Are we being verbal abused?

[Sarah_cj]

I have been married to my husband for six years and we have a son who is five. My husband is always negative about everything and yells at both of us. He asked him why he is stupid a few times and when I try to intervene, he tells me that he wishes I wasn't here and to leave. He yells and puts me down for wanting to talk about money issues and insists that I can't deal with anything on my own.
My family (mom,dad, aunt, friends) have all asked me why I'm still with him when he is
So selfish. He buys boats and four wheelers and spends a lot of our money fixing them and says he doesn't have time to help around the house cause he's too busy looking after our family!
All I ever buy is food and pay bills, and he says that it's all my fault we are broke.
He also says and does inappropriate things to me in front of our son (grabbing, 'spanking') which kind of hurts and he yells at me and tells me to grow up or go away if I can't take a joke. I usually end up sneaking away and crying because he gets mad if I cry. My son (5) now also spanks me and thinks its funny. I feel this is completely inappropriate.
I'm not sure if I should leave or not. We have been to couples couciling a few times and it does get better for a bit but then it goes back to the same thing with him telling me I should be taking more 'happy' pills
I think I want to leave, I don't want my son to grow up thinking that yelling and being sarcastic and bossing people around are okay and healthy...... I do love him and I don't want to hurt him....but I feel better and happier when he's not around
Am I overreacting?

[EllaMari]

Look up 'wheel of violence/abuse'. There are many ways a person can be abusive controlling money, insults, and violence are just some of them. It sounds like he is a pretty classic abuser who blows up, changes for a while (called the honeymoon) then as time goes on tension rises till he blows Upp again. Thing is, the blow ups often get worse over time. Might be a good idea to get a therapist to help you figure out how to handle this.

[Sarah_cj]

Thank you for your insight. My situation is very hard and confusing because half the time he is very nice and says I love you and he can't wait to see me. But he just sometimes does a total 180 and acts like a horrible person; in a rage, yelling and calling us names and telling me to take my stuff and leave. It always catches me by surprise because you just don't expect it!
He even yells at my grandmother!! And she becomes very quiet and tells me later that he is verbally abusive, but he is so nice sometimes!
Again, thank you for helping me, I think I need to remove our son from all the negativity and yelling

[thatquietgirl]

I don't think you're overreacting.  Your husband's comments are eventually going to begin affecting your son's self esteem, and his actions are teaching him the wrong way to treat women and people in general.  You are definitely both being emotionally and verbally abused.  If you can get out and get child support, I would consider it.  You have tried, but he has shown resistance to changing, which means he does not view his actions as a problem.  Until he does (which may never happen), he's not going to change.