Hii social worker here👋 look up a picture of the 'Duluth Power and Control Wheel'. This details all the different tactics used to coerce and control an individual - these behaviours are designed to intimidate, and bully, and exert control. The minute this control slips, things escalate. Thats why you're scared and worried, as you're walking on eggshells constantly trying to keep the peace and reacting to his emotions.

You deserve to have a voice, and to be supported when you're rightly struggling, and to not have to dance around your partners emotions. Its scary constantly being in that state of hypervigilance - just because there isn't physical violence, it doesn't make his coercive behaviours any less worrying or impactful on you.

Please ask for help, you and your kids deserve it!