I am sad to hear that you keep choosing abusive men. Something has to happen to break this cycle. I hope you can see a good therapist. You deserve better. There’s help, you are intelligent and I believe you can finds ways to do it

The reason I thought you are very young: you make many excuses for your partners abusive behaviors and seem to question it (I had no idea you had abusive partners or any partners before) , you said you can’t afford to be on your own and he is the only provider (which could be because you stay at home mom, although it’s unusual in mid 40s because most people can’t really put a career on hold, that’s why I thought you might be right after high school), you are asking a lot of parenting questions and seem to be generally surprised to find out that it’s not good for young children to witness abusive behaviors. Sorry I don’t mean to offend, but to me you sounded like you are very inexperienced

Usually as women get older they’d not go for abusive men because they’ll see the signs. Younger girls don’t always recognize the signs.

Well even though you aren’t in early 20s as I mistakenly thought, you are still young. Mid 40s isn’t too late to turn your life around. But of course it is your choices.

By the way some of your partners abusive patterns could be explained by him being a drug addict even if he isn’t using heavy drugs now, he still uses drugs as he smokes pot a lot. Excessive marijuana use could cause many symptoms. There is pot induced psychosis and many more issues.

In addition him getting high regularly is something you can use in custody dispute. Even in states where pot is legal, routinely getting high around minor children isn’t something judge would look favorably at. You might have a shot at full custody with his drug use and abusive patterns

Good luck with everything