Having escaped from an abusive relationship myself, I am now seeing a lot of red flags in the relationship between my parents.
I grew up listening to my Mum shouting at my Dad, and my Mum had a ‘spare the rod spoil the child’ attitude with us as well. Back then my Dad was physically stronger than my Mum, so to some extent he could stand up to her and not let her intimidate him too much. But now he is much older and he has arthritis, he wouldn’t stand a chance against her in a fight.
Some years ago there was a big fight between my parents after my Mum kicked my younger sibling out of the house for deciding to transition gender, it ended up with my parents living on opposite sides of the world for a few years. Then my ex persuaded my Dad into getting back together with my Mum by sending him emails from my email address pretending to be from me. So now my parents are both living in New Zealand.
Every time I attempt to video call my Dad, I end up getting through to my Mum instead. Sometimes my Dad is in the call as well but I never get to talk to him on his own. Sometimes I hear my Mum making cruel jibes at my Dad during video calls. I don’t video call very often because I don’t particularly enjoy talking to my mum. I don’t know whether my Mum reads my Dad’s emails.