Husband's health anxiety feels like it's starting to turn controlling over me/the kids

Alt account as he knows my username. I have a lot of background here, sorry, but I will tl;dr at the end. I am 42F, he is 43M. We have three kids aged 12-17. I am diagnosed autistic, he has suspected ADHD. He does the cooking. This was agreed on years ago as I really struggle on a sensory/etc level due to autism. I do other things for the household instead.

I've been with my husband for a long time, and we've had ups and downs like anyone, but we're generally a stable couple. But for years he's had some hang-ups/issues/etc about food and health, to the point where I've had so, so many talks about it with him. They range from concern, to pulling him up on that shit bleeding into how he interacts with the kids and food, to blazing rows because I've been talking to a brick wall for years. He denies he has any issues whatsoever, or pushes it back at me with "I'm trying to be healthy to stay alive for as long as possible, especially for our kids."

As an example from like 14/15 years ago: when our eldest was 2-3 he'd plate her a full meal with three lots of 80g portions of vegetables, because "that's what you're meant to have", and she could never finish it. He'd then get upset and spiral because she wasn't eating the healthy part of her dinner. I had to take him aside and tell him to knock it off and recognise she was a small child and he was giving her massive portions, and had unrealistic expectations. He stopped immediately.

It's been going on a long time. Last year was extremely stressed for us all, with our son being hospitalised with and being extremely unwell with sepsis. At the same time my husband was told his father was dying from cancer, which happened three months later. His health anxiety spiralled out of control so badly that even he couldn't deny it. I had to spell out that having me sit with him until he fell asleep with a stethoscope against his heart to make sure he wasn't having a heart attack (he was having palpitations) was REALLY NOT the sign of someone who was okay.

As life began to stabilise again over the last year, he dialled back that level of anxiety. Plus, we got blood tests, 24 hour heart trace, you name it, we did it to reassure him he was not dying. But last year burned me so badly. I watched our son repeatedly stop breathing in hospital from sepsis, watched my husband completely fall apart and deny he was doing so, had to make sure the kids were handling the impending death of their grandfather, etc. I banned him from driving at one point because he'd just run red lights, completely dissociated, but still say nothing was wrong. I've spent a LOT of energy getting him away from those levels of anxiety, but he's back to his usual baseline now and I am, regrettably, so much less tolerant of it because of last year. Which doesn't feel fair because it was a stressful time, but it is what it is.

He knows I'm at my limit of it. I recently had to have a bone marrow biopsy for a suspected MPN (a blood disorder kinda thing, not life limiting but still a bit shit), and I was lamenting it all to him. And he says "I know how you feel, I know by x blood result, y symptom, and z science blog that I have cancer right now." I lost my shit and told him that isn't the same nor is it helpful, don't diagnose yourself, and I don't want to hear another word about things he "thinks" he's successfully diagnosed because we've done all the legwork with tests and he is fine.

Our youngest daughter is 12, and is diagnosed with ADHD and autism. She's always loved water, and she sensory seeks by crunching on ice cubes. She was going through so much of it we said she should ration it a bit, and give her teeth a break. So now she sucks ice instead most of the time. My husband has made the whole ice thing this whole big deal, and he came to me and said "I think she's using ice to avoid eating." I wholeheartedly disagree; she's has some sensory issues with food, so avoids certain ones, but she always eats breakfast, lunch and dinner, has snacks both healthy and not, is a completely normal weight and BMI, is very active, etc. She has never shown any level of food avoidance unless the food is something she has issues with on a sensory level.

The issue is actually that she is lax on eating fruits and vegetables when offered. This cycles back to the whole thing he did with our eldest, just his anxiety has got worse in the last 15 or whatever years, so now this is where his mind is at. So now he's making food a massive fucking battle and I am so exhausted from all this I don't even know where to start.

I have been stepping in sometimes and overriding, which I REALLY don't like doing because we're all about the united front as parents. But our daughter is getting so antsy and anxious about the ice thing that she's starting trying to play us off each other (ask him, he says no, so she asks me instead: not a thing she's done before because she knows we always back the other on decisions usually), and today when I told her she could have some ice she said "can you check with dad? just make sure?" and I explained I am also her parent, and his opinion is equal to mine, not above it. So, go get the ice, don't be anxious. To top that she's currently running a 38-39c fever so YES, please eat some ice!

This is the same kid who got some blue coloured crisps (Takis, I think?) and he flipped his shit over it, telling her that x chemical in them caused brain tumours in mice, stuff like that. It made her not want to eat the crisps, obviously, when she was so excited originally. I made it clear to him that his reaction was not only completely unnecessary, it was bordering on batshit because one single bag of crisps was not going to harm her. This was last year during his really bad spiral.

This evening our eldest was going to the cinema and she doesn't like wearing coats (also autistic). Instead she wore a few layers and was going to take a thick jumper, a hat, gloves and scarf. The following conversation happened:

Him: go and stand outside for 30 seconds

Her: why?

Him: just do so, please

Me: no, explain yourself, please. Why are you sending her outside?

Her: he probably wants to show me how cold it is to try and force me to wear a coat

Me: which is your choice anyway, you're 17, if you get cold that's on you. To him: please explain?

Him: no actually, I was wanting to make sure she knew how cold it was and had enough layers on, I wasn't going to force a coat (then he left the room)

Youngest daughter: I really hate when dad tells us to just do something like that and won't explain why

Me: me too, which is why I asked him to explain, don't worry

We left it there, but that's the gist of conversations like that. It was an amicable conversation, minus where he got a bit defensive at the end. But oh my god. His anxiety (which he denies) is bleeding out like this, like with the ice thing, like thinking she's avoiding food when I also have eyes/am invested in her and can see she isn't. I have had disordered eating issues when I was much younger, I know what it looks like, and this isn't it. She loves food, she eats well, she eats enough calories, etc etc. She just isn't eating as much fruit and veg as he'd like, so this is what happens. I have said "it's our job to provide it, but their job to eat it or not" to him many, many times.

There just seems like a controlling flavour to everything in the last few months. And I do not like it, nor do I appreciate it. If he wants to deny he's anxious, whatever, but controlling, or spiralling, or making a big deal out of nothing with the kids, etc? My tolerance is already pushed, and this is sending me over.

I've had a lot of thinking about this in the last day, as we have a dear friend who visits frequently and she took me aside and mentioned how controlling it all looks to her, and are things okay. We've been friends for 25 years and she loves us both, and the kids, dearly so would never stir drama, and she's right. It doesn't just look it, it feels it too.

He also did a thing the other night, with me, that was upsetting. A lot of evenings we play a game with friends, and this particular evening I didn't join and played a solo game instead. It's not completely unusual, but also not super common. He was all offish about it after, and when I pulled him up on it he said I had a different "air" about me. I asked him to explain because I didn't understand, and he pivoted it to it was "out of character" from me. I again said I didn't understand, because I didn't see what he was seeing, and he settled on "it's not like you to not join us for games and to play solo." I feel really scrutinised, under a microscope even, and just didn't understand or see the issue, and like I did something wrong.

Then the next night he questioned me drinking a caffeinated cup of tea because "it was close to bedtime and you never normally drink a caffeine drink this close to bed." Again, it seems so unnecessary and feels really needling. It's not a traditional "controlling" kind of thing, but it still feels controlling in a kind of way that's hard to pinpoint. This is the thing our friend saw that made her decide that yes, she did need to talk to me, she'd been mulling doing so a while.

Sorry it took so long to get to the advice bit. What the HELL do I do to approach this, in a new way that might make him see what he's doing? Am I being unreasonable/an arsehole lacking empathy (autistic trope, but something I worry about)? I feel like I am being overkill for saying controlling when I can't even pinpoint the nuance, just that it feels it being questioned like that. With the kids it's more clear-cut, I see that as levels of controlling

Therapy is out of the question for him. We live in the UK and the NHS just don't/won't offer it; I have been literally in crisis and was still turned away. We cannot afford it privately. He also doesn't believe he needs it anyway. So please don't suggest it, I know it's the obvious answer and it can't/won't happen, upsettingly. I know it would help.

I love this man. I have given 30 years of my life to him, since we were literally children. In return he has been supportive, loving, and an equal partner. But right now I am so close to losing my cool, and I know that isn't helpful to him. I know he's not being malicious, and all this shit is coming from a place of love and concern. But it's now becoming too controlling, too stifling, and it's going to fuck up the kids if I don't step in.

I would love to know how to get him to LISTEN to me, to actually LISTEN, about this particular issue. He tells me he's terrified to die and leave the kids, and he's always going on about new advances in medicine, and expressing that "soon we'll beat aging and he won't die" etc. But even that is getting tiring because I'm sick of hearing about it, the NHS isn't going to fund all this fancy shit anyway because it's on its knees already. We won't ever afford it privately.

TL;DR: is my husband has crippling health anxiety, doesn't believe he does, doesn't believe it affects us/the kids, and his behaviours are bleeding into our kids; in particular our youngest daughter. He's started getting quite controlling about things and my tolerance is running low after so many years of fielding this stuff.