Very much so. I do appreciate everyone's advice here... I've been thinking a lot about it lately, as you can probably imagine. One side of me wants my sister to stand up and put the screws to this guy, but the other side of me knows that there is a part of her that still loves him, crazy at that sounds, AND that he's always going to be the father of those kids. It's things like this that really make me stop and re-evaluate my life, and be thankful for the people I have in my life. It's also times like this where I imagine how it must feel as a parent, to want to wish or kiss away their hurt, like a scraped knee, knowing full well you can't do it.

As for physical harm, he's not physically harmed my sister before; I don't know about the kids. I only see how they react to him when he loses his temper. He is verbally and emotionally abusive though, and I have witnessed that. I think things will end well for my sister; I have no doubt her attorney will see to that. It's just the process of getting there and the aftermath.

thanks again everybody... sorry to be such a downer on a Friday afternoon.

I can't comment on my parents' divorce since it happened in 1983 (I was 2). Both parents had displayed sketchy behavior (DUIs, cheating on each other, etc.) and neither was very financially stable. My dad got full custody because my mother never showed up to the custody hearing. However, he never tried to keep me from her and refrained from speaking badly of her to me. The info I got, I got at a later age. They later tried to get back together, and though it didn't work, when she moved out again I was given the choice (at age 7) where I wanted to live. Then it wasn't really a hard decision because they only lived about 5 minutes from each other.
It sucked though, when I was 12 and she remarried and wanted to move to GA from OH, and that's when things got a little nasty... Mom said lots of bad things about Dad, threatened him with false child abuse charges if he didn't talk me into moving away with her, told me she wouldn't go without me so if I stayed I would be the cause of her new marriage ending, etc. That's not cool, and has affected my relationships with people to this day. I ultimately made the decision to move with her to GA. Seems strange, but my reasoning was that I liked my Dad much more, and I would be living with my Mom while I was in school. So, it was more time with Mom, but occupied time, whereas summers and breaks where I had nothing but free time were spent with Dad so I could have fun with him...