Is this abuse? PLEASE READ

My stepfather has been in my life for thirteen years now and I’ve never ever liked him or tried to have a relationship with him.

For the first five years with him he yelled at me and my sister all the time, for everything. He never hit us though.

When my little siblings were born, he moved on to them. Yelled at them all the time and, since they were his, he felt comfortable spanking them.

My sister and I spent a long time trying to change things but it wasn’t ever taken too seriously. But three years ago I think, he finally said he’d change. And he did. DEFINITELY not perfect. Still yelled almost daily but nothing physical and not screaming and angry episodes. Just yelling.

But once a year it seems he’ll have another episode worse than ever. Hitting the wall, screaming, storming around, having this horrible look in his eyes. But then he’ll apologize the next day, promise to change, and it goes back to ‘normal’ for a while.

It follows the abuse cycle, but all he does is yell on an average day, the only time he’s really bad is around once a year, so I don’t know if you could consider it abuse. I guess there’s not much of a point in knowing whether or not it is I just kinda wanted to know.