connection with physics returned as a staff person for the Berkeley physics department. No equations were solved in my work. ⚛️

...it's more a matter of being able to real, just that we can't absolutely prove it.
It's real to us, but that's not necessarily accurate. Might be, might not.