He is "keeping a lid on it" as others have said because he has to. He sees that his control over you is threatened. Once the above two things are laid to rest, I fear for you. It's quite likely that he is seething inside over having to "play nice." Once he is no longer threatened, all that anger is going to erupt violently. I hope you and the girls are no where near him when that happens.
Possibly. Yes. Historically his raging is taking out on himself. He goes on multi day long benders and comes crawling back full of apologies. That will NEVER happen again. This Jan I came thisclose to not letting him back after his last bender and I told him then and I vow on my children's lives IF that occurs again, he will not cross the threshold of the house- at least not with me in it.
The DV arrest was a terrible thing. He acted very badly. So did I. And the fact that I am a woman and he a man is probably the only reason we were not both arrested. He was trying to leave and I was demanding an answer/a promise from him (insane I know) and reached into his car window to try and unlock the door. He rolled the window up and my arm was there bc I was not letting him leave. I am not a victim making excuses. I am someone in al anon looking at MY role in the chaos and I have a BIG role.
Maybe I should be afraid of his potential for violence, but I am not. He will hurt himself before he'd hurt me is my guess based on the years and years I've known him and watched how he abuses himself (with alcohol).
But, all this aside, I agree that right now he is on "good behavior" and when real life huts him or he gets the DV charges dropped there's a strong likelihood the "act" will stop. Then again, maybe he will decide to take his recovery seriously and the act will be real and not an act. I don't know... None of us do.
I've let resentment eat at me for a long time bc I can't stop focussing on the past and assuming that bc he acted one way for so long and did so many of the same things over and over that he will do the same thing again. I don't have to trust him and believe his words but I do have to stop setting myself up to be angry by assuming nothing will change. Maybe if I spend half as much energy focussing on what I can change in ME vs what he needs to change I'd find a lot of things different.
I am not ignoring his issues-- I'm just choosing to give him a chance to prove himself (not necessarily around me) and more importantly I'm finally choosing to stop obsessing about what he is and isn't doing and focus on ME and my girls and CHOOSE to have a happy life no matter what.
For ex/ I had the BEST afternoon/evening with the girls... He will be back later, I will be in bed and I am spending Sat alone with the girls tomorrow. So, his sleeping here really isn't impacting me and as far as I can tell it's not impacting the girls... When it does, there will be a swift and permanent response.