My husband and I were married in March 2010, I have birth to a beautiful little girl in September 2010.. we only just celebrated our first anniversary and I'm contemplating divorce! This scares me because I don't want to give up... I just don't know what to do so I'm hoping that I could get some advice... here is the situation (as short as I can tell it)

The first year was HELL... I was pregnant for most of it and he ruined every single moment for me. He would fight with me every day about trivial things. For example, if he doesn't have an article of clothing that he needs clean, if he thinks I drove too much and used more gas that he thinks I should have, if he sends me to the store for lets say red gatorade and I come back with yellow because the store ran out, if I'm even 1 min late picking him up from work... etc. I really could go on and on... on my birthday (while pregnant) he told me that my birthday "doesnt mean ****" and "its just another day" before telling me to "grow up"... and he did this because I wanted to go eat Mexican for dinner and he didn't... in the end I went to dinner with my step dad and my aunt.. WITHOUT my husband. And he did things like that for everything... my baby shower... just everything you could think of (dont want to bore you with each story) but even on occasions he got violent... even punching me in the face once and busting my entire upper lip.

I know what your thinking... I'm an idiot for staying one second after he hit me... and trust me.. I think it every day. The thing is that my husband was abused by his father... his father also abused his mother far worse than I have experieced thus far. So in a way I feel like he too is a victim in some way. So I decided to talk to his mother about it. I actually called her in the middle of one of our huge violent fights and I said "is this how it is forever? because i dont think im like you and i can't do this" (while hysterically crying) she told me that my husband needed to go to therapy... she assured me that her husband changed after therapy and promised me that it would get better. I trusted her and took her advice.

I demanded that he get help or I was going to leave... I gave him a deadline and he kept it. He has been in therapy for about 6 months. He is on and anti-depressant and an anti-anxiety. At first it was great.. we were getting along and I even felt safe again, our sex life came back and I was happy.. but lately things have been happening again... like very bad bad fights... and the other day in the car he back handed me in the mouth twice. Later crying and apologizing saying that he forgot to take his pills.. but the thing is that I don't know if I believe him.

I really love him... when he is the man I married... but I really hate him and myself for "staying when he is what i call "crazy man" should i stick thru this psychological problem my husband is going thru? or should i get out? i really just worry about my daughter... shes 9 months old and he has no problems calling me a "trash bag" "loser" "c**t" in front of her.... sometimes he even will take her from me and bring her into the other room saying that im a "bad mother piece of S**t and she doesn't want his kid around me"... he always apologizes crying after with some excuse for his behavior

Help? What do I do? Stick it out?

He is also 100% supporting us right now

His behaviour is a result of the choices he made. He is an adult and cannot blame you, his parents, the pills he forgot to take, or anything or anybody else, except himself.

Many people who come from abusive family situations, either being abused, or witnessing abuse, learn either on their own, or through therapy, that they do not have to make the same choices, or behave the same way, as their families did. Indeed, many learn who they DON'T want to be and are very aware of making sure they live a healthier, abuse free life for themselves, and their families.

Choosing to abuse anyone has no excuse, or justification. No reason is good enough. He is an adult, he makes a choice not to change. For some reason he chooses to be the way he is, rather than the person he could be. His call, and nobody else's.

I can understand why you hang on, and hope that he can change. He is not there, and still, you hope that some corner will be turned, and that he can internalize and work through his problems and come out the other end a better person. Being diagnosed and treated for mental illness (depression and anxiety) as you said, plus six months of therapy, he still remains a danger to you, and a danger to your child.

Regardless of what has been done for him, and that you have encouraged him and supported him through to him getting hands on help, he has still not changed to a degree where he can make a choice not take his anger out on you. He has made a choice not to use the tools he has been given and taught, or the benefits of therapy or treatment. Had you not threatened to leave in the first place if he didn't get help, I doubt that he would have gone into treatment on his own.

That might be part of the problem. He was forced to make a change he didn't want to make, for all the wrong reasons. I'm saying that he needs to be doing this for himself. Nobody else. Only when he makes the decision to change, and do the work, will there be long lasting changes.

He is capable. He doesn't cuss out the bank manager, or hit his boss, or bully and abuse randomly- he CAN control himself, and again with you, he chooses not to.

And more importantly, you make the choice to stay, and with all things considered, particularly that his anger and violence continues against you, you are the only person who can make decisions for yourself, and the safety of your child.

I don't know why you called your mother in law that night, instead of the police. Or why you didn't call the police on all the other occasions that you were battered by an out of control man. His mother can't fix him, or stop him, but the police can control him and surely he's not so out of control of himself that he'd be swinging and screaming at them.

Don't underestimate what he is capable of. The more you push for him to get help to change, or present ultimatums, the more danger you are in.

My advice to you is to seek assistance, guidance and counselling from women in a women's shelter. They will advise and help you in sorting out fact from fiction, and provide all the information for you to make YOUR choices. There is no shortage of help out there if you are willing to help yourself.

Did he go for Anger Management? In angermanagement a person learns that it's THEM that upset themselves, not the other person. Apparently he didn't pay attention to the class or misinterpreted it.

If you have somewhere else to go, GO as fast as you can. This guy is not going to change in any big hurry. He will only change when HE decides to chance, and not you telling him to change as he must find it too hard to accept the fact HE's the one at fault - not you.