What did it take to make your DH see the light?

[MsRabble]

Ok, I'm getting desperate here. H refuses to talk about things, is in total denial he's done anything wrong or that there is anything to talk about, even if I am telling him I want to talk. Slight history of EA and controlling behaviour (have started other threads on this...).

He's trying to bully me into staying with him, at the expense of the happiness of both of us, so I can't see the point. Everyone around him I'm sure can see the damage he's doing, and what he will potentially lose if he carries on (us, and the DC as a family). Even the odd person who is very gently nudging him to say you need to sort this out, say he is in total denial and not budging a single inch. Nothing at the moment can make him see the light. He's too proud to take anyone's advice.

So please please can you tell me, if you managed to work things out with a very stubborn partner, how did you do it? Did you have to leave to get them to listen? Counselling? Get his or mutual friends on side to talk to him? I don't want to leave and it will be extremely costly to me if I do and really is the last resort (I'm not in a position where I can just ask him to move out for a while since we are abroad, or I would do just that), so clutching at straws and desperate for ideas. Although leaving is becoming a closer reality

msRabble I can't remember if I said it as such but he realised ... in the end. (MIL realised a lot lot earlier! :) I do wonder if she said something to him ... suspect she did not actually, suspect this was just him working it out).

I have to say I think my husband was in a small minority of people who do wake up and change. An even smaller minority wake up and change before the damage is too far gone.

In his case was it bullying? No, I don't think so but he was playing out some hostility games which were a hangover from some time ago. I understood that but in the end couldn't live with it ... also have does have a few aspie traits (several diagnoses people with autism in his extended family) though he is not aspie himself. But being stonewalled and blocked and undermined and having eveyrthing you say questioned relentlessly destroys a lot of the pleasure in life. For reasons I won't go into here, I could identify what was going on and not take it personally which helped.

You are in a different situation though.

My H knows it would be very difficult for me to leave so is using that as another way to manipulate me.

My husband was just an idiot on the emotional level (was. Not now). Yours knows what the score is and is using the difficulty leaving to deliberately make it harder for you. That implies consciously being aware of what he is doing. I think you're in a different situation and sadly, a nastier one. If he is deliberately keeping you there, he is playing games and that means his love towards you is at best compromised; at worst he doesn't love you, he's using you. You don't deliberately manipulate people you really do love for your own ends.

I'm afraid this aspect kind of changes things. Even with someone who's being dense as heck right then, but basically loves their partner, it's really hard to change. When someone is manipulating things, there's no reason to change unless it is in their own interests to do so, or unless there is a spark of a genuinely decent person deep down. Either way, it -will- take a massive change in the status quo, which means shakign his world up. If he's someone who puts his own selfinterest first, there's no future. If he's a basically decent person who's started down the wrong route but could still turn around then ... just maybe. But he won't change unless the status quo changes and he's forced to adjust.