Yep,
A friend would help her but not the man she has foisted on her children.
My old friends mother married a man like this, not abusive but certainly not kind to her and and her brother.
Her mother ran after him despite having an excellent career.
Him and his grumpy moods, humouring him and his comforts ALWAYS came first.
My friend went off to Uni and lived away only coming home very occasionally and never she stayed at home, only with friends.
She married and returned about 30 minutes from her mothers home.
She was visiting one day with her first newborn who started to cry, and her step father started sighing and muttering.
My friend got up, gathered her bits and told her mother she would NEVER set foot inside her home again and she wasn't pushed if she ever saw her again either, she was never going to be made feel uncomfortable in her step father's company again.
Of course she was told she was being unreasonable and completely over reacting, but it was 20 years coming.
That was 25 years ago and she has never been in her step fathers company again.
She has kept her mother at a real distance since, definitely not seeing her more than every couple of years.
Her mother chose him above her and her brother and my friend feels no regret now with the consequences she has enforced.
Her brother is less unforgiving but he too rarely sees them as he lives in Australia.
He come home every few years and stays with my friend, but they don't ever have family gatherings.
Another dear friend of mine had her father marry a witch and he then died within a decade and her mothers money, which was substantial, all passed out of her family.
She remembers her father as a fool and that her mother must have turned in her grave at his stupidity.
Both these parents utterly failed their vulnerable children by choosing a simply awful partner who had zero interest in the children and caring for them.
Shameful and selfish.