Husband (39M) claims he does hurtful things to me (41F) unintentionally.

My husband (39M) and I (41F) have been together 5 years. Married for just 1 year.
He has a very loving and sweet demeanor. He'll cook for me. Run to the store if I need something. Will bring me flowers once in a while, esp if I'm having a bad day. I've had a doctor inflicted health crisis for a couple years (I'm healing) and he's been pretty supportive. I've tried working more recently, but he'll insist that I should keep it to a minimum and rest as much as I need. My family loves him. My cats love him. He's great with my niece and nephews.
He also says and does really hurtful things to me, but claims it's by accident, or that he forgot I've asked him to stop doing something, or that he's just clumsy and then often follows it by telling me there's nothing to say about it. He also shuts me down or invalidates me continually. When I get upset about this stuff, he sulks and pushes me to get over it faster for the sake of his own comfort.
For the last couple years, I've asked him to stop rolling up the towel and hitting me on the ass in the kitchen because it hurts. He has kept up doing it. A month ago he hit me so hard I screamed the loudest I'd screamed in years, started crying, and needed to put ice on it, but I was too stunned to take that action. He claimed he'd forgotten that I disliked that and that I had said multiple times it hurt. He got this sulky pleading look he gets and tried to get me to get over it, but that made me feel even more distrustful.
This is a little gruesome, so trigger warning. About 17 years ago, I found my first parter (we were engaged) had passed away in my bathroom from a heart thing he didn't know he had and because of the way he fell, there was a lot of blood. I often, tho occasionally not, have had really visceral reactions to death and violence in movies & tv. (Yes, I've had therapy.) He brought home an artsy film about ramen and wanted to watch it. I was game. He'd seen it before and warned me that there was a death scene in it, but it was over the top so it would probably be ok. I told him it probably wouldn't and he said he'd tell me when it was coming so I could leave the room. This is something he's seen my sister and I do a bunch. Scene came up, he didn't warn me. It was a man shot to death in front of his wife and she threw herself on his dying body covered in blood. Dejafuckingvu. I got really cold. Took my computer and left the room to get some work done and just calm down.
He came in 20 minutes later upset that I was not ok. Out of the two of us, he was significantly more distraught. I had made up my mind I wasn't going to let another "oopsiedaisy" from him ruin my night. He's already ruined enough nights in the last five years. He put a lot of pressure on to talk to him about my feelings so we could process it and be ok. I informed him that I was gonna take my damn time on this one and that rushing me emotionally fucked me up. I told him it was unfair to expect me to process on his schedule for his comfort.
In defense of himself, he said he had forgotten where the scene was and that it was badly edited so the scene was unpredictable. I said way too much of this kind of thing happened for it to always be an accident or honest mistake. He said he didn't have anything else to say about it.
Hm.
Context for the next one: During this whole health fiasco, I gained a lot of weight because I couldn't exercise and honestly, probably ate too much cheese because I was sad about my life going all to shit. I've voiced several how ashamed and upset I am about it cuz societal baggage about being a heavy woman, but also cuz both my folks were diabetic and I was doing a great job of avoiding that until now. Plus, I just feel totally weird cuz I now feel like I'm in someone else's body.
Yesterday morning, I stated I sad and angry that a jacket that was way too big for me is almost too small and that I felt powerless and at a loss. He didn't say anything at all. He's had the habit of ignoring me or refusing to respond and we had talked it thru and he said that it was out of extreme anxiety. Since then, it had gotten better. So I thought this was weird. Recalling a conversation we had about a dog training trick this weekend, I asked with some trepidation, "Hey...uh... are you refusing to respond cuz you're trying to train me out of brining this up? Like... by just refusing some acknowledgement to discourage a behavior?"
He said yes.
I got my stuff for work, left without saying anything, and slammed the door. He said, "I love you" meekly with a kind of puppy dog face look. Before I had met him, I'd never slam a door like that.
He texted me later saying he was upset with himself for starting a fight and mad that I had slammed the door even tho he knew it was unfair to be mad about that. He then said exactly this: "I should't have agreed that I was choosing to not answer your comment, but I was panicking." Weird phrasing imho.
Me: "You used a dog training technique on me."
He went on to say he couldn't tell if I was just venting, so he didn't respond. I said that wasn't what I was upset about. I reminded him I had directly asked if he was doing this technique and that he had said yes. He said he had agreed because he was panicking and just woken up and wasn't thinking.
This is three of many recent incidents, let alone so many throughout these five years.
He then continued to flagellate himself via text. I told him to stop it.
Last night, I told him that he had a pattern of doing hurtful things and then acting like it was unintentional. I told him that it was too much of a pattern to be an accident. I started to ugly cry and tell him that I had worked so hard to communicate with him so we could have a good relationship and asked him to say something or anything to me that would signify he actually cared and was gonna do something different. After an hour of that, he suggested I emotionally separate from him. 2nd suggestion was something along the same lines. These were awful ideas that suggested I live with a wall up around myself in my own home. Third said he'd see a hypnotherapist to see if he could figure out why he keeps doing these things.
Yes, I voiced months ago a few times I wanted to go to couples therapy. He shot the idea down. I said the fact I wanted to go should be reason enough. We later had a fight because he's had a habit of invalidating me. He asked me to give him an example. I gave him the example of the times I brought up therapy. He said that didn't count. To which I pointed out the irony of him invalidating me giving him an example of how he invalidates me. Then he said there was nothing else to say about it.
I have to say. Now that it's the day after and I'm not ugly crying anymore, I'm leaning towards the idea that he's pulling a Dr. Jekyll Mr. Hyde act so that he can hurt me, but also influence me to stay by seeming loving and doing other kind things and thereby his claims his hurtful behaviors are all accidental seem more believable. I'm trying to figure out wth is going on and this theory makes more sense than it's just a bunch of random accidents.
I feel weirdly unsafe in our apartment. I feel like I have to numb myself to survive living with all these little cuts he keeps making. I'm living with someone who hurts me on the regular and has zero intention to change because if it's unintentional, that means he takes zero responsibility for it, like he has no power over it and it shouldn't be a reflection of his character or how he regards me. I feel like I'm being made out to be crazy cuz I'm telling him he's hurting me and he voices it's all accidental implying that my hurt isn't really valid and then he states he has nothing to say about it. Like it's just supposed to disappear with that. He basically always has a reason to treat me like shit and a reason why I can't be upset about it.
It has gradually dawned on me today that this is what gaslighting feels like. I've experienced it before, I just didn't think I would from him cuz he has such a sweet demeanor. It's also gradually dawned on me that consistently having your boundaries grossly violated by the same person is characteristic of abuse. The health stuff has been so awful, I've become somewhat fragile and this stuff has just beat me down way more than perhaps it normally would. Not to say it would ordinarily be fine.
But I just have a hard time completely believing that he's abusive and gasllighting because it's not as if he threw me down the stairs viciously or outright called me names and then implied I remembered it wrongly. He's also lovely to me often, so it's just hard to know what's going on.
The only thing I know for sure is he's going to keep hurting me on the regular. That feels unsafe to me.

Could he be that oafish? Should I do something different? Are my suspicions of this being some kind of Dr. Jekyll Mr. Hyde thing off or on?

What I'd really like to know is what would you call this kind of behavior? Is there a term for it?

Any insight or advice welcome.