Name changed to protect the guilty.
My husband has some temper issues. He has always had them, since he was a child, and I am guessing they stem from his upbringing (badly tempered, sometimes violent father, submissive mother - DH is first child and always took the rap for everything his 4 younger siblings did, just because he was the eldest. it was either his fault for not keeping them in line, or it was his fault because the others wouldn't have possibly done that..)
When he gets angry or upset he starts getting loud, and loses control pretty easily. It's a lot like a toddler tantrum, actually, only involving adult language and force. A lot of stuff gets broken, the language is bad.
When he's in full swing, there is no stopping him, unless I want the noise and language aimed at me. I used to try, but gave up when I realised that I couldn't possibly stay calm when he called me a fucking bitch for asking him to calm down or even agreeing with him.
about 3 years after we got married, I couldn't take his tempers anymore, and we started drifting apart. His tempers got worse, and he became violent towards me. I told him he needed to get help, and if he didn't, or ever touched me again, I would be gone, back abroad where my parents live.
He had CBT, and went on Citalopram and Diazepam. Things improved, he got a little better at controlling his temper and anxiety, and we patched things up. nothing ever stopped, even on the meds, but it seemed easier to handle.
He never touched me again.
I became pregnant about a year after, and DS was born 2 years ago.
We moved to a different part of the country, and he stopped his CBT, then stopped the meds. Temper and anxiety came back.
Not as bad as before, but things still get broken, and the language is still terrible.
These outbursts happen a couple of times a week, more often when he is stressed. They can last from a couple of minutes to a few hours and involve him completely breaking down and crying hysterically by the end if they are long and bad ones. He knows they make him act like a prick, and he has apologised more often than I can count. I don't even want to hear it anymore, because I can't say "It's ok.". it isn't.
When he's in the middle of one of these, there is no getting through to him, nothing goes into his head, and when we've talked about it, he says it's like a red mist, or a black wall in front of his eyes, and anything at all will just make things worse.
He says he doesn't want to act like that in front of DS, but he has, a couple of times. If I can see that happening, I take DS out of the room, but it's just not good enough.
When he is not having one of these moments, he is the most wonderful husband and father, he works hard, and loves his family. DS adores him. I love him, but being heavily pregnant with DC2, I am finding this more and more stressful. I have explained this to him.
He doesn't want to try CBT or meds again because he says they didn't really work that well, and that the way the tempers escalated years ago was because of unrelated stress with his family, and that that got better because the stress improved. Also, where we live, everyone knows everyone else and their business, and he is ashamed, saying that everyone would know if he went to see the counsellor here. (and yes, they probably would.)
I don't know what to do anymore. I won't leave him, I've stuck with him through 7 years of marriage, and he is not a bad guy. He just needs help. But I don't know where from or how.