I know there will be a lot of telling me off here but please try not to judge so quickly..
My DH is 97% (clue) of the time a calm, nice, very helpful guy. We have been together 16 years, married for 15 this summer. We have two beautiful young kids DD and DS. He cares for me and the kids a lot, more then your average guy. He gives me freedom, trust, I trust in him. He likes to buy me little
presents and make me coffee (even though he does not drink coffee himself) He is the most faithful guy. We are close and he is my only true friend. I find him attractive and for the majority of our relationship had never fantasised over OM (although lately I do more and more..)
Of course he is not perfect. He can be slow, somewhat lack ambition, not the alpha male type. He is gentle (most of the time) and avoids confrontation at all costs ( except with me), sometime to the point that he is compromised but will not pushback which make me feel resentful that my man is not tougher or stronger.
Sometime i secretly hate these attributes as I am very ambitious and a bit hyper active, but I can and do accept my life with him even with this mild frustration.
But then, he's got the "other side". Very occasionally when we argue he can flip and in seconds gets immensely aggressive, verbally violent, powerful, nasty and ugly! He used to through something or kick something back in the days, now it's mainly swearing, shouting and sometime exhibiting frightening closeness but never raising his hands. Ideally the whole drama lasts anything between 3-10 min, a bit like an earthquake. The worst he has ever done in one of the worst arguments was spat in my face. Of course I feel humiliated and angry beyond believe. When the storm calm after a short while I am left shaken, sick of hate and confusion, I keep asking myself what on earth I am doing with this person????
Usually after such a fit I will just withdraw to myself, and be cold and go quiet for a few days. Then life carries on, we need to talk over practical things to do with family life and slowly move back to functional stable course coming close together again. He always apologies, we talk, I forgive, we make love, whatever, but always move on.
Now I know very well it's not a good sign if I try to justify his behaviour but I am also honest and aware I may have a fare bit responsibility in bringing him to an edge. I can be bloody difficult myself, very stubborn and laser focused when I want to get something done or my way. I can sometime be a little too pushy which is were he will flips. I can see how it can drive him mad and often wonder how come it does not happen more often that he lose control. Most of the time it's just a standard argument, we are both quite passionate people so our arguments do tent to be higher energy than average, but mostly it's non-aggressive or abusive.
So as i said, 97% I have a good husband, what you would expect from any "normal" relationship with the goods and bads. But for a 3% it's abusive or at least this is how I see it and feel. Each time I go through this I see no way or feel I have no power to do anything about it. We love our kids dearly and any thought of a breakup feels disproportionate to the devastation I will bring on them. Then again, mostly we are a good couple.
So what's going on here? Am I just putting my head in the sand? Does it make sense to separate over his twice, three a year average uncontrolled bursts of anger? ( we have some theories why he gets so angry and I keep saying he needs to go to therapy to figure it out but he never does anything about it)
Do I need to run as fast as I can as all the signs of danger are there?
Am I being unreasonable to believe my behaviour certainly can contribute to escalation?
I am so confused and fear I am in an abusive relationship but missing something here...
Please help explain this.