Gilda, You hit the nail on the head!

Gilda--You hit the nail on the head when you said "imagine her position...there is no one in this world who has HER best interests at heart" I've been there, done that. I grew up with a mother who was verbally, emotionally and sometimes physically abusive. My father never defended us kids when she would start in on us. In fact, when we tried to defend ourselves, he would take us aside and tell us not to say anything to her because she would yell at him later. He told us to just ignore her--as if a child could do that! It wasn't until I was an adult when something my husband said caused me to have a light bulb moment. He said "Your father was putting his own interests ahead of yours." That had never occured to me. Instead, as a kid, I thought that he was trying to be on our side. Now I know that he threw us under the bus so that he could have some measure of peace and quiet.

When one parent is abusive to a child and the other parent does nothing to defend the child, the child feels all alone in the world. Home is supposed to be the place that gives kids a safe place to fall.

Jadedkarma--You need to give your kids a safe place to fall. First of all, that involves the strength to intervene when your husband is being abusive to the kids and tell him "enough"! Is it easy to do this? No. However, doing the right thing isn't always the easiest thing. After having been in that situation myself, I vowed that I would never let that happen to my daughter. If my husband had a bad day at work and snapped at her. I would tell him not to talk to her like that. Also, I would let him know that he owed her an apology. On the flip side, if he thought I was being too hard on her, he would let me know.

Your daughter may appear on the outside to be dealing well with all of this. However, having raised a teenager, I found that they don't always tell you what they are thinking and feeling--even if you let them know they can talk to you about anything. As I heard Dr. Phil once say, this kind of behavior toward her and her brother by your husband "sears their souls".