Please pet. Remember how you felt last week.
This is fear talking now. Totally understandable. But you can't let fear stop you making the right choices.
I know people who were in refuges. They are now fine. Successful people who were glad their mothers left. Who have brilliant memories of the refuge actually - playing with new friends. Feeling like it was an adventure.
Your DD is telling you over and over how she feels about her father. She has no other way to tell you. She is young and she cannot explain or articulate it in any other way.
If you don't listen to her now then the day may come where worse things happen and she doesn't tell you because she thinks you won't listen.
If I could wave a magic wand, I'd change him into the husband and father that you and the children deserve. But he will not change because he doesn't see why he should have to. He is not motivated to change.
If he ever does change (unlikely but let's hope) it would be after lots of counselling and therapy, and perhaps you going to the refuge would be the wake up call he needs - have you looked at it that way?
You've had a social worker on here confirm the children are at risk.
Every day you are with him they are at risk.
I know you've fought like a tiger to give them the beautiful childhood you never had. But it's going to be overshadowed by him.
Maybe when he's at work, you give them a normal Tuesday, a happy Wednesday, and a fun Thursday . But if he comes home on Friday and shouts at them so hard they cry and scares them with his threats, they won't remember nice days with you. The fear will overshadow them.
What will you do if your children turn around in 20 years and ask you why you did nothing when their dad was shouting and scaring them? I know you have stood up to him etc but if he continues the behaviour that won't make a difference to their feelings and they won't see the times you've spoken to him about his behaviour in private.
You only need to read MN to see the number of posts saying they wish their parents had split up sooner.
The only child I know who ever wrote a note to a parent saying they didn't want to be around the other parent, is a relative of mine. Her parent was emotionally abusive to her. The parent she sent the note to did nothing
My relative, a few years later, ran away aged 11. She went to the local police station and asked to be removed from the home and from the parent. What she went through was only a fraction of what your children are going through. Social services were involved. Her teenage years were very difficult.
I'm not going to pretend that you've an easy choice here. It's not easy. It's terrifying.
But staying isn't going to be easy either. Staying is going to damage your children much more than leaving ever will.
As a PP said - would you phone Social Services and show them this thread, to see what they say?
If not, then why not?
I think if you really listen to your gut, you'll know what the right decision is
If you don't go to the refuge tomorrow, I'm sure you'll have a lovely day with the kids, maybe he will be nice for a few days, and all the fear and worry will be gone, for a little while - but the problem hasn't gone. And it'll come back. And eventually you are going to have to deal with it. If not now, then in years to come, when things are even worse and your children end up blaming you - because if there's one thing I've learnt it's that no matter what a man does it'll always be the woman blamed for it