Please never have couples counselling with someone who is abusive to any degree. It goes against all professional advice and good practice.
As silly as it sounds, what is not normal often becomes your normal and once it is the norm, you adjust. It shouldn't be that way but that is the situation I've found myself in.
I found myself saying pretty much the exact same thing after I left. It didn't really hit me until then, when I was trying to readjust to life without being controlled and terrorised, that it hit me how abnormal he had made my "normal".
It's not silly at all. Have you heard the thing about boiling frogs? If you drop a frog into boiling water it will jump straight out, but if you put it into cold water and gradually heat it up to a boil it will stay there. I think this is the same.
I'm sorry if you feel attacked, and in some instances I can see some unfairly harsh comments. I can only speak for myself, but everything I have written has been out of concern for you. I've given so many of the justifications and explanations I've seen you give here, and I know how much worse it all ended up. I've seen it for others too.
I still remember sitting with the first friend to broach the idea of leaving with me - years before I ever did - and telling her how he wasn't all bad, and giving her all these examples of times when he wasn't awful or nice things he'd done, and explanations as to how the awful times were my fault, and how I would never cope on my own, and so on and on... I wish I'd been ready to act on her suggestion back then, is all.
None of us think he's dangerous until he becomes dangerous. And we can all talk about how great he can be in between the angry outbursts. Nobody would end up with an abusive man if he was a monster 24/7 from day one. That's not what abusive men look like. They don't need to use anger when we're doing what they want.
A little bit of poison in your cup of tea is still too much poison, and it's the same with abuse. There's no acceptable level of abuse in a relationship.
But I really do understand how hard it is to make sense of when you're in the midst of it. That's why I recommended the Freedom Programme. It helps you find your clarity and sanity again. They will never tell you what to do, they just want to give you information and knowledge to make your own choices. If you just want somewhere where you can weigh up what's normal and what's not, and where his behaviour sits between those two points, without anybody judging you or giving their opinion on what you should do - Freedom will give you that place. (It's not therapy, so you don't have to stand up and share things, you can just listen in silence the whole time if you want.)
I know it's not easy to just up and leave because somebody has pointed out this behaviour is abusive. I wasn't expecting you to. It took me a year from my first realisation that maybe it wasn't actually fine and normal, to leaving. (But I'm glad I did, hard as it was.)
I even had the police on my doorstep expressing concern about my safety from the man I was insistent was not dangerous (despite being scared of him) - and still I stayed. I told them there was nothing to worry about. I shut the door and blamed myself. Explained his behaviour away. Pointed out to myself all his better qualities. Squashed down all my doubts. Told my gut instinct to shut up and leave me alone.
But eventually the little voice in my head saying "but why would the police be worried if I was overreacting?" and "why did that person call him abusive?" led me to the Freedom Programme. I accepted I needed to take my blinkers off.
It still took me months more to leave. And I still got angry in the meantime with well-meaning people telling me I "had" to leave. I was so sick of being told what to do at home and being too afraid to make my own decisions, I had no tolerance for other people doing the same even if their intentions were different.
My intention was not to tell you what to do or demand you up and leave, and if it came across that way then I certainly apologise. Nor am I sitting here judging you, I just feel concern and compassion. All I was trying to do was give you the seeds for you to re-establish what is normal and what is not, so you have the best chance possible for you and your little one's futures.