To me, threatening to hurt an animal is the most horrible thing a person could do. They are defenseless and he used it to manipulate you?! Wow. I kept waiting for the part of your story where you said he attempted to hurt one of your children because if he's jealous of your animals he will start to be jealous of your children too. I would run far and fast, but I've been in several abusive relationships before so I've worked to build the confidence to be able to do that if someone I loved were to threaten me again.

It turns out that your far-off love that you put up on a pedestal is not who you thought he was. You don't say how soon that Valentine's Day you moved in together was after you began talking but I'm guessing it was fairly quickly? You have so much stress in your life, you deserve someone who will help you through the bad times, not make them worse. People don't get over being abusive without lots of help and a willingness to admit they have a problem and work really hard. Abuse tends to escalate too because as we let them get away with worse and worse things, pretty soon they know they can do anything and we will take them back. I think you could benefit from therapy, and also think about whether or not it's safe to separate and possibly divorce.