Worse, he was being """"objective""""
smugly arrogantly not taking sides and feeling superior because he could point out how neither of my parents were perfect, so clearly there was wrongdoing on both sides and he was so much more enlightened than those of us who were emotionally invested in the matter
I don't know if you've read Why Does He Do That, but the part about abusive men in custody disputes and the responses from judges/courts/therapists/guardians ad litem/etc is disturbingly accurate. It really felt like it was written about my father specifically. It was everything I'd tried to get so many people over so many years to understand about how my father operated, but already written out by someone who somehow understood all of it without ever having known my father.

"Although an abuser prefers to have you wholeheartedly on his side, he will settle contentedly for your decision to take a middle stance. To him, that means you see the couple’s problems as partly her fault and partly his fault, which means it isn’t abuse."
"Custody evaluators sometimes become fervent advocates for abusive men, joining them in accusing the women of alienating children from their fathers and refusing to consider the evidence of abuse. "