TEN RULES FOR DIVORCING A NARCISSIST

Rule 1: Narcissists must win at any cost – Do not expect them negotiate or settle on even the smallest requests. In their eyes they are the victim and you are trying to take everything from them. Winning things like money, assets, and even children or pets are only a part of the need to win. Winning over you gives them far more supply then stuff, because to them winning is power.

Rule 2: Gaming the system to maintain control – This can be the covert tricks they are pulling on you, the lies and smears to hide what they are doing to game the courtroom. It is important that you be prepared for the filing of a great number of motions, requests for more time and delays, and for them to claim emergencies. Expect them to never comply with the judge’s orders. Narcissists have no issues lying on sworn documents, even about things that you can easily prove not to be true; this strategy is a tactic to run up your legal bill trying to prove that they are lying.

Rule 3: Keep composure and charm the judge – The judge is watching both of your performances in the courtroom. A common trick narcissist pull before a hearing is to do something: make false accusations to wear you down, or to make you angry or sad. While you struggle in the courtroom to fight the lies, they stay composed and reasonable, so the judge sees you as the crazy one and them as the reasonable one.

Rule 4: File endless motions – To wear down your legal team and judge to distract from what they are really doing and from what is really going on.

Rule 5: Create false accusations – Rinse repeat – expect them to attack the things that you are most likely to protect. If you are a great mom or dad, they will accuse you of neglect and abuse. Do not be fooled, they don’t even care if you are a good parent, they just need to be the better parent. They often fight for the children, not because they want them, but because you do. Remember rule one – they must win.

Rule 6: No empathy will ever be shown – Narcissists cannot look at how their actions will affect you; nor do they care, because all they can care about is their own point of view and how to win so you can lose. I heard somewhere that during a divorce you can expect them to indulge in what military strategists call a ‘scorched-earth’ policy which is to leave nothing left standing in his or her wake and take no prisoners. From personal experience, I can say this was my ex-husband’s goal.

Rule 7: Run up the divorce bill with frivolous false claims – The game here is to outspend you and ruin you financially. A fact a lawyer recently shared with me is the number of divorce cases where the narcissist’s legal bill gets run up and then they refuse to pay. Much like s/he has no interest or responsibility to pay you anything, in their eyes, the lawyer didn’t do his job if ‘he’ needs to pay them, so they often skip out on payment forcing the lawyers to incur additional costs to fight them for the balance. I saw this first hand with my last narcissist. He owed dozens of attorney’s money. His tactic was to run up the bill, blame them for not doing the job, not pay them and then hire the next lawyer to jump in without any intention to pay them either. It’s a game for them.

Rule 8: Never walk away from the battle – The narcissistic injury that occurs during a divorce is something that comes back like a festering wound that never heals. If you have children with this narcissist it is more than likely that they will keep on using the court system to resolve any real disputes, as well as to create new ones. Often the reasons are a lack of communication, or not sharing the children’s schedule and activities or appointments with the other parent; these are reasonable requests to a normal divorced couple, not in a narc-war.

Rule 9: Actions really do speak louder than words – Don’t blindly listen to what your spouse says. Watch what your spouse does. Don’t trust promises that they will “do the right thing”. My goal here is not to scare you, but to make it clear that divorcing a narcissist is not like a normal divorce. Normally it’s ok to assume the best, but in this case, you must prepare for the worst. Your future and your children’s futures depend on you being strong and educated.

Rule 10: If you are finding out that your spouse has lied to you, remember that! – They have only just begun as the lies to the court will be done under oath and they simply don’t care if they get caught or charged with perjury. They believe they can charm themselves out of anything and judges are used to “he said/she said” lies. Your best tactic here is to document everything; you bring the proof to dispel the lies. Judges love this because it takes it out of the “he said/she said” world into reality. Ask the advice of your lawyer before spending endless hours proving something that will not matter. A lawyer will point you in the right direction to pull evidence that can be used.

Read Tracy A Malone’s Best Selling Book on Divorcing Your Narcissist

Understanding the divorcing a narcissist game

Narcissists hate to lose at anything and everything becomes a game. If you haven’t seen this yet, stay tuned. Divorce will bring this out in them.

The victim card is the first game you can expect
Regardless of who instigated the divorce it, causes a narcissistic injury. They cannot be responsible for the failure of a marriage, so they must start “operation smear campaign” to blame you, call you crazy and accuse you of everything they are doing or have done. The narcissist knows time is of the most importance to convince your family and friends of the terrible things they have endured while married to you, so expect them to try to get to them.

This tactic of getting to your family and friends may very well be covert in the messaging strategy. They might call your friends and family telling them that you have been drinking and that they are so concerned for you. They aren’t directly telling them you are a drunk, they are building a dialogue that comes across as caring, but also makes them the victim of your drunken behaviors.

Get to your family and friends early and prepare them to hear from your soon-to-be-ex partner. Listen closely to your conversation with them to see if the narcissist has gotten to them already and be cautious of over-sharing until you have absolute conviction that they are loyal to you only. Expect to lose friends, neighbors, and possibly family, as the line in the sand gets drawn early and often without your knowledge. Narcissistic people have been planning for this since the day they met you. They have identified which of your family and friends buy their bullshit and which ones will always be true to you. Proceed with caution and always be on alert as to whom you can trust until they have proven their loyalty.

A nugget of truth makes everything so much more believable
My ex-husband told our friends that “I was so distraught that I was threatening to kill myself.” While that was true, he took it one step further telling them I was using this as a tactic to get him back again. I remember a conversation with a close family friend of his; she was accusing me of using this tactic to hold onto someone I needed to let go of. The whole thing confused me, because I really did want to die that night. If not for the suicide hotline that one night, I would be dead. It wasn’t a tactic, it was the bottom of the bottom and it was turned into a weapon to use against me, to call me unstable and crazy.

The next narcissist in my life (ex-boyfriend) told our mutual friends not to believe my story of how he had me arrested because I was a such a good storyteller and that I was making it all up. I guess I am a good storyteller, yet this was used against me and that friend never believed the true version of that day; he is no longer in my life. The nugget of truth in their stories can make the lies they are going to embellish the truth with that much more powerful.

The need to win no matter what the cost
The laws of splitting assets and separating lives is the purpose of a legal divorce. Not when it comes to a narcissist that demands the attention of being the victim. Regardless of the facts, their need to win becomes a life or death fight. Expect no middle ground, no compromises, no negotiations, no mediation and no empathy for your needs or the needs of your children.

Proving themselves right is their goal and using tactics like outright pathological lying is sadly more the narc-normal then trying to make an easy and civil break. Understanding that truth does not have a seat at the narcissistic divorce table is hard to accept, but a reality you must understand and prepare for.

WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW BEFORE YOU START THE PROCESS

Hire a divorce attorney that understands the battle of the narcissist in court
Let me be clear here, do not try to divorce a narcissistic person without the right attorney. Do not listen to your spouse as s/he says they will do things amicably; that is just a trojan horse keeping you unprepared for the battle you are heading into. You need to get the best attorney possible to protect your assets, your children and your future. Attempting to do this without a lawyer will put you at great risk because you are unfamiliar with the process, tricks and games that will be pulled on you. This may be the most important thing to learn, so learn it early. The person you married is not the person you are divorcing. Get rid of any preconceived notion that s/he would never hurt you.

While the idea of finding a lawyer that specializes in narcissists is a great idea, most attorneys do not advertise a specialty of “understanding the narcissistic abuse” so that task will lead to many disappointing calls. Instead, seek out recommendations from friends and put calls into as many attorneys as you can to ask them some basic questions.

Contrary to the logic that hiring a “shark attorney” is a good idea, one must remember that narcissists love conflict, they love a battle and they will do anything to win no what matter the cost. Most shark attorneys also love a good battle, so unless you have unlimited money, you need to find a lawyer that can balance the crazy demands with logic and the tools of law to stop the narcissistic divorce train from running you into the financial graveyard. Your lawyer needs to understand when to push the button of law and when not to react. Remember the narcissist’s goal it to get you to react. Your lawyer needs to be your rock.