Originally Posted by OurHouse
This is almost exactly how it played out for me. Steve role-played with me to get my husband on the phone. Unfortuantely, I had to go a bit more hard-bore than that and move to the couch and file D papers. But he VERY RELUCTANTLY agreed to call Steve. And spent 1.5 hours on the phone with him. And emerged with a whole different attitude.

This is a good point, OH. I think that it is also important for a reluctant spouse to understand that the bar has been RAISED and that the status quo is no longer sufficient. I conveyed this same message to my H, that I was not willing to stay in a bad marriage. Not interested. When a spouse picks the bar up off the ground, things usually start changing for the better.

Harley talks about this in the back of Buyers, Renters and Freeloaders in how to change a freeloader into a buyer. He claims he was a freeloader in his relationship with Joyce and she managed to change him!

"It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena.." Theodore Roosevelt

Exposure 101