Can I move on after feeling unsafe with my husband

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I have 2 children under 5. I have been with my DH for 10 years and married for 7. Before kids everything was lovely and honestly he was the nicest guy with no red flags. As soon as I had my first child (literally the day we got back from hospital) it was like a switch was flipped and the anger he felt towards a crying baby was terrifying. I couldn’t leave the baby with him for any time at all and would have her with me even to go to the toilet or shower. I coped by entering a state of anxious hyper-vigilance.

This meant I had a year of minimal sleep and was just a ball of anxiety. He did lots of therapy and wanted to have a second baby to show he had changed. I had the second child with the idea that I would just leave him if it was the same but he did actually cope a lot better (and the second was actually a really easy baby who didn’t really cry). Since then he’s really stepped up and worked on himself and now the baby crying days are done he’s a wonderful dad and partner again.

My issue is I’m still stuck in fight or flight mode and my health has deteriorated and I don’t know what to do. I have a stressful job and still 2 young kids so there’s not really any time or money for gym memberships or therapy or extended time
to myself.

The kids are happy, he’s happy, everything else about my life is fine to an outsider perspective. I just can’t forgive him for leaving me in this awful hyper-vigilant, anxious, irritable state - I feel like I’ve protected everyone else from the consequences of his actions apart from me.

Can I move on from this?

Agree with this

I'm not suggesting she use him as a therapist, but when someone does something harmful, they need to understand what they've done, the impact of it, and take responsibility for it, before making amends. This man should not be protected from knowing just how much his behaviour has harmed his wife.

A therapist should be something separate, to help her.

Crying colicky babies are incredibly triggering for even the sanest person. It's hard to glean from your post what he did, was he aggressive or dangerous toward the baby or was he irritable and yelling and frustrated? If he has done the work and genuinely changed in your situation I would probably put this behaviour down to innate emotion regulation problems in him that he has now dealt with. In regards to your own trauma around it, you probably do need counselling. Is there any chance that your current MH problems are related to anything else as well. It's hard to walk on eggshells though, how is his anger control in other situations? Has he ever yelled at you in public or at home, damaged furniture, called you names?

I’m glad you’re going to get some therapy OP. The reason I suggested EMDR is it is specifically designed to help your body process those moments where you never got to resolve the feelings/responses. It basically helps you put them to bed and give them a proportional place in your current life but doesn’t mean you forget them or should disregard them but it allows you to function without them impacting your day to day life it’s often used to help people with PTSD (ex army etc). Also dealing with the entirely understandable resentment will help you move forward however that may look. Even just going over it all again with someone objective can help lessen the weight of the feeling. Good luck.

Men like this don't change OP, no matter what they say.

Don't even risk putting your children and yourself at risk.

Your body and mind are telling you that this is not a good environment. Get out.

It was with my STBXH'S explicit consent, and the conversation focussed on my experiences within the relationship and then on the question of what were reasonable expectations in terms of the outcome of the particular therapeutic method being pursued. Mostly it helped to validate for me that some things that had happened were just wrong and that I was right to feel deeply hurt, and reading between the lines in terms of the therapist's very cautious discussion of outcomes in general made me realise that continuing to hope for a miracle was foolish.

I would hope that in OP's case a discussion with a therapist could touch in general terms on things like - well this is the context from a professional perspective of the difficulties her husband has, in their experience whether or not these are likely to recur if managed etc.