Hi everyone, I am new here. Really would love some opinions as I am second guessing myself constantly right now.
Husband and I have been married 6 years. We have five children, I have DS (19), DD (16) and DD (13) and they live with us full time. He has DS (17) and DD (13) that live with their mother across the country. My husband has terrible grief issues from being separated from his children. They moved right after they separated (their mom left in the middle of the night with the kids to move to another state with her parents). He felt they were ripped from him, he did not know they were going and did not get to say goodbye. He fought the move in the divorce at first and finally just gave up once they had been there six months and he did not want to put the kids in the middle again, they seemed to be doing well, so he just consented to them living there. But it really messed him up. He said all he every wanted to be was a dad and so missing most of their day to day things is so hard for him. Plus he lives with my children full time. My kids are good students but have some anxiety and depression issues, have been hospitalized, have switched schools, have experimented with drugs, had issues with online social media and sending inappropriate things, etc., I am not proud of that but I have tried to address it, get them help, be involved, get counseling, etc.

The issue is this. From day one we have had drastically different parenting styles. DH is very militant. Yells to get attention of children. Biggest issue for him is "respect". If he feels disrespected, WATCH OUT! So disrespect might be exhibited like this: on a car trip with five kids in the back of the car, they start talking or signing and it starts to get loud. So he will lean over to me and say through gritted teeth "can you please ask the kids to be quiet, this is ridiculous". So I will say, hey guys can you keep it down? And after a half hour or so they start to get a little louder again, as kids tend to do, and he will explode and scream "your mother asked politely for you to SHUT UP." and everyone goes dead silent and it is uncomfortable and everyone is afraid to talk.

Or something will happen, like one time my then 14 year old daughter snuck out of the house with a friend who was sleeping over to meet some friends in front of the house and we found out about it. DH was livid that he was "disrespected" by her not being afraid of him enough to factor that into her decision. He said clearly they don't respect him because if they did, then she would have thought "I know how my Stepdad will react and I am afraid of that do I better not do it". He wanted to ground her for months and went on and on about how disrespected and dismissed he is.

So then the outbursts started getting worse and he would start cursing at me and saying things about the kids out loud, saying they were lazy and stubborn and manipulative and he started saying that I create an environment where their unacceptable behavior is fostered. He started saying he blamed me for allowing their behavior to grow and the way they "treat" him. His main issue was that when something would happen and he would get upset and lose it, that he always was expected to apologize for his outburst but no one else every had to apologize to him for their behavior that made him so upset. I can't really see asking a kid to apologize to someone that just called their mom a "Bleep". But he doesn't get that.

Its gotten so bad that now he says he hates the kids and that they are interfering with our marriage and I am being led around by the nose by children and giving them too much power and letting them run the show because I have divorce guilt and that I am a bad parent for not taking control and insisting they treat him with more respect. Right now they basically avoid him like the plague and when he is at home, they stay in their rooms. When he is gone, they come out and we have a great time together, but when he is there, they are withdrawn. They will say "hello, goodbye, please and thank you" but not much else.

He doesn't understand why they are afraid of him and that we all treat him like the "big bad wolf" and that;s manipulation because he would never hurt anyone and they make him a scapegoat.

But here recently, the outbursts have gotten so bad that my girls have called my parents in the middle of the night and DFACS has come out. He gets furious with me and says that is my inability to control the environment and letting children run the show. That I should tell them a fight between a husband and wife is none of their business and they should not be messing in things like that and that if they contact someone they will be punished. He blames me for this and says if I made them respect him and acted like a parent, then none of this would be happening. He is furious with me because I said that we cannot live together while this continues to be a problem and he had to move out. He says it is unfair to him to make him leave the home and I am choosing my children over him because of my "inability" to control my children.

My perspective is that he is being emotionally abusive and that there is NOTHING in the world that can "provoke" him into responding. But he just says well if you take a stick and keep poking a bear with it and the bear asks you politely to stop and you keep poking, you should not be surprised when eventually you get bitten.

I know that I cannot allow my kids to be part of this situation anymore. I want to take responsibility for my actions because I believe it is always a two way street. But i honestly don't think my kids are disrespectful or abnormal. He tells me they are both, and they are really screwed up kids and I facilitate that. I am just being too defensive? How do I know what's normal and whats not? And to what extent does his fostering this abusive home life play a role in their anxiety and acting out?

Just looking for some thoughts, not judgments. I am not perfect, I just don't know where to start. We did counseling years ago and the counselor basically said that he should stay out of the parenting if he could not be calm when he did it. He interprets that now as saying he was never allowed to interact with the kids. He will not accept any responsibility for his outbursts and anger, just says it is a product of the dysfunctional environment that he blames me for.....