is this the SS who wanted dad divorce you and then moved back wiht mom, the one who holds hands wiht dad? unbelivable that he would rather be in absuive household. would dad ask for custody?

"unbelivable that he would rather be in absuive household."

Lots of kids, if given a choice, would choose to stay with an abusive parent... they are in dysfunctional families. They might want to stay for different reasons, but they protect an abusive parent or want to please their parent so they keep secrets. It's not normal, but it does happen.

My ex was really only abusive of me, but did not hide her behaviour towards me from the kids, I guess you could say she was rather toxic.

Kids stuck right by her. Eldest wised up quite a bit, youngest still is (although might just have decided she's burned her bridges with me and is stuck with mum, I don't know.

"they protect an abusive parent"

almost *always* happens that way-
It's part of the dynamic.

The kids think that the abuse is their fault, & they often think that the abusive parent is a martyr, that the *other* parent drove him/her to violence born of total frustration.

& as pjb says, successful abusers are very good at hiding the abuse from the world, so that, if the victim complains, *nobody believes him/her*.

Think of all the newscasts where somebody's killed his kids or his girlfriend's kids or his wife or fiancee (I'm using the male pronoun because statistically it's usually a male person who resorts to the final violence), & the neighbors are all saying the same thing into the microphones:

"I just can't believe he did this.
He was such a *nice* neighbor."