Can a controlling partner change?

Some do, and it is dishonest to say otherwise. But it is rarer than people hope, slower than people expect, and it never comes from being asked. The people who run programmes for controlling partners in the UK will tell you that the question is whether this person is actually doing the work, and that has a recognisable shape.

Why it is hard

Control works, which is why it is hard to give up. The person using it gets their way, gets their moods managed, gets to be right. Giving that up means living with disagreement, with a partner who has their own life, with being wrong sometimes. It is a real loss and most people do not choose it unless they have to, and sometimes not even then.

There is also a problem of belief. Most people who control a partner do not think they do. They think they are being provoked, that they have a bad temper, that their partner is difficult or unfaithful or overreacting. Change begins with giving up those stories, and that is often the part that never happens.

What change requires

Across the programmes that have studied this, the same conditions keep appearing.

• Ownership without conditions. "I did that and it was wrong," not "I did that because you…" The moment a reason appears, the ownership has gone.
• Recognising the pattern, not the incident. Apologising for the worst night is easy. Recognising the monitoring, the rules, the money, the years of it, is the real thing.
• Help from people who know this area. Not anger management, which treats a symptom, and not couples counselling, which is unsafe where control is present. Specialist programmes, usually running for months.
• Changing when it costs them. Letting you go out and not sulking. Hearing no and leaving it there. Giving you access to money and not asking what it was for.
• Not holding the change over you. If going to the programme becomes a reason you now owe them, or a thing they bring up when you are unhappy, it has become another form of control.
• Time. Months, held across the ordinary stresses of life, not weeks after a crisis.

What is not change

A good patch after you nearly left. Tears, promises, gifts. Agreeing to therapy and then not going, or going and reporting that the therapist agrees with them. Being gentler while still deciding everything. Changing the behaviour you objected to while a new one appears somewhere else. These are all common, and they all feel like change from inside, especially when you want it to be.

The pattern that many people describe is a cycle: pressure builds, something happens, there is remorse and a honeymoon, and then the pressure starts again. If you have been round that cycle more than twice, that is information.

What this might mean for you

You cannot make your partner change, and the attempt tends to cost a great deal. What you can do is decide what you would need to see, write it down, and watch over a set period rather than deciding fresh every time there is a good week. The free module Real change or performed change helps you set that out. If something in them has started to shift, If your partner starts to look at themselves looks at what to watch for and what to protect while you do.

Watching for change does not make you safer in the meantime. If anything on this page has made you think about your own safety, the assessment begins with it. National Domestic Abuse Helpline 0808 2000 247 (24 hours), Men's Advice Line 0808 801 0327, Galop (LGBT+) 0800 999 5428. If you are reading this about your own behaviour, Respect is on 0808 802 4040.