Divorce is hard. No matter how much goodwill there is with your ex , you still have to navigate a huge web of complex feelings, thoughts and finding your way to co-parent your children and untangle yourselves financially.
Throw in a narcissist and everything gets a whole lot trickier. There are complex emotional dynamics and often high conflict situations to navigate. It is essential that you equip yourself with the right legal and support team at the earliest time to ensure the path is as smooth as possible.
What is narcissism?
Whilst narcissism exhibits itself in different forms, one thing is for certain – divorcing one means tackling what is already one of the most challenging life experiences with an approach that gets you to the other side as swiftly and painlessly as possible.
What is Narcissistic Personality Disorder?
A personality disorder characterised by an exaggerated sense of self importance, a need for admiration and a lack of sympathy for other people. Narcissists have a tendency to manipulate and belittle to achieve a sense of moral superiority. They are not born with it, but it’s a consequence of personal experience. That doesn’t excuse it, but knowing about early life experiences of your spouse can help explain it.
Narcissists are not immediately obvious, their behaviours not immediately capable of explanation. They see people as objects to be used for their own self gain,
How do you spot one?
A narcissist generally fall within one of 4 types of individual:
Exibitionist Narcissist
Big personalities, successful, a huge sense of entitlement with the ability to exploit others. Charming and charismatic.
Devaluing Narcissist
Putting down, ridiculing, shaming, belittling, pummelling someone’s sense of confidence and self esteem. This behaviour is open and overt.
Closet Narcissist
Play the victim, quiet and shy and align themselves to someone very successful with a view to portraying that person as the problem
Altruistic Narcissist
Perceived ‘do-gooders’ and putting others before themselves, everyone’s best friend and all round ‘good person’.
What are the typical traits of a narcissist that you may see if divorcing a narcissist?
- Cycles of being nice and then nasty (on repeat)
- Lack of remorse, compassion or empathy or inability to regulate emotions normally
- Disproportionally self-centred
- Passive-aggressive tendencies which enables them to blame others, deflect attention, shift the balance
- Intolerance for others imperfections or flaws
- Highly sensitive to criticism of themselves
- Emotional abuse such as gaslighting leaving the victim challenging and questioning their own thoughts and perception of events
- Financial abuse or manipulation including incurring debts, controlling spending or limiting access to funds, draining resources through prolonged legal proceedings
- Devaluing through verbal and non-verbal cues including persistent lateness (i.e. can do whatever they want and you will wait), faces, finger tapping, eye rolling
- Impact on children including using the children as pawns, manipulating them or challenging or undermining the other parent’s authority, bringing them home late/not at all, passing messages which appear innocuous but are laden with toxicity
- Litigation abuse including utilising the inefficiencies and delay in the court system to continue their abuse, becoming the ‘victim’, provoking arguments and legal battles over all aspects of family breakdown regardless of the financial and emotional costs. It’s a competition to be won at any cost.
How to manage divorcing a narcissist – our tips
- Planning and a strong legal support – a lawyer who has experience dealing with these challenging behaviours and will not fall into the narcissist’s tactics and traps. We will
- Discuss with you how best to manage your spouse and the communication we engage with
- Not engage in unnecessary or emotive correspondence
- Keep correspondence short, to the point and focussed
- Emotional support including having
- trusted friends and family around you
- consider engaging a specialist divorce consultant or therapeutic support who can help you support your own wellbeing, and give you strength and strategies to navigate this time
- Learning to identify and predict behaviours to manage them and stay one step ahead
- Setting boundaries for your own dealings with your ex including limiting communication to written form, not being ‘drawn in’ to long winded emails or messages, consider parenting apps
- Take control of your finances, ensure you have independent access to funds and monitoring changes to your credit score or liabilities
- Keep a diary including dates, times, things said or actions which impact on your children such as denigrating the other parent, missing important events, manipulating or emotionally abusive behaviour
If you are navigating divorce from a narcissistic ex or think this is what you might be dealing with – we can help. Get in touch with Emma or Nicki to discuss your next steps here.
