My H has a temper as well, as he has gotten older, its been slightly better, but it doesn't take much to turn him into instant assh**e, just add situation. Traffic, work, anyone messing with his money, or not kow-towing to his immediate wish could do it.He can be patient, but it is not long lasting patience . He can also be quite kind and generous And it doesn't always have to be a big deal to set it off either- When we were sep, we had to go to the bank to get something notorized.The girl there said that they could not notorize that kind of document, and while I was annoyed, cause we had to wait a half hour to find this out, I knew we could go up the stree to have it done. Well,H starts ranting that he was a customer and a notary is a notary, and maybe he wasn't getting all the service he was told he was gonna get, ... P.S. we end up walking out of the bank, which was pretty quiet by now, and H says loudly "stupid b*tch. this f-ing bank sucks". I was embarrassed to say the least. Hey,I've gone off on people in public too when I've been wronged, but this was way over the top. I used the drive-up window for a few weeks after that.
Lots of times these guys don't even know what is amking them angry, and lash out at anything. I got used to what levels of anger he had and when to just go into another room for a while, or when I could try to help him with it. When we were first married, he struck me 2 seperate times and tried to choke me once(we were living upstairs from his folks they heard a commotion and pulled him off me-that was the last time he ever did that again) We were 18 at the time and neither one of us was probably equipped to deal with marriage, much less tempers and his jealousy/control issues.
My concern here is that you and the kids need an escape route, if he gets too angry. Letting family members know of this problem is good, and them witnessing it is better, so all can help if possible. So many people say nothing about the anger and sometimes it escalates and no one can figure out what happened.
My H has a stressful job, and I had to learn over the years to distinguish what was job stress venting anger and I am just being a ass*ole anger. This is not somthing i think needs to be part of a marriage dynamic. Please help him get help, and take care of yourself. Your M will never improve if the only way is you shutting your mouth so that he will not be angry.