Okay, honey, I'm going to put my hands up and say that I'm going to go against the flow here and feel free to shoot me if I get it wrong but, IMO, the two of you can learn to grow together or, at the very least, separate on amicable terms that will do the least damage to either of you and the dc.
You've said I could see how unhappy he was when he was little, he didnt have a good childhood,so maybe he has to learn how to be in a normal relationship. IMO you're not far wrong in saying this.
It seems to me that, as much as you are trying to understand why he is like he is, you are also looking at your own childhood and trying to work out how you've come to find yourself ostensibly trapped in a relationship that you've come to realise isnt 'normal'.
Others are seeing an abusive man, pure and simple. And, yes, exercising, or trying to exercise, control over another against their will is purely and simply abuse.
But I'm not certain that he's incapable of change. He earns money regularly and, from what you've said, he puts it into the house - which, I seem to recall, you've said is 'beautiful'.
You've also said he's a good father. He engages with the dc, takes them out to various events and, presumably, spends some quality time with them in the home.
I suspect that he told you over and over that he was a 'giving' person because he was trying to compensate for what he lacked in his childhood; namely, loving and caring parents/adults that 'gave' to him. And when you met him you were emotionally needy because no-one in your childhood 'gave' to you. Can you see the mutual attraction?
When you met him you were only 17 compared to his 26 years. Before he met you he may have met a number of other women who he tried to 'give' to, but who weren't prepared to 'receive'. Suddenly, he meets you and you were only too happy to be the object of his, of anyone's, affections because you had a yawning gap inside of you that wanted to receive 'love' and, for you, love was about firm boundaries, it was about receiving a surfeit of 'love', it was about revelling in the fact that somone cared about you enough to tell you, or show you, that they 'loved' you and, once you felt sure of his love, you gave yourself up to feeling safe by being 'his'.
For him, 'loving' mean 'providing'. Providing a nice home, (probably the nicest house/home on the street/road) for his 'beloved' and for his dc; providing all of the material goods for them that he didn't have in his childhood and by 'material goods' I'm not talking about clothing and stuff. I'm talking about the edifice, the external view, the impression that anyone seeing his house and coming into it and looking at the surroundings, the furniture etc, will have of it - and him as a man of substance.
And because of his own insecurities, he needed to feel that he was in control of the 'castle' that he built to house his 'queen' and, as time went by, he also found that he needed to be in control of his queen because he knew that if his queen left his castle he'd be left with a house of cards that would fall to the ground.
You've said that you feel scared of him; you've also said that he's never lifted a hand against you. You've started to have 'the conversation' with him, you've said that you've talked more to him about the way you feel about his controlling ways than you've ever done before - and he has not responded by being violent.
Could it be that your fear of him is in your mind? And that your fear of him is linked to what we've touched on before - the man in the photo? The man that had the power to terrify you so much that you've suppressed your memories of living with him and your dm?
Have you transposed your fear of that ogre of your childhood onto the father of your children? Is this why, throughout your relationship, you have been scared of him? They may have many similarities in their behaviour, but they are not the same man.
You see, honey, it seems to me that you hold all the cards. I mean what the fuck would he do if you walked out and left him with 7 dc? And what the fuck would he do if you decided that wanted him to leave - given the number of dc, I would be quietly confident that a Court would have no hesitation in awarding you the right to remain in the family home at least until the youngest dc was 18 and, of course, he'd have to pay child support.
And, of course, your trump card is that should he threaten you or lift a finger to you, or in anyway act in a violent manner, all you have to do is dial 999 and the police will remove him from the house - and if you're in a situation where you can't physically call the police then, depending on their ages, you've got 7 little helpers who can.
At the moment he's doing the 'I feel so bad I'm fixing to die by not eating' number. Take no notice, don't pander to him. Take the view that he's an adult and if he doesn't want to eat, that's his problem. Give it a day or two and you'll find him stuffing cheese sarnies down his neck in the middle of the night - if he hasn't stuffed himself with Maccy D's during the ay.
Keep talking to him; keep laying your reasonable demands on him - start with the laptop. Tell him you want one of your very own; one you can use to go online WHENEVER you want to browse the net and visit any sites you want.
Tell him you want to live as other couples do - in a happy and rewarding union where mutual love means mutal enchancement and enrichment and tell him that if he can't get his brain round that, and do his utmost to meet your goals halfway, your relationship cannot continue.
Tell him your idea of a loving relationship doesn't extend to him dictating when you have sex. Tell him that you have the right to say no and that 'no' is exactly what you're going to be saying until he gets his act together and either has a vasectomy or uses condoms.
Tell him you intend to go out to see who you want and, subject only to the welfare of the dcs, whenever you want. And tell him that if he doesn't like it, he'd better get used to it because that's the way it's going to be from now on.
In short - and I'm fully aware that word's somewhat of a misnomer given how long this reponse is - tell him that his years of calling the shots are over and, as you've got your finger on the trigger now, he's best advised to bin his controlling ways and start behaving as if he does truly love you otherwise it'll be 'on your bike' for one of you.