i cannot stop feeling guilty for reporting my father
my (14F) sister and i (16M) have lived in two households for around 6 years due to our parents being divorced. my father and my stepmother fight every so often but the past few months their fights have escalated and gotten worse and worse. 2 days ago at around 9 pm i left my room to go get water and do the laundry but when i returned to my sister and i’s room i saw her pressing her ear against the wall and there was yelling in our parent’s room. She told me they started fighting because my dad said something negative about my stepmother’s mom. My dad kept denying that he said those things but after a back and forth he finally admitted to saying it so that he could go to sleep. I dont know exactly what started this but my dad started saying things like “get away from me” “you are a nasty person” and “i never punched you” to my step mother. I assume he then spat on her since me and my sister heard a noise similar to that. My dad started screaming “get away from me” even louder until i heard a slapping sound three times. Immediately after my stepmom started letting out a horrific scream and it sounded like she started jiggling the door handle to get out of her room (they lock their door at night) and she started screaming my name and my sister‘s name (our stepbrother (28M) was home but she didnt say his name once). Once my stepmom was outside the hall my sister opened our room door and was standing in the doorway and our stepbrother left his room and broke them apart and tried to ease the situation. He said “if you all dont stop im going to call the cops”. my stepmom was still screaming and my dad was still yelling. I think at this moment i was the most scared i have ever been in my entire life and i felt like i was about to vomit. I yanked my sister back into the room and locked the door while telling her i wanted to try to leave the house through the window. My sister just told me to calm down. The fight in the hallway stopped and my dad went back into the room while my stepmom and stepbrother were in the living room table and he was trying to calm her down. I dont remember what exactly she said but she was talking loudly as if trying to egg him on and get him to yell again. Me and my sister tried to go out our rooms to see if our stepmom was okay but before we could reach the living room our dad came back out of the room and told us to go to bed. He then proceeded to yell at julie more and she told him “youre gonna loose your job, youre lucky i didnt call 911”. He yelled at her something like ”i gave you everything you wanted” and after a bit more yelling dad either went back outside or back to the room (i thought he went outside but ari thinks he went back to the room) and everything stopped. From our room we could hear my stepbrother and my stepmom talking (she may have been under the influence of alcohol because she was talking in an odd manner. another weird thing is that she sounded proud of herself for provoking dad like that??) and she told him “im glad you intervened because i dint know how far he would have gone”. My stepbrother then advised her to seek a divorce and said “this type of fighting is not normal and if you stay its just going to get worse and worse” but for whatever reason she then responded saying something along the lines of “ no i wont, if he pulls something like that again im going to shake his ass” She also said something like “i know theyre going to tell their mother about this” (refering to me and my sister). We didnt really hear everything they said because our room isnt really close to the living room. after they talked for a while she went and grabbed her dog and went back to her room. she then started saying to the dog “its okay coco youll be ok sweetie” and then went to bed. the next morning when i came home from school my dad and stepmom were sitting at the living room table and he said “sit down we need to talk” (apparently i had a disturbed expression on my face) i told him i didnt want to talk to him and continued walking down the hall until he got up and yelled at me “excuse me?” after that returned to the table and sat down. i was looking at the table when he said this and he started questioning me about the expression on my face, i told him it was nothing but he kept asking me. i looked up and at my stepmom and she was looking at me with this hateful expression like she was trying to tell me to shut up and act normal. he then told me “if it is about last night, things like this happen, we are under a lot of stress right now.” then my stepmom looked at me and said “whats wrong? nothing happened?” he then said that later the whole family would go eat at a restaurant and get dessert after. The day after was disturbing and uncanny because they were acting like nothing happened? It felt like i was the only one who was uncomfortable and my stepmom and dad were acting happier than they normally are too? Literally nothing happened at dinner except the fact that my stepmom kept whispering something to my dad all throughout the day. I told my friends about what happened and one of them said i should report what happened to the authorities and the other said i should report it, but to nit take drastic measures quite yet. The events of that night keep replaying in my head and i cant get my stepmoms scream out of my head. I never want to feel terrified like that ever again but when i started thinking about reporting it i started feeling guilty for my dad. on thursdays my sister and i go back to our moms house so after school we return to our dads house to grab our things, he was there alone and he was acting normal and happy again and he was petting the cats we have. I hugged him before we left. A few hours later my sister and i told our mother what had happened and she decided to contact her divorce lawyer and she is waiting on a response. but now i cant stop feeling guilty for telling my friends and mom about what had happened because he seemed happy I cant stop thinking about “childhood” memories that me and my sister have with him. and he works in law enforcement and i know that this will probably cause him to loose his job. I know that someone like this should never be allowed to work in law enforcement and that he should not get away from this. I plan on also speaking with my school counselor about what had happened tomorrow. I know that telling people about it has ensured me and my sisters safety but for whatever reason i cannot stop crying and feeling guilty for potentially ruining his life. sometimes before all of this when my dad and i would get into arguments he would always say that i didnt care about the sacrifices that he makes for me and my sister and that i am a selfish manipulative person and i knew he was just trying to guilt me for saying this but it still gets to me. I told my sister and friends about how guilty i feel, my friends said that he deserves what will happen because of what he did and my sister said that it was for the best and to think about everything they (stepmom and dad) had done to us when we are at their house. I just hate myself for crying about this because good memories do not excuse violence, but i just cant stop and its weird that no one but me feels this way. Maybe i just need advice to help me stop feeling this way, i dont know.
(sorry if this is formatted bad i dont really use reddit)