Thanks Han, we have just been through this so many times. Mam won't leave because (1) she won't let him get the house,she thinks if she leaves she will never get into it again (2) she thinks it wouldn't be fair to uproot the children. I have been through the argument with her so many times but she just will not listen.
My Dad is a lawyer and when they fight he tells her that she would lose the kids if they split up etc (such a lie) and that she would not get a barring order because he has never hit her and all this kind of stuff.
I have implored her to leave him so many times, but once he sobers up she forgets. That said, when he is sober he is very dismissive of her. I just worry and know that she would have a much better life without him.