>>He was emotionally present when he was home, but a lot of it was physically and emotionally abusive,<<

That sucks.

>> although the family will deny much of that and just say "that's just how he was." <<

Yyyyyeah. I have relatives who are obnoxious. They can be who they are, but I don't want to be around them.

>> But he'd only be home like 10 days then have 2 weeks gone; 1 week; three weeks gone, etc, so I'm not sure it counted for much more than "Brief trauma while it happened" because Grandma made the days without him pleasant enough to where not a lot of it stuck. So far as I'm aware; but all I truly have is second-third hand stuff from mom and others.<<

I'm glad your family had Grandma to rely on for much of that time.