I cannot believe how accurate Percy's response is when I put his words against my recent history with my wife.
It's just ... amazing.
I still love her; despite having had her mentally torture me on her 'Mother's' command, despite seeing her turn a deaf ear as her 'mother' accused her father of abusing the children to my step-son's therapists, despite her turning a blind eye as her 'mother' took weapons to my step-son, despite seeing the hateful lies she spoke of me to her family, her friends, and even an online community - all just to save her 'family' from looking bad for their evil actions.
I don't understand - still - how a mother can put the reputation of an authoritarian woman who refuses to acknowledge personal boundaries over the wellbeing of her husband...and considerably more importantly, over her children. It just baffles me.
I fell out with my best friend of that time, because he manhandled my daughter. He didn't beat her, he didn't use weapons, he didn't even shout at her... in fact, we (my ex g/f and I) didn't even see what happened. What we know is that one minute she was playing joyfully, he went in the living room, and she was silent - shocked - wide-eyed, and trying not to cry. That was enough.
I told him straight - you do not touch my daughter, if you get upset with her, you come to me or her mom... that was the end of our friendship for a while, but his friendship comes secondary to my children's wellbeing - there is no contest.

A while later, this guy had major issues happening in his life (they already were, but I wasn't fully aware of them) and once this was out of the way for him, he called up and asked my ex & myself to go around to his home. He was in hospital, and his wife was tired of being at his side day in day out. Despite our fallout, I offered (I think she was hinting anyway) to go and sit with him for a while so she could get some rest. She put forward that we were no longer friends, and in response I explained that was unimportant when a person's life is hanging on a thread... I think perhaps this proved to him and her, that I had more morals than they had realised. So, upon his invitation we went to their home. He apologised. As he did so, he literally burst into tears and threw his arms around me - which for him, was a shocking turn of events for me to behold.

We moved on. The point being though, neither my ex nor I saw him physically touch our daughter - we went on speculation based on what we could piece together in the few moments between her bouncing around happily and being somehow suddenly silenced.

It's not right to speak ill of the dead, but I got knocked around my fair share as a kid, and as an adult - I despise seeing full grown adults abusing their advantageous height, weight, strength and other elements to knock kids around. Yet, somehow, some people can just lie to themselves, and marginalize the abuses they've just witnessed directly in front of their own eyes. It turns my stomach.