I feel sympathy in that I think what a miserable life these people lead. How utterly grim their existences are, how limited, how joyless, how much they miss out on. But at the same time, there were many, many things that my father did that were unspeakably cruel, I believe beyond a shadow of a doubt that he knew what he was doing and the decision to behave that way was conscious and calculated. In those moments, he knew what the result of his actions would be in terms of the distress it would cause for others. The distress it would cause for me. There were occasions when he deliberately put me in a state of terrible, hysterical distress specifically to hurt my mother. I don't look at those situations and think poor him, it was the only way he could cope, I look back now and think what a cruel and wicked man. What a horrible, nasty, abusive person. He actively chose to cross that line, and he did it over and over. No-one made him do it. He chose. Being consciously aware of our actions/urges and able to decide not to act on them is what makes humans different from other animals. He chose cruelty.
There are other ways to cope with low self esteem. He chose to deal with it the way that he did. I've got very poor self-esteem and don't cope with it by hurting other people.