I have namechanged to ask this. I'm asking here rather than relationships as I suppose it's not really advice I'm looking for, more people's opinions and experiences, and it is also quite a big feminist issue.
I have been with my DH for 17 years, married for 13, we have 3 children, (eldest isn't mine). 2 years ago we were going through one hell of a rough patch. We've had rough patches before but nothing like this. It had pretty much been building up since I got pregnant with our youngest in 2006. Brought on by a combination of living in a house that was falling down around us, but being unable to afford to move. Job losses (plural), money problems and depression (for both of us, I got PND). Before this our relationship was solid, really solid, he was (and is again now) my best friend as well as partner in life.
We had been verging on the possibility of a trial separation, but agreed to work at things first, as both still loved each other and didn't want to split. This one occasion he'd gone for a drink on a Saturday afternoon with our eldest. He wasn't drunk but was tipsy. We got into an argument over something very trivial. I (stupidly) threw my drink over him, but in the process managed to touch his face with the glass although it didn't shatter and it didn't cut him. I literally saw the red mist descend over his eyes. He was angry, really angry I'd never seen him that angry before. He grabbed me around the throat, he wasn't strangling me (I wasn't choking) but with enough force to hold me in place. I couldn't get him off me and had to shout for our eldest to come down and help me. (The younger kids were in bed but would have been able to hear me shouting). Our eldest managed to get him off me, he then turned on her and pushed her, so she punched him in the face. This winded him a bit, I was trying to get him to calm down when he turned and pushed me quite forcefully and I fell against the fridge and washing machine (had a nasty bruise down my side and across my shoulder). Our eldest then set upon him again screaming at him that "You don't hit girls, dad, WTF are you doing?"
This was all happening in the kitchen which is at the front of the house. The windows were wide open as it was the height of summer and the neighbours must have obviously heard as the next thing 2 police cars pulled up outside the house and banged on the door. I let them in, and this seemed to snap DH out of the red mist like state he was in. They walked him into the living room were he crumpled to floor in a heap and started sobbing. At this point the kids were shouting for me from upstairs and needed to go and reassure them but the police insisted on coming upstairs and checking on the kids too. (Fair enough). When they checked on the kids they took some details from me, asked if I was all right and then left.
When I got downstairs DH was curled up in a ball sobbing his heart out. I didn't feel scared of him at all, I wasn't scared when he attacking me I knew I just needed to get him to calm down. My first instinct was to actually comfort him, but he wouldn't let me near him. The next day he was very solemn, he went to the local church something he hadn't done in years (I'm an atheist, he's a non practising C of E). He was gone for a few hours.
After it happened I kept thinking, I need to leave him now don't I? I'm not a "battered wife" I refuse to let any man hit me. But my desires to stay were stronger. He apologised to both me and our eldest, and we decided to go to Relate. I also told my mum, I decided I wasn't going to keep it a secret, because if it ever did happen again I wanted to make sure someone else knew about the first time.
He isn't a violent person, in the almost 2 decades I've known him he's never so much as hit anyone, let alone argue with people, he is very much the peacemaker and would much rather find a way to talk about things to resolve them. He did have the most horrendous childhood though, he grew up starving and living in squalor, he was mentally and physically abused by his mum and was in and out of care with his brother. He then left school and the care system only to end up in an abusive relationship with his ex (the abuse was on her part) she basically took over the role of his mum abusing him. (I'm not just going on his account of things, I have seen first hand the abuse and devastation she can dish out not only to DH but also to their child together - who I class as my own because we've brought her up together from an early age, as her mum also abused her mentally and physically). She got pregnant when DH was just 17 and her 18. He stayed with her for another 2 years after their child was born to try and make it work, but ended things after she cheated on him again and then punched him giving him a black eye.
He has a lot of unresolved issues from his childhood/relationship with his ex and tries to work through these by doing his martial arts (which he is heavily into, not just the physical side, but also the spiritual side). He mediates a lot, and has explored possibly every religion on the planet trying to find that answer as to why it happened to him I suppose.
Anyway, we talked, he thought I had tried to glass him 
and this was why he reacted as he did. It's no excuse but he said he felt like he was in some sort of trance, it was almost like watching himself outside of his body. We worked through and resolved a lot of our issues and 2 years later we're doing great and are happy. He has swore he would never do it again, I believe him, and I know he believes it too. I'm not scared of him at all (if anything I've always been the more aggressive and argumentative out of the 2 of us).
But I do wonder sometimes, was I right to stay? Am I fooling myself like so many women before and it will happen again at some point? I don't doubt him at all. But I am aware that what happened wasn't something you can anticipate happening, it was purely circumstantial (I think that's the word I'm looking for). So I'm asking here if anyone else has successfully gone on after something like this, or do all DV incidents lead on to more of the same?