For context, my mother has abused my older sister and I since we can both remember. We're both fully grown and have our own families now, but the abuse never really stopped once we physically got away from her. We both believe that she is abusive to my dad as well, but he isn't able to see it. Sister and I cut off contact with mom about a year ago, but we maintained contact with our dad.

My dad is extremely depressed and the only thing he wants is to have his family back together the way it was at one point, but he isn't able to effectively hold my mom accountable for any of the actions that she has taken toward everyone else in the family, including my wife and my sister's husband and kids.

Our mom's inability to take any responsibility for her abusiveness is keeping us from wanting to reconnect with her, and we have made it very clear to our dad that we need her to change in order for us to be comfortable having her in our lives again. We both love our dad very much and don't want to lose contact with him, but he has been struggling very hard with this state of affairs.

Earlier this week, my dad called both my sister and I to read us a list of all the great things my mom has done for us and all of the reasons why she isn't a bigot or an abusive mother, yada yada. He told us both that he would no longer be able to passively support our "wrong" decision to cut her out of our lives, and that he would not be able to be in touch with us anymore until we are ready to reconvene with our mom.

This was completely unexpected from my dad, and totally out of character. I know that he didn't want to do this. My sister and I both feel strongly that my mom forced him to make a choice, which we never asked him to do. I definitely have encouraged him to leave her, but I have never made it a "this or that" situation and I know my sister hasn't either. We both feel extreme anger toward our mom for it, and extreme sadness for our dad.

I love my dad and I miss the shit out of him. I'm really worried about him, and I feel just about the lowest I ever have in my life. I don't know how to process this in a healthy way. I want to numb myself to it but I have addiction issues and I'm trying not to self-medicate. I could really just use a hug from my dad right now.