For me, first I had to identify why he was doing it and to that, what I really needed to know was why I was the one he was doing it to.

Lundy Bancroft's book showed me it had absolutely nothing to do with me and that I was in reality doing the best I could in a bad situation. It was the book that set me free.

Even now I am shaking with inner pain reliving the nightmare of not just those nights when it seemed he lost control yet actually planned it all (to the point he would get a babysitter for our child, not to protect her, but so she couldn't be a witness against him) but also all those impossible verbal assaults and psychological mind games not to mention the isolation, the theft of my career, and assaults on me emotionally as well as the thinly veiled threats of what would happen to me and our daughter if I even thought of leaving.

There's an example of dinner time at this link from Lundy's book that explains briefly why they can get away with so much.

Mom, Dad and their children are having dinner on a Wednesday night. Dad is snappy and irritable, criticizing everybody during the meal, spreading his tension around like electricity. When he finishes eating, he leaves the table abruptly and heads out of the room. His ten-year-old daughter says. “Dad, where are you going? Wednesday is your night to wash the dishes.“  Upon hearing these words, Dad bursts into flames, screaming, “You upstart little shit, don’t you dare try to tell me what to do! You’ll be wearing a dish on your face!” He grabs a plate off the table, makes like he is going to throw it at her, and then turns away and smashes it on the floor. He knocks a chair over with his hand and storms out of the room. Mom and the children are left trembling, the daughter bursts into tears. Dad reappears in the doorway and yells that she’d better shut up, so she chokes off her tears, which causes her to shake even more violently. Without touching a soul, Dad has sent painful shock waves through the entire family. We move ahead now to the following Wednesday. Dinner passes fairly normally, without the previous week’s tension, but Dad still strolls out of the kitchen when he finishes eating. Does a family member remind him that it’s his turn to wash the dishes? Of course not. It will be many, many months before anyone makes that mistake again. ... Dad’s scary behaviour has created a context in which he won’t have to do the dishes anytime he doesn’t feel like it, and no one will dare take him to task for it. ... The abusive man gains power.”

Understanding why they do it and how they can do it is what I really needed at the time. I can't possibly recommend his books highly enough.