Son violently threw cat against a wall; husband is defending him and attacking me

[TL;DR: My son violently threw our old, frail cat against a wall. I scolded him for it and my husband stuck up for him and ended up calling me a bitch. He then unilaterally decided that our son was better off at my MIL's house. MIL will not let me see my son.]In just under 24 hours, our otherwise quiet family life has been tossed into total disarray and I have no idea where to turn. Sorry, this is gonna be a long one.My husband ("Hal") and I have three pets: one older dog that he brought to the marriage, a rescue dog we got two years ago, and a very old cat that I adopted while I was in college. The cat has always been a bone of contention in our relationship -- Hal only tolerates her because he doesn't like cats but understands how much she means to me.We have an eight-year-old son ("Malcolm"). He behaves well in school and has had a pretty good start to this school year despite crying himself to sleep every night all summer following the death of his grandpa, my father-in-law.Now my cat does not like Malcolm at all. She is not aggressive and has never lashed out at him, but she does hiss and gets worked up when he is around. We have tried to get her used to Malcolm and after he was born even talked about giving her to relatives, but we decided that as long as she is not violent towards him, we ought to just leave well enough alone.Yesterday afternoon, the three of us were sitting in the living room and Malcolm was talking to us about his day at school. He was a little upset because of something one of his teachers said and we were comforting him. The cat walked into the room and perched herself on the coffee table so she could hiss at Malcolm. Then out of nowhere, Malcolm stood up, walked over to the cat, grabbed her up by one of her front paws, full-on slammed her against the wall, and yelled "STOP IT!" as she tumbled to the floor and bolted out of the room, yowling. When I say slammed I do mean slammed - it was as if he was throwing a basketball at the wall. It was so violent.I was screaming my head off while Hal just sat and watched. I grabbed Malcolm by the shoulders, looked him in the eyes and told him forcefully that it was NEVER okay to use violence against animals. Then I went off to see about the cat, who had gone to hide under the bed. She was really shaken and wouldn't let me get near her at first, but when I got the chance to look her over she seemed okay.I went to see Malcolm in his room to continue the conversation and he was bawling. I reiterated that it was not okay to treat an animal like that and that animals don't understand that kind of treatment. He told me I should just calm down and that it was just a cat. We went back and forth for a while until I got him to settle down and he told me he understood that what he did was wrong.Then Hal came in and sat down on our son's bed. He explained to Malcolm that everything was okay and that I am just sensitive about the cat. This pissed me off because yes I'm sensitive about the cat, but also it's fucking NOT okay to throw a cat at a wall. We went into another room so our son wouldn't hear us arguing. He told me that boys will be boys and that he used to play like that with the family cat growing up. I told him I couldn't believe he was defending such an action and that "boys will be boys" is bullshit.We continued to argue -- and I should mention we very seldom clash over anything -- and were basically screaming at the top of our lungs for a good 30 minutes within earshot of Malcolm, which I regret. I told Hal that children who don't learn how to treat animals often grow up with violent tendencies towards people. He let out a sarcastic laugh and called me a "fucking psychotic bitch". He has never said anything like that to me before. He told me I should be "on my knees thanking him" for agreeing not to give the cat away in the first place. Then he said I was being a bad parent by getting so worked up over "something so trivial as a cat", and then I lost control and had to leave the room.I had no idea what to do with myself as we had never had such a big fight. Hal ended up taking Malcolm over to my MIL's house and I can only imagine how he relayed the events to her (he is a total mama's boy).He returned later last night and told me MIL agreed to keep Malcolm until things got straightened out. I wanted to yell at him some more but I had no energy left. He went to sleep in on the couch and we have only exchanged a couple of words since then. He will presumably be coming home from work soon and I can't even begin to imagine what to say to him.I want to see my son. I want to apologize for becoming hysterical and explain to him that even though I love him with all my heart, I want him to understand that animals have feelings too and must be treated with kindness. But I called MIL about an hour ago and she reported that Malcolm "isn't interested" in seeing me.This is absolutely unbearable and I have no idea what to do. My heart is absolutely broken. I can't eat. Am I in the wrong? Am I being a bad mother/wife? How can the three of us work through what has happened and move on? I feel like a bitch and a bad mother and that because of my emotional attachment to the cat, I have wrecked our family. I want to die.And, to be honest, I'm so traumatized by the way my husband spoke to me that I'm not sure I'll be able to look him in the eyes when he gets home. via /r/Parenting https://ift.tt/2CeEc0b