2 years post DDay & A Horrible Argument

I took a step back from this forum to focus on healing. It has been two years since D-Day and three years since my emotional/sexting affair as the wayward partner. We are currently back in the country where my husband (BP) found out, and I believe being here is reopening old wounds for him. I went to therapy right away. My BP has not went to therapy.

We had a horrible argument last night that has left me feeling unsafe and wondering if there is any hope for us anymore.

The argument started because I raised my tone while explaining that I thought it made more sense for us to take his sister’s apartment key with us, since she entrusted it to us, rather than having his cousin bring it to another country. In response, he turned to his cousin and said, “Look at how she talks to me,” then told me to “shut the f*** up” and called me a “bitch.”

The next morning, despite us having plans with my family, he prioritized taking his cousin out first. He dropped me off with my family and they waited over an hour for him to arrive.

Later that evening, we were out for dinner and our waiter forgot part of our order. I tried to politely get the waiter’s attention, and my husband told me to stop “acting like a man.” He said he prefers someone who is more ladylike and feminine.

During that conversation, he also told me I deserved to be called a bitch because I had raised my tone the night before. He then said that if this had been “the old days,” he would have smacked me for speaking to him that way.

I genuinely believed reconciliation was going well. However, he does occasionally spiral and call me derogatory names, then tell me I deserve it.

We had been trying for our first child, and I am currently 8 weeks pregnant. He came with me to our first ultrasound and was happy and emotional. But last night he told me he would rather I terminate the pregnancy because he will never be the same person with me again, and that this is who I am going to get. He also said he would rather be with another woman who is more feminine than me.

He told me our marriage isn’t going to work, that I should go to stay in another city and tell my mom everything, and continued calling me degrading names throughout the night.

What makes this even more confusing is that just the night before, after him drinking, he was telling me how happy he was with our life together, how I had taught him forgiveness, and how badly he wanted this marriage and our family. Ever since we’ve arrived in this country, he has been an emotional roller coaster.

Eventually, I apologized for raising my tone. Only after that did he apologize for calling me those names. But I felt like I had to apologize first, and his apology didn’t feel genuine. He said he wouldn’t have said those things if I didn’t raise my tone.

I don’t feel safe with him anymore. I’m trying so hard to make this marriage work, but it hurts to be spoken to this way. I’m struggling to know where the line is between trauma being triggered and behavior that simply isn’t acceptable. Has anyone experienced something similar during reconciliation? How did you know when it was time to keep trying versus accepting that reconciliation was no longer healthy?