What do you do with your pink elephant?

[snowglobe]

Ladies and Gents, while I’m relatively calm, I want to pick your brain on how to approach a subject that has been on my mind.
After we came back from the trip, the things went bazaar for a while. I pulled away and he trew the white towel asking for divorce. As per usual, I clang and begged for another chance to make things work. He said he had given up and that I was the one who needed to fix myself and the way I treated him?. Disgusted with myself, I fell back into the old patterns of care taking to keep things relatively calm for the children and to keep him supplying much needed resources for my children.
At the same time he decided that he was “fat”, he suffers from body dismorhia, resulting from many years of childhood abuse of being made fun of, ridiculed, belittling by his mother. Anything coming across as. It perfect he being treated in the same manner. All I can do in counter weight and question the things he says to the children. I hope I’m doing an ok job with this in so far. As I would much rather have healthy and alive children then the ones with eating disorder. In sum, he went on a strict diet, 300-500 cal per day, almost 6 feet, this young healthy man is starving himself off to look “perfect”. He is also trying to inforce “no carb” diet on my parents and the kids, selling as his concern for everyone’s well being. It’s understanding, I can imagine how hard it gets to starve oneself with everyone else around him eating a healthy balanced diet. I have to sneak food like pasta, pizza to my children to make sure that they are getting an adequate nutrition for their developing bodies. My parents are both on the heavier side, they love food and enjoy it a little too much. He is also going after them, grabbing every single food item entering the kitchen, inspecting and commenting on the content. It’s mildly annoying.
The real meat of my problem with him, is the reoccurring argument around the house. He wants to sell it and supposedly buy another one, bigger and better. I am opposed of the sale, unless we conditionally buy another property. My uBPDh has control issue, anger issue, there isn’t any respect or trust. I wholeheartedly believe that if he will be in a bad mood, or won’t be able to find a “castle” he envisions, he won’t buy. The next time some will promise “let’s get rich quick schime he will invest our “house money” and loose. Just like everything else we had until now. That public company that he became a part of, diluted his shares 1:30 ratio. He officially lost all of his initial investment and then some, as the shares aren’t sellable. He is down on his mood. His relationships with his partner are also deteriorating, as the partner isn’t buying into uBPDh hysteria. The two most common conversations I hear are:” I hate my partner, I will never do another business with him, I want out” and “come April/May I’m selling the house, then wait for a while for the prices to drop (although the real estate market is currently depressed in our country, no one has a christal ball to know for sure) and then buy a castle”. Few things here- I came from a severe poverty, it’s a huge trigger for me. At the age 15-17 yo I had to share a bed with my uBPD mother, I don’t need to explain what kind of hell it was. There was a lot of emotional and physical abuse, the memories still hunt me to this day. I won’t sacrifice my children’s future or comfortable lifestyle to satisfy uBPDh’s ego. I told him numerous times, he claims that if I won’t sell he will leave, divorce me and take his half. I’m growing to dispize him. This man has zero interest for what I want, what’s best for his children or anyone else. All he sees is “all or nothing”. So far in our life together “nothing” is more of a common thread. The problem is, he doesn’t learn from his failures. Somehow people always scam him for business, money, resources and he still doesn’t learn.
Because he isn’t able to control anything else in his life, “I’m selling the house, do you understand?.” Is answered every time.
“I’m thinking of buying gym equipment, but I will keep it at work, as I’m selling the house”, or “I won’t do anything this summer/spring, as I’m selling the house”.
I want to scream on top of my guts as I’m sick and tired of this. I don’t mind sacrificing for him, if it’s so important, upgrading or downgrading, as long as we own matrimonial property. I’m so sick of this, his disregard for my wants and needs, I’m also sick of being the only one who is making all the changes and sacrifices. When something happens, and I want to share with him, he shuts me up minimizing my achievements. Anything to do with psychology which is my field of study gets shut down also “I don’t want to hear that, I’m uninterested”. He only wants to talk about himself or what he is interested in. Our sex life is inconsistent and also all about him. His timing, his wishes. There is never any intimacy on my accord or the way that pleases only me. I’m deeply dissatisfied. Knowing him and his mouth, I’m more inclined to keep silent. As we “have already moved to his place of work” (not, you remember that story, he was laid off by the same public company that scammed him for his shares and money, “your mother is moving out upon our return back home” (my mom is home, he hasn’t mentioned anything after she came back. Poof, poof, poof.
How do I make it clear to him, once and for all not to rely on the money from the house and that the only way I will sign the sale papers is if we conditionally buy something before hand.
Your advice is much appreciated while it’s relatively calm down here

[Notwendy]

How do I make it clear to him, once and for all

Honestly - I don't know. Your H does and thinks a lot of things that aren't based on reason or clarity. The problem is- no matter how "clear" reality is, if someone is driven by emotions- and feelings are facts to them- then they are going to think what they think. We don't have the power to change someone else's thinking.

It pretty much comes down to your own boundaries and what steps you are willing to take to not go along with his wishes. When he doesn't get his way, he threatens divorce and you default to appeasing him. Each time he does this, he sees that all he has to do is threaten divorce to get his way. It works for him.

This is the bottom line for you- no divorce no matter what. This is actually your boundary. A boundary is a choice we make, sometimes a difficult choice but it is still a choice. Your choice is that, no matter what, the most important thing to you is to stay married to this man, no matter what he does or says. I'm not judging this boundary- we all have our deal breakers, the boundaries that we will not compromise on. This one is yours.

Since your field of study is psychology, you are familiar with the idea of cost/benefit to how humans make choices. They will continue to make the choice of a high personal cost decision, because the benefit to them is greater than the personal cost of the decision. Although your marriage has had a high personal cost for you, staying married to this man is the more important choice. So when he threatens divorce, you then will do whatever you can to stop this.

I don't know if he means it or not. He might or he might not, but you aren't going to test that out. It's too much of a risk for you. No judgement here- we all have our priorities, our choices. Some of us make choices that others would not find agreeable- but we need to be who we are.

Changing our behavior in a relationship is risky. The other person may not like it. Then they have to make a choice about how valuable the relationship is to them. They can choose to accept the boundary, because they value the relationship more- or they may choose to leave. From your posts, it doesn't seem you are willing to take this step and this is a strong value for you.

[Cat Familiar]

It seems that your husband frequently doesn't follow through with his threats. And he doesn't seem to have "staying power" to follow through with other things either. He seems to have a gambler's mentality--that he's looking for a quick, easy, high payoff.

That said, going through a divorce takes a lot of consistency and work. There's a lot of hurdles to cross, a lot of effort to put into it. It doesn't happen overnight. Do you really think he's got enough focus to pursue that, or is it just an idle threat, which as Notwendy points out gets you back in line?