Git can be as simple or as complicated as you make it. A lot of people make it more complicated than it needs to be, usually because they're trying to follow patterns that don't need to be applied to the project they're working on.

I was able to get a small team who were uncomfortable with git and had weekly tangled messes in their repositories to start using it problem-free pretty quickly. It was just a matter of using a simpler branching system and clearing up a few misconceptions.

So my suggestion would be to write up a post, here or on a blog or something, describing exactly what went wrong, and ask for help. But git right now is the de facto tool for software version control pretty much everywhere; I think you'll be hurting yourself by avoiding it.

Two books that might help:

Pro Git, https://git-scm.com/book/en/v2, available for free download.

Git For Teams: https://www.oreilly.com/library/view/git-for-teams/978149191...

Other reading:

Patterns for managing source code branches: https://martinfowler.com/articles/branching-patterns.html

Oh shit, git! https://ohshitgit.com/

The guts of git: https://lwn.net/Articles/131657/ (some common errors are caused by misunderstanding how git works behind the scenes)

Merging vs. Rebasing: https://www.atlassian.com/git/tutorials/merging-vs-rebasing

A simple git branching model: https://gist.github.com/jbenet/ee6c9ac48068889b0912 (2013, still relevant)

And better client software might help too:

Fork (Mac and Windows): https://fork.dev/

GitKraken (Mac, Windows, Linux): https://www.gitkraken.com/