Don't kid yourself about him being a good father. Kids are impressionable, and they're picking up on everything he is doing and saying, including the violence and lack of respect for you.
You have a choice. I can't tell you how to make it, but it does exist. Stay if you want, but if you do it probably is all downhill from here. Your kids will probably learn to resent you for putting them in this situation, or have no respect for you because that's what you and their father have taught them. Even if they don't resent you, they will resent the situation and that this was the childhood that they were forced to live.
My mother is married to my verbally abusive step-father, and has made many of the same excuses that you have for staying with him. I had a miserable childhood from when she married him on, and that was without any physical abuse. I don't really resent it anymore, but it hurt me a lot for a long time. This is what you are doing to your children, and they might not be able to escape the pain they have been taught to feel.
You're not doing this to yourself alone. I'm not trying to guilt-trip you, I just want you to recognize that your children are not ok with this situation, and that you are as much party to it as your husband.
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