Hurting in my marriage

Hello this is my first time. I have been married 5 years we have two children from my husband's previous relationship but I have raised our children most of their lives, they and I consider me to be their mother. While I am happy for the most part with my life my husband is verbally abusive more often than not. He often makes our son and myself cry because of the way he talks to us. My daughter rarely shows hurt but I worry that this is because she is becoming numb; she rarely shows negative emotion at all. Whenever the children cry he asks them if they want a reason to cry. This is always an empty threat but I have a problem with the threat even being put on the table. I love my husband dearly but when I try to bring his behavior to his attention he says I am controlling him or trying to play mommy. He then includes that my son and I are just too sensitive since our daughter has no problem with how he is. I am at a loss. I don't want to leave my husband because he does try but he did not have a great childhood in the least. He was abused, abandoned, and treated poorly by everyone in his life until we got together. We have been through a lot together and I don't wan to give up on my marriage. But I can't help thinking every day that our lives could be better without him. When he decides to be there he is amazing and I feel blessed but then he changes and I pray to find anyone that I can talk to that can just help me forget about him for only a second. Thank you for taking the time to read this. I truly appreciate it.

You are doing wonderful. There is only thing i can encourage you with, love overcomes all things and love never fails. Pray for that strength from the Lord and one day, you will see the fruit of your labors and you will be glad that you chose to love and not quit. I tell you, what you are doing is so honorable and sweet in His Eyes. Hold on, help is coming! Lord Jesus Christ bless you and your family richly!

I think you need to look at what you hold most important in your life. Is it your husband, is it the children? It might be both... The answer should be the one which you know will give you a happy and fulfilling life. I would advise you make your decisions based on the answer to that, after all, you have only one life and you should strive to be true to yourself or you will live with regrets. Ideally, I think that having a direct & constructive conversation with your husband about this would be the best for you and your family. I would suggest that you do not open the topic in the same way that you have in the past. Consider his past which you mentioned, do you have a good understanding what the underlying issue or trigger may be for him? Would he be willing to talk about that? If you can have an open discussion with him about that, and do it with genuine care and interest for him then through this you may be able to draw parallels between his past and current situations. The goal of this is not to convince him with words, but to see if you can help him to recognize past events and perhaps the effect that they had on him. In turn, with an increased self awareness of this, he may be able to see how his behavior (caused by this) is effecting the children in turn. Unfortunately, many men are stoic in nature as social pressures and expectations teach them to hide or ignore their emotions. However, we are all emotional creatures, and undoubtedly your husband's emotions are the root cause of his behaviour. If the above technique does not work, I suggest that you think of how you would be able to appeal to his emotions. Perhaps something very direct would be effective. When he responds that his daughter has no issue with his behavior (she does not respond emotionally), perhaps ask him why he thinks that is good? Does he think that will be good for her in life? Will her lack of emotion protect her from emotional harm? I'm sure he loves his children, but he is definitely projecting his past experiences when these situations occur.