He is an abusive alcoholic. He will say, and do, whatever he feels it will take to keep you under his control, and under his thumb... and not a person on your own.
YOU have every right to be YOU!
Do not hate yourself. He has had a lot of practice in how to get under your skin. By comparison, you are still extremely new to the art of standing up for yourself and detaching from his insanity. And trust me, he will give you
a lot of practice in your detaching, because the more you detach the more he'll try to reel you in. You are getting healthier, and he can't have that.
He is afraid - yes, afraid of court, but he's also afraid of YOU. He's afraid of the person you are becoming, and afraid of what else lies around the corner, because the healthier you get the less control he'll have, and he does NOT want to lose that control.
He is scared to death of YOU.
And he should be. Because every day you spend working on yourself is another day you're not spending worrying about him and his problems, or running around in circles trying to prevent him from experiencing the consequences of his actions.
It takes time, and practice, and determination. There are many opportunities to stumble along the way - just keep picking yourself back up again, and moving forward, and you will get where you want to go.
As long as you keep moving forward, there is NOTHING he can do to stop you, the new you, the you that you want to be, from becoming a reality.