Holy shit, I really thought it was just my Indian family that was explosive like this! My grandfather was from central India, but moved to the states for college. He met my Minnesota German grandmother there. They moved back to India for a time; had my dad and his siblings; then moved back to the States.
I only know one thing about my great grandfather: that he beat the shit out of my grandfather for taking some bricks out of their walkway to make a fort. My grandfather said his father nearly beat him to death, but that that was the only time he was violent. He alleged that my great grandfather was an otherwise reasonable, noble man. Still can't wrap my head around that shit.
My grandfather used to torment my dad and his siblings. He had impossibly highs standards for house keeping as well, and he beat my aunts if they didn't vacuum under their beds. Strangly, he was nice to me, if critical at times. But he always seemed to like me well enough. He was a complete dick to my sister, and kind of whatever to my brother. When he died, I wasn't really sad about it. Mostly, I cried because his nurses kept telling me how nice he was. How they weren't ready for him to go. I had to leave so I wouldn't tell the one to stfu.
Well, I'm three paragraphs into my own wormhole, but the reason I say all this is because I want you to know OP- my dad ended up similar to your husband. My father's anger hinges on "respect" and what his definition of respect means (which is ever changing depending on his mood). You could make a sarcastic joke to him one day and he will laugh. You could say the same thing the next and he'll scream at you or get sulky. If you don't do what he wants exactly as he wants it, he takes it as a a personal affront. He doesn't listen to other people's ideas, but if he comes up with the same idea, it's great.
He was also never "really" violent all that often, he just threatened violence. The way he did this was by breaking things. For instance, he once kicked my door in because I got mad at him for making fun of me. He used to literally chase me out of the house. Once, I sprained my ankle on the porch bc of that, and my mom made me pretend I wasn't hurt in front of him, so he wouldn't feel guilty. Once, he kicked me out in the middle of winter with no coat. It was New Year's Eve. They were having a party that night, and when I was allowed back (after 2 hours in converse, a T shirt & jeans in WNY winter), I had to pretend nothing was wrong and apologize to my dad.
He has slapped my face before and flipped me out of a chair.
But, then he changed. Y'know what it took? His mother's death, a quadruple bypass surgery that made him face his own mortality, my grandfather's death, and most importantly - my childhood. I have somewhat forgiven him. Idk why. Probably because he seems to want to make an effort to change, but he has never apologized or acknowledged his bad behavior.
OP. Don't let your life or the lives of your potential children be stolen from you by a man like this. I love my dad. He can be awesome. But, I will never get back my childhood. I will forever deal with depression, anxiety and a deep deep rage and sense of injustice.
So many shitty things have happened to me as a rsult of his abuse. I never knew what a healthy romantic relationship looked like. I felt afraid to admit when I was in over my head or needed help. I attracted other abusers and could not cultivate healthy relationships at all, until recently. I went through seriously dark periods in my life that I will admit were my own fault, but I don't think I would have ever been able to get to those places (hard drug use, alcoholism, severe depression) if my parents had better equipped me to face the world.
Please, please, please. Don't let anyone in your life fool you into staying. Get out of there. Do not live my mother's life or make your potential children live the life I have led. I am in a good place with my dad now, but only because he had a near death incident that somewhat changed him.