Feel like this was abuse but family ignores it

I’m a guy in my mid 30s. I’ve thought long and hard about my childhood, and I’m pretty sure what my parents did was abusive but my family ignores it and it’s not brought up but the more I think about it the more I think it’s why I have some of my tendencies as an adult today.

To just be blunt, my parents had weird sexual fetishes. They definitely enjoyed more of the bdsm life style, particularly things like spankings and humiliation. My father more so than my mother but she actively participated. How do I know? More than once as a kid I walked in on them doing these acts to each other in communal spaces in the house at night. Like the living room. Like I’d get up to get water and find it going on.

I was young when all of it started. Like 5-6, so some nights I was still sleeping with them just because of bad dreams or just a young child wanting the comfort of his parents at night. When I was in bed with them, I’d feel my mother masturbating my father in bed next to me while telling him stories about being spanked and other things. I didn’t know what was happening then, just thought it was weird, and just pretended to be asleep.

Eventually they decided to start involving us in these things. I have a sister who is 4 years older than me. My parents started finding any reason to spank us. Neither of us had done anything wrong that day, but at night while we were getting ready for bed, we’d be called to the living room to be spanked for misbehaving for some made up reason. Like one time my mother said it was because we didn’t help her clean the house that day but she never asked for help or suggested she wanted help.

Usually my mother would do the spanking while my father watched. Sometimes he would spank my sister while she spanked me. Eventually it got worse and they started incorporating more of their humiliation fantasies into it. Like one of the last times I remember my mother spanked me, and my sister. And then spanked my father right in front of us too. Again, I didn’t realize what it was then, but now I know it was a sexual game for them that they were exposing their children to.

Eventually, I figured out what they wanted was the rise out of us. They wanted us to react, be shocked, scream, cry, etc. That’s mainly what they wanted out of it. So whenever it happened I would just shut down and dissociate. I wouldn’t even acknowledge the pain and wouldn’t make a noise. After I started doing that, they lost interest in hitting us anymore.or including us in their crap.

The last time I was somewhere between 10-12. My sister eventually went off to college and my parents got divorced. My dad has a mistress and married her. We’ve never really talked about what happened during our childhood but my mother once made a comment that my father was into “weird stuff” like she was trying to make it seem like it was all his doing and she was just forced to go along with it even though she was an active participant.

For years I tried to have that view, too, but now I’m just angry about it cause she knew and she was involved and did nothing to stop it. Shes overbearing and has the victim mentality which puts a lot of stress on me and my sister. Shes only 61 and does have mild to moderate health issues, but nothing that prevents her from being a fully functioning adult. But she instead puts it on us to do anything for her, like we keep telling her she needs to get a will done at some point but her response is to just tell me to do it for her.

I’m not particularly close to either her or my sister. I keep to myself and enjoy my solitude. Her and my sister are close, though. If only because my sister has young kids and needs help with them. We’ve never talked about it, but I also think it’s because my sister puts all the blame on my father and views my mother as a victim. I don’t think she saw the sexual aspects as much as I did, only the spankings.

Needless to say, I think all of this is the explanation for some of my tendencies today. Like I’ve always struggled with anxiety. But I also am very aware of minor shifts in mood or tone. My partner jokingly gives me crap because I always ask if everything is okay because I sense a shift in his tone. He doesn’t know all the details. He knows about the more recent things with my mom making herself out to be a victim and I’ve hinted there were issues in my childhood but I’ve never told him the details.

I also think it’s a reason why I have such bad insomnia. I remember as a kid thinking the bed was safe and enjoying nighttime because it was quiet and I knew I wouldn’t have to worry about being spanked or subjected to their crap until morning. Eventually my mind just started enjoying nighttime more since it was when I felt safe.

I’ve never really told anyone about any of this. I do have a therapist who I started seeing to work through my anxiety issues, but so far we’ve been focused on more recent things that might be causing it. She knows I don’t have a great relationship with my mother but I’ve not told her about this. I’m debating telling her and eventually my partner. But part of me thinks I’m making too much of it. That it was just spankings and every kid back then was spanked so I should just get over it.