How much sympathy should I feel for my Dad?

[Guest guest]

So my mother is a high functioning, undiagnosed queen/witch. I grew up believing

that what I experienced wasn't abuse because my parents told me it wasn't.

Usually nada saying, " You can't even imagine what abuse is! I was ABUSED! You

are so lucky to have parents that love you. " Yeah, dumb me, I believed her.

Anyway, my siblings and I all realize that mom is crazy, but we seem to be sane.

I think that we survived our childhood mainly because of our Dad.

He was our family's Rock of Gibralter. My Dad has an amazing ability to calm

nada down. Unfortunately, that means taking her side while she's around. When

she was out of earshot, he would usually validate most of what we felt--Nada was

over-reacting, we didn't deserve what she had said/did, etc. However, we also

got a speech on how we needed to be considerate and compassionate of our

mother's poor childhood, that she hadn't been as fortunate as we had, etc. He

enabled her and parentified us. Still, when Dad was home, I felt safe and loved.

The abuse occurred when Dad was at work, or worse, on travel he is unaware of

what she is capable of. And here's the thing-- we havent tried to tell him the

whole ugly truth--it's like we're protecting him. We know that he loves her too

much to believe what she is capable of, and we don't want to destroy the

illusion; I think she'll do it herself.

My parents have recently become empty-nesters and retirement is in the near

future. Nada is slowly driving her children to LC and Dad is dealing with

increasing amounts of crazy as he deals with her undivided attention. My sister

sees them more often than the rest of it and has been feeling sorry for Dad and

what he's dealing with. I don't know how I feel. Part of me wants Dad to

experience the full extent of the craziness he enabled and part of me is a sad

for him. I suppose it's the parentified child in me that worries about him, but

I'm honestly grateful to him for sticking around when other men would have left.

I lived in mortal fear that my mother would make good on her oft-voiced threats

to divorce Dad because I was convinced that any court in the nation would give

us to her. I guess I'm worried about any guilt he might feel for not have doing

more, when I don't see what more he could have done.