How do you appologize to your children for not standing up for yourself?

Living with a person with some dementia issues is challenging to say the least. Having medical concerns over the last few years has compounded the situation to put it mildly. I feel so trapped. I cannot escape the constant verbal abuse. Finding out about the language and tales spread about me and my life frankly was shocking. I truly believe Sonny is in a parallel dimension. I remember his mother showing many of the same symptoms. It comes back to me as I see Sonny using the same technics. I was so angry about how he treated the kids during high school I could not see past that. I suppose this was escalating quite rapidly all along. Possibly I thought he was just angry because they got all my attention and we put Sonnys needs on back burner. He is so far out of control I feel the need to hide as much as possible. No one knows this. I do find some people are starting to see through my excuses. I feel bad that the kids classmates and parents just thought we were weird and did not want to be friendly. It's so embarrassing to have to hide the truth from everyone. I so wish there was someway I could help him and make him happy. Or at least make him want to try things that he might like. Everything he does now seems to have an agenda. Some kind of vicious payback for my lack of pampering. He always tried to be in competition with the kids for attention for a number of years. He never noticed he played obvious favoritism. I tried to appologize to Will when we were together in Florida. He just said - it's all right. It doesn't matter. Made my heart break. God forgive me for letting them live like this. They have to know this is not normal.