I am new to this, and I don't know where else to turn or who to talk to other than God. But sometimes it helps to get a human perspective on things. All day today, my husband has been exceedingly hateful toward me. After dinner tonight, I can't remember exactly what he said, but I just blew it and hit him in the shoulder as he turned to get out of my face after insulting me. I then turned around to finish feeding our dogs and he slugged me at least 5 times as hard in the back and then pushed me down. So I tried to protect myself, because he has hurt me before (after I slapped him in the face for trapping me in our bathroom), and it went on from there. My finger was nearly broke and I was shaking so badly afterward, I really wanted to call the police. Instead I asked him to leave. He refused and continued to try and intimidate me. I told him if he didn't leave then I would call and he would have to spend the night in jail, his choice. Of course he told me it was his house and I could leave. I said then that I would but our two children would be leaving with me. He of course would not allow this. I was truly afraid of him, and insisted that he leave, at this point I was in tears. Our children were not around when this happened and I just told them that their dad had to take care of something and he would be back in the morning.
My question is although I did hit him first, does that mean it's okay for him to hit me back and retaliate so extremely? He threw me down and hit me several more times and I did try to fight him off of me, which is why he stopped. This has happened probably 5 times in 4 years. He told me I was dead to him and he would be divorcing me. Should I go ahead with that and put this behind us and try to do whats best for our children? We have tried so many things to make our relationship work, but nothing seems to help. We pray together and go to church, but I feel like we're living a lie. Do you think this could get worse? I just don't want my children to be effected by our inability to maintain a good relationship with one another. I want them to be stable 100 percent of the time. Please offer any advice and prayers you have.
Thank you and God Bless.

Hitting is never acceptable, but hitting a person once is a lot different than continued hitting on a person, IMO. If you are in fear of him, you can work on your M separately. If you think it won't happen again, you can work on it together, but it sounds like it's a pattern. Both of you can learn different ways of dealing with your stress, if you go to counseling. Bottom line, I'm more worried about the kids; IMO, it's abusive to let them grow up knowing - or seeing - it's happening; they will be messed up for life, and they need to see their mother being strong and stopping the hitting. And, if it is not stopped, it could escalate to them being hurt. Either way you choose, do not accept it as it is now.

You need to leave him. This relationship sounds very unhealthy, and hitting in a marriage is absolutely unacceptable, from both people.