Ok, you don't want to believe what the counselors have told you? Then how about hearing from someone who's been there?
I grew up abused, and somehow, that has a way of making it easier to end up in an abusive relationship. I've been beaten black and blue. I've had guns pointed right under my nose. I've even been shot as I walked away from one guy. My third husband, who was physically abusive starting as soon as the marriage license was signed, even threatened me via letters that he would be stalking me as soon as he got out of prison. (Why he was in prison, I never got a straight story but that was where he ended up after I had him removed from the house. The prison was in another state. - He missed out on being paroled because I contacted the prison and they were horrified by the letters he was sending me.) I have been stalked for refusing to be someone's girlfriend -- to the point of getting threatened with being fired for the number of phone calls (didn't matter that I hung up on him as soon as I heard the voice on the phone). I've been strangled so many times that I can't sing like I used to. And I've had worse than that happen, but I don't want to get that blunt.
They don't stop. Doesn't really matter what they say. It really gets old. But I figured it this way: maybe I couldn't walk away when I was a minor and it was my so-called mother beating me, but I damn sure didn't have to take that from a man.
Unfortunately, I have learned the hard way that if it happens once, it's going to happen again. At first I didn't know how to begin to physically defend myself but I learned to fight back before I made myself a "standard rule." That rule was if it happened once, I would accept an apology. If it happened a second time, they wouldn't be living with me. I either left or had them removed by the police when they wouldn't take being thrown out nicely.
You don't want to stay with him. You may be going to some kind of therapy (with him?), but playing down the violence means that he doesn't take it seriously. As far as he's concerned, he doesn't have a problem.
It's not your fault. He is the one that has to control him. I bet you've heard all about how you "make [him] hit [you]." You don't make him hit you. He does that because he won't control himself enough, and because he can't control the situation. If you're not doing what he wants, how he wants, when he wants, it will set him off but it's not your fault. It's not your fault. IT'S NOT YOUR FAULT -- HOW HE BEHAVES IS HIS OWN FAULT!!! You do NOT have to take it!!
You need to get out of the relationship before he kills you. If you have to, leave and come back for your stuff with "company" (read that as "the biggest male friends you can get to go with you"). Generally, the presence of a large man will make them keep their distense while you pack your stuff and get it out.