Is this really what marriage is supposed to be like?

I'm 35 years old and have been married for 10 years to a man 8 years older than me. We have 3 children. My marriage has never been a walk in the park, but I am really feeling like I want out, but also feeling guilty for feeling this way. My parents divorced when I was a young child, my mom hasn't dated since and my father has been married 4 times. So, I've never had a great example of marriage. My husband is of the belief that everything that happens is normal and it's just stuff you deal with, I'm just not sure how much longer I can deal.

My husband is very mean and hurtful with his words, to me and to our children. It's a daily thing for him to get so mad at at least one of us that he tells us we're an idiot, calls us stupid, pathetic, etc. He has his moments when he can be very nice and fun to be around, but then he flips a switch and is so nasty. I graduated with my teaching degree after going back to school a few years ago, and I'm having a very difficult time finding a job. My husband has told me that I will "suck as a teacher", and that I'm not getting jobs because I'm so insecure and people can see that through my "facade" and I am screwing up interviews by not selling myself. Then the next moment he will be very understanding and say he's proud of me for trying so hard. Then he'll make a biting remark about how screwed we are going to be financially and how he's going to have to be the one to make all of our money because I obviously can't get a job.

He also has always had several social activities that he would get involved in and is often gone until 2am or later on the weekends. If I ever protest about any plans he has, he always says "you're just jealous because you don't have any friends". However, when I try to do something social myself he always tries to sabotage it in some way, either before I go so I can't go, or he'll constantly text me while I'm gone and figure out a reason that I need to come home. It's very rare that I do anything at all, but recently I've made several teacher friends and have gotten together with them a couple of times this summer, and he is always angry with me about going. The other day, a friend of mine invited us to swim and she and I were going to work on some projects for her classroom. He refused to go, as he wants nothing to do with any friends or family of mine, so I took our kids and went without him. He was angry and said that it was "weird" that I wanted to go do projects and that we didn't need to go to her pool because we have passes to the local pool.

In addition to this, I have caught him talking to other women several times over the years. I would find emails, phone records, instant messages, and webcam chats that he had screenshot. Many of these conversations were of the sexual nature and I can't count the number of times that I've found emails that women have sent him of nude photos of themselves. He always gets mad at me for "snooping" and says I'm insecure and he's done nothing wrong. For many years he also never wanted to have sex with me, maybe once every 4-6 months, and would turn me down immediately if I started to try to be intimate. I get attention from men, always have had random men approach me to tell me how beautiful I am and people often think I'm in my early to mid 20's. So it's not like I've let myself go and that's why his attraction wasn't there. Though, he seems to want to be sexual more frequently now (about once a month or every 3 weeks, though he did go from about February-late April this year without wanting to touch me or be touched), he will often ,make comments about how I've gained weight (I started working out and built a little more muscle in my butt and thighs) and my butt is getting big. He's said on more than one occasion that he believes he's the more attractive one of the two of us and believes that ALL women are attracted to him.

That leads me to some embarrassing moments that have also caused us trouble recently. My husband has his own business, but has substitute taught for extra income for the last few years. The students really do seem to like him and the teachers as well. However, he has told me of instances where a certain female student has texted him about watching a TV show and how he felt sorry for her because her boyfriend treated her badly and wanted her to have a threesome. I was appalled that he would talk to a high school student about her sex life, and I told him that he could get in to trouble for that' He said that she was over 18, so he wasn't doing anything wrong and that he just felt sorry for her and was trying to help her out and be someone she could rely on and talk to. Also, whenever we go through a drive-thru to get treats at a popular hang-out for some of his students, he will always look to see who he knows and then call them over to the car to chat. It's always a female. I have no problem with him saying hi to students in public, but to seek them out and call them over, I find it embarrassing and a little creepy.

That's just a quick snapshot of what has been wrong with our marriage. I just don't know how much more I can take. I should also mention that 5 years ago, the lack of intimacy really got to me and I ended up seeing another man for a month. Once my husband found out, he finally agreed to go to therapy, which he had always refused, but made me confess what I had done at an "intervention" with his siblings. I truly felt horrible for what I did, even though I had caught him talking to women so often, I hated that I stopped to that level and with someone he knew of. I have never before or since talked to another man and I did everything he wanted to show him how sorry I was. He still makes frequent comments about it to this day, calling me a lying and shady person. We only attended therapy for 4 months before he refused to go back, I also found out that the entire time he had been talking to a woman in another state who had been sending him photos. The last email I've found was 2 years ago, but I no longer have access to any of his accounts.

At this point, I don't know what to do. If I can't get a teaching job, then I must continue to deal with this, I won't have a choice. But I am having such a difficult time letting go of the mean things he does and feeling like we all have to walk on egg shells so often because of his moods. Whenever I say anything back to him or become defensive he says that he can't stand me, wishes he had never married me, wishes I would get away from him, and he can't believe he's put up with me for so long. Yet, at the same time he doesn't believe that we should ever separate because it'd be detrimental for our children. He has told me numerous times that this is normal family and marriage drama and that I'm too dramatic and a big child to be bothered by it. I've asked him to go back to therapy for years and he said he will never go back because there is nothing about him that needs improving and he feels that the mean things he says are necessary and actually helpful.

Again, that's just a snapshot. I could write a novel about the things that he says and does that seem very extreme to me. However, without having a good example of a marriage to go by, I wonder if what he says is true and maybe I am over dramatic? Maybe this is how marriages are and these are just things we need to work through or deal with. My mind is a jumbled mess trying to figure out what is right and what is wrong. Anytime anything bothers me that he has said or done, I'm told that I'm overreacting or psycho, or delusional, or insecure. I can't remember a time when my feelings have ever been validated. When I'm sad or upset with someone, 9 times out of 10 he will tell me I have no right to feel upset or be sad or mad. Only when my grandmother (very much like a mother to me) died last year has he actually seemed to feel sympathy for me. Though, 3 days later he yelled at our oldest for not finding his shoes and threw the shoes at him and called him stupid, I told him that it was not ok to do that, we had an argument, and the next day I was crying about my grandmother and told him I could use a hug, to which he replied "hug yourself, you're nothing but a spoiled brat that doesn't deserve a hug". Even at her funeral, as I stood an sobbed, he refused to touch me, which my family noticed and they were all very bothered by that.

I hope that this wasn't too hard to follow. Writing this, I feel like maybe I am just a needy, annoying person, as I've been told. I just don't know what to do or think about this.