DH and I have been together 6 years, married 4. He came out of a previous marriage where he told me his ex was alcholic and would get drunk and be violent. Before we got married he had a bad bout of depression and anxiety and was verbally aggressive, paranoid and on a few occasions physically violent, usually combined with alcohol and some perceived behaviour (there was a period of about three months when he wouldn’t let me see friends, speak to my parents on the phone without him in the room, would completely lose it if i was late from work, because he thought i ws cheating. The final straw was he shouted and yelled and threw things at me in the street in our village, and grabbed me by the throat over nothing. Our next door neighbour came to check i was ok and that embarassed him. He was very ill at the time (thought the cat was talking to him, suicdal) Something just snapped that day- i lost my temper, told him it was his shit not mine, and he had a week to go to the doctor about his mental health, manage his behaviour/temper or f* off. I pushed him away from me hard, and slapped him during that fight, I have never hit anyone before. He did, and things changed enormously. Two years later after travelling abroad for a year, during which time his anxiety got worse, and he started to drink heavily, we had another horrible fight while out walking and He pushed me, and I grabbed at him, accidentally twisting his finger. Things changed and improved. We now have three children (two and I’m 36weeks pregnant), and we’ve had a couple of bad times of him drinking heavily, being childish, manipulative and unreliable, being unsupportive, lazy and generally very annoying. Nothing like the first time, but there have been three further incidents when I have lost it with him, he has pushed or shoved me and I have lashed out back. It makes me feel terribly ashamed, like i can’t complain about his behaviour and out of control. I feel like he deliberately goes on and on to get a rise out of me, then when I lose my temper he can make it my fault (even if not violent). I’m having cancer treatment at the moment, and relying on him to do a lot of childcare/housework. He’s not working (again) but is supposed to be doing up our house to sell. I have been the sole earner for at least two of our 4years of marriage (this aspect is fine by me, but not as it makes his behaviour worse /drinking more and doesn’t work well as he doesn’t tun the house or look after the kids well in my opinion) i gave him another ultimatum about 6 months ago - to stop drinking or leave- he is incredibly stubborn, and manipulative, and basically it all gets turned round to me being weird, having issues because my DM drinks (she does but it doesn’t mean I have to tolerate him), being no fun etcetc. When he’s sober he is lovely, and we get on well have a good time, he is lovely with the children, pulls his weight etc. At the moment we are together because i don’t want him to have unsupervised access to the girls because I don’t trust him to be able to look after their emotional wellbeing if he’s in a phase of drinking too much, and he will allow them to see his mother (i don’t as she smacked my 3 year old recently for a potty training accident.
Basically he gaslights me a lot, and we had a horrendous fight last week, when i hit him and he hit me back. He threatens to call the police and social services on me to make me back down, I am terrified that if I leave he will lie about me (even the truth is awful, and I never thought I would be violent like that) I feel so desperately squashed by his incessant criticising, gaslighting, moods, feeling like I have to look after him all the time. We both think he has aspergers to some degree, he is incredibly messy and bery disorganised. We’ve just been hit with a 10k vat bill from 2016-17 due to this, I feel guilty about having to lay down in the day during chemo, its just awful. Tonight he asked if it was ok to go and watch the football- I specifically said yes its fine, But please don’t get drunk. He rolls in at 10pm plastered with some random bloke he’s met, who gets embarassed and makes his excuses and leaves by me being heavily pregnant, no hair or wig due to chemo, in my nightie doing packed lunch for nursery tomorrow, dh has passed out on sofa, then wakes uo, tries to come upstairs and I tell him to f off back to the sofa- next thing i hear is the baby is crying because he ‘went to check on her’ and the three year old is crying for mummy because he got into bed with her and frightened her awake.
I don’t know how to deal with this. I am at fault for lashing out too, and I couldn’t bear it if he turned that around to take them off me. Please don’t tell me just to leave- I know the relationship is toxic- I don’t know how to, and I don’t know how I’ll manage when chemo restarts after the baby is born, or surgery, and what if I die? How do I stop him having custody of them? Help