I don't know what to do.
Been with my husband for 14 years, married for 4. We have an 18 month old.
Over the years, throughout our relationship, DH has displayed abusive behaviour. Very early on he'd hurt himself, bang his head on the floor, wail and cry. He called it panic attacks and was deeply apologetic afterwards, every time. It took me a long time to realise it wasn't that, it was abusive behaviour.
The turning point was when we were engaged; an argument came out of nowhere and escalated into him preventing me leaving the room, holding onto my legs, screaming at me, slamming the door hard enough to damage the wall etc. I spent 2 nights at my friend's house and returned to find him deeply apologetic again. I almost called off the wedding. He pursued various therapy which in retrospect was not the right thing, e.g. stress management.
Just over a year ago, this behaviour surfaced again for the first (or first I can remember) time since the incident described above. So it had been about 3 years since it last happened. This time the baby was in the room, DH perceived me to be being critical of him and grabbed the baby and ran out of the room completely out of control, hitting the baby's head on the wall in the process (unintentionally). The baby was fine but I was deeply distressed. I was so close to ending our relationship. I gave him an ultimatum that there must be no more violent behaviour (he easily agrees to this) and no more shouting (this is the sticking point - he always says he wasn't shouting / I'm being too soft / he couldn't get his point across otherwise but eventually he seemed to get it and agree). We went to Relate who refused to give us joint counselling because they termed it domestic violence. He felt conned by them doing this, but I understood the reasons. At Relate's suggestion, he self referred to a domestic violence perpetrators programme run by Barnardos. He's almost done it before but wriggled his way out, saying they are all bad men and he's not like them. Anyway, this time he stuck it out and attended for 9 months on a weekly basis. I noticed a significant change, he was so much calmer and in control of his emotions. Our relationship felt like it really improved and I felt he was being a great dad.
However at the weekend, he got stressed parking the car and used it as an excuse to shout again. He was behaving erratically with how he handled the car, and berating me and raising his voice. I repeatedly asked him not to and reminded him our toddler was in the car and must not be subject to this. Once we'd parked he continued to berate me in the street, I got our toddler out of the car and walked to our friends' house and I knew he'd stop once they were with us. He shouted at me down the street that he wanted to have a conversation, can we make up etc. but he was so aggressive still that I knew it would only escalate. Two hours later on the way back from our friends' I reminded him of his promise about no shouting which he'd broken. He became aggressive again and I had to drop the conversation because he couldn't safely drive whilst being like that. We agreed to a civil conversation after our child was in bed.
That night, we said we'd have a 5 min chat before bed. It turned into an hour and a half of arguing and crying, perhaps we should split up, perhaps we should go to counselling together etc. etc. The next day (yesterday), I couldn't go to work. I was having panic attacks and crying hysterically. I felt my world was falling apart. I took the day off and spent 3 hours chatting to a friend, a Relate counsellor online, and someone at Women's Aid. I feel like every time I'm getting to breaking point before he realises the seriousness of this. On the day it happened he was minimising his behaviour, saying he'd done so much on this therapy; it wasn't as bad as before; I was over reacting; I've shouted at him before etc. etc. Only when I took the day off and told him I had told work we might be having time apart did he see the seriousness.
We are going to speak face to face today. He has been in touch with the domestic violence programme he attended and asked his counsellor if we can go to see her together - which Women's Aid have warned me not to do, because it'll make it our problem rather than his. I don't know what to do. I need to show him that breaking that ultimatum has a consequence but I don't know what. I am considering a trial separation but I can't get my head round it. I'm so exhausted I can't think how the logistics would work or what it'd achieve or how to not disrupt our toddler through it. I have told him I'm going to Women's Aid counselling to look at my options - I think that'll give him a shock. Is that enough of a consequence for his actions? Do i need to go to a friend's overnight to prove a point? I just don't know what to do.