Marriage, love and pain

I'm married to the man of my dreams.  He challenges me, spoils me, infuriates me, makes me giggle, makes me cry, "makes"  me cuss like there's no tomorrow.  I wouldn't be the person I am today without him. 
I still recall so vividly the first time we met.  There I sat, on my mother's balcony while watching a young man below walk what I thought was the ugliest dog I had ever seen.  (A Shar pei, he turned out to be quite the tired old fagot of a dog who hated me from day one, peeing on my side of the bed, barking at me, annoying me.)  By the second or third time I saw him walk that dog beneath my mother's balcony I could stand it no more. 
"How many times are you going to walk that damned dog?"
Looking up, having some trouble making out what I looked like in the dark, he yelled up to me,  "How long are you going to sit on that balcony?"
He was nineteen.  I was twenty-three.  We moved in together two weeks later.  That was almost 16 years ago.
We aren't the same people we were back then.  The drugs and games of Truth or Dare at our wild parties are long gone.  (Not the embarrassment, mind you, but who knew the retired couple across the street would be awake on their front porch at 2am while I ran around the yard in my undies?)
Today we teach our children Creationism and help our nine year old son to improve his reading skills through family Bible reading.  My 12yr old, she's quite the teacher, she wanted a full fledged Bible study to accompany these readings.  Experience has taught me - why ruin it? Questions always abound in our house, so why complicate something so pure by getting bogged down with a "deeper" study that I'd probably just screw up anyway? I haven't regretted the decision and sometimes the study times she seeks come at the funnest times, like while pigging out on Rootbeer Floats and Chocolate Frosties at Wendy's or while sparring with our former atheist exchange student via the internet.
Marriage and parenthood are great.  Lately though, marriage has been tough.  My husband is going through something I can't fix for him.  Something dark and private and locked in the recesses of a childhood he can't remember.  Over the past year it has been surfacing and the outcome has been violent.  He's never laid a hand on me.  But I've sure been scared of him lately.  I adore him.  I just don't think I know him so much anymore.  Not this pained man who can't face whatever it is he isn't facing.  I've had to take some hard stands lately.  Ultimately it could mean that I leave.  Not something I take lightly.  Not something I "plan" to do.  Something I am prepared to do if things become, well, volatile. 
That man adores me.  I mean, he comes home from work and asks,  "Why do the guys constantly complain about their wives? I have no complaints, Renee.  You're my dream."  he forgets to add that I am also his maid, chef, personal sex addicted slave and gossip partner.  That's all good.  The exchange is pretty even.  He works hard so I can chase my dream of writing and I work hard at avoiding --- writing.  But I'm getting better.  I love Stan like a girl with a school girl crush even after sixteen years.  Our kids tell us everyday,  "Oh no! Don't you two ever stop kissing? We're going to need therapy you know!"  I sure as hell want to see them seek counsel because they were sickened by our affection for one another over seeking counsel because we were broken.
In our favor is that we pray together.  It creates a deeper trust in something, Someone bigger than ourselves.  Included in that trust is a new perception of my own value.  I realize that I am priceless and making peace at all costs is not peace at all but something unhealthy.  So I take a stand and hold his hand and tell him I am here -- all the way, until I feel I or my children are no longer in a healthy environment.  Then I will stand with him at a distance for the well being of us all.
We'll get through this.  But not without pain.  On the same hand, not without growth.