The Dirty Divorce
Divorce. There is a high chance of this happening when you have been ensnared by one of our kind. You might think that a narcissist would want to hold on to a source of supply and would never instigate divorce proceedings against their intimate partner who is a primary source. This is not a concern to our kind at all, for the following reasons: –
- It is your fault. It is always your fault;
- If we want a divorce, we are entitled to divorce in accordance with our sense of entitlement;
- We have a new primary source who we may well want to bind to use through marriage, therefore you need to be divorced. (There will be some of our kind who won’t let a divorce stand in their way and will commit bigamy but that is a matter for a different topic.)
- If you are financially superior to the narcissist, it is a means of obtaining our share, because we are, of course, entitled;
- If you are financially inferior to the narcissist, it is a method of denying you getting your share. You deserve nothing because you have failed us.
- There is no concern on our part that we might well be regarded as a failure for having to engage in divorce proceedings. This is because it is your fault and we are never accountable.
- We like to get in first;
- Divorce proceedings provide us with a vast range of fuel opportunities, from provoking you, gaining sympathy from our supporters, admiration from others as to how we are handling it and so forth.
If you instigate divorce proceedings, then our attitude to proceedings is governed by: –
- A massive sense of injustice. We gave you so much during the golden period and this is how you treat us?
- It is never our fault. You are a greedy, nasty, horrible person who just cannot be satisfied;
- Your action amounts to a considerable criticism of us. This ignites our fury and this fury will drive our attitude and behaviour towards you during the divorce;
- We will look to cross-petition for divorce by demonstrating that it is your fault and not ours;
- We will defend your divorce petition, because we have done nothing wrong;
- Your awful behaviour towards us provides us with material to smear you, “how could he/she do this to me after all the things I have done for her/him?”
- It provides us with material to maintain our façade by showing how “noble” we are (to the outside world) under such provocation from you.
Divorce proceedings are another stage for us to appear on, to draw fuel, to exert control and to manipulate. There is so much material for us to use against you and to our advantage. It is a battlefield which we relish appearing on. This process will be covered in greater detail in the work Divorce and the Narcissist along with steps that you can take to handle the process.
Given these attitudes to whether we divorce you or whether you divorce us, what can you expect in the arena of divorce?
- The allegations in the divorce petition (or cross petition) will be trumped-up, outrageous and designed to provoke a huge reaction on your part. It does not matter if there is no evidence to support these allegations, from our perspective the allegations are true because of your treachery;
- If you are divorcing us and we expect it (e.g. you tell us, you are doing it) you can expect us to evade service of your proceedings to slow the process down and to frustrate you;
- There will be a tooth and nail battle over finances;
- There will be the hiding of assets, diminution of assets and accusations that you have done this, not us;
- Documentation will be hidden, altered and destroyed in order to protect our position;
- We will deny the provision of documents and letters to slow proceedings down
- We will fabricate documentation in order to support our position;
- There will be intransigence over the most minor of items;
- There will be a battle over the children. This is nothing to do with their interests but all about fuel. This behaviour will draw fuel from you and is designed to maintain a grip on the children for further fuel manipulation;
- You will face repeated accusations concerning your mental health, propensity to violence, drink/drug/other addictions, multiple partners and sluttish behaviour, your neglect of the children. Invariably this is all projection;
- There will be use of lieutenants in order to support the spurious allegations at point 10;
- We will place heavy reliance on the façade to demonstrate good character;
- There will be considerable propaganda concerning the divorce with you being subjected to savage smear campaigns;
- Court dates will be missed, appointments forgotten about and such like in order to slow the process and provoke you;
- There will be agreements to engage in mediation. This is a sham, there will be no attempt to settle. The mediation will be used to hoover you for fuel;
- Spurious applications will be made to cause delay, expense and frustration;
- Repeated tactics will be deployed which aim to wear you down;
- There will be sudden attempts at reconciliation which come out of nowhere, but are usually a result of us feeling that proceedings may not be going our way;
- It may appear that an agreement has been reached but we will change details at the last minute or refuse to agree;
- We will renege on agreements repeatedly forcing you to further court time and expense;
- There will be manipulation of lawyers, court staff, court officials, court appointed experts and judges. This is done to gain fuel, smear you and preserve the façade;
- Don’t expect our lawyer to bring any sense to bear. He or she will have been hoodwinked and charmed by us. We will try and charm your lawyer too;
- You will be subjected to malign follow-up hoovers if matters go against us;
- We will make applications against you for restraining orders on trumped-up evidence;
- Everything you have said and done will be twisted and used against you;
- There will be no concessions, even in the face of overwhelming evidence;
- Out of the blue there may be “white flag” waving asking for you and us to talk without others being involved. This is just a ruse to hoover you and delay proceedings;
- There will be misrepresentation to third parties about what is happening in the proceedings;
- We will engage in apparent reliance on others for financial support in order to deny you anything.
Divorce is regularly described as a stressful and upsetting experience. What people fail to realise is that those divorces are the ones which involve our kind, it is just that nobody has spotted that that is the case.
23 thoughts on “The Dirty Divorce”
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I escaped. But I escaped to a country thousands of miles from him. I realize everyone doesn’t have that option. And I had family and friends left whom he couldn’t influence because they were too distant (physically) from him. Yes, HG, there is always a way. Sometimes the way is terrifying, but less so than a future with a narc.
When I first started the process, he delayed, had appointments, etc. (Now realize this is countries far away). But I am so wise now to his fears. When I told him if he did not respond I would have to divorce him ‘by publication’ which basically means telling the court absolutely everything you know about your spouse, contacting family and friends, and putting notifications up in various publications. He’s trying to become invisible in the eyes of the world and I threatened to expose him.
He accused me of threatening him and I responded that these were merely the steps I would take if he failed to respond. Bingo! Narc paranoia is a tool for the avenging empath.
Portia,
Please forgive my prying (I want to possibly help) – do you all live together as a family now? Are the child(ren) old enough to voice their opinions and feelings? Can you be together and not get married? This seems definitely complex. Things get harder after marriage, not easier.
Remember that divorce is a long, expensive and emotionally draining experience (especially so for children) and I hope that you are all able to avoid experiencing it. Best of luck finding your happiness!
Pray for me as I escaped from the death bed from Narcissist ex wife who has filed the divorce. Well bottom line I have saved my life and lost 2 decades of hard saving. Going through trauma but hope God is great.
Thank you for this information. I went through a divorce four years ago and it was the most traumatic experience. Almost everything you described here happened to me. I didn’t yet know he was Narcissistic – always thought he was borderline – well the divorce opened my eyes to someone I never knew – the mask dropped completely and I was reeling. Never knew someone could be so cruel and callous – it broke a part of me. Still to this day, he despises me for leaving him and unmasking him. Many believed his lies about me which was hurtful – I have received one apology from his cousin. His family DO know, but will never admit it. Slowly his family are being kind to me again, BUT he is off limits and I never speak about him to them. I have since met a man who reiterates everything that is wrong with a narcissist. A true, beautiful, gentle and loving man who has shown me what real love is. Your posts have empowered me – thank you for that.
You are welcome.
HG, I have a slightly different situation and I have a theory , could you tell me if I’m correct ? Or if anyone out there has any experience similar to this ?
We have spoken on the phone HG and you have given me great advice and your post on your blog is spot on .
In my situation my mother is divorcing my stepfather and rather than him doing all of these things to the primary source (my mother) he’s doing it to me. Smear campaign and continually stating that the primary source is not to blame and is being controlled and influenced by me.
He is fighting tooth and nail over finances and of course showing himself to be exactly what he is by denying his wife what is rightfully hers, but the full smear campaign and blame is on me.
My theory is that because he wants his stepford wife back, to smear her to everyone including his solicitors , would make no sense as surely they would say Why would you want someone like that back and it would ruin his facade of a perfect marriage and he’s done nothing wrong and there have been and are no problems. So he is blaming me rather than the primary source .
He wants his stepford wife back for facade, control and to not give up finances and he’s raging she has disobeyed after all of those years and possibly shocked as well.
When this is all over with and he knows he can not salvage the marriage and she has her half, I believe he will then start the smear campaign against her .
Would any of this theory of mine be correct HG?
Is it something that can happen ? That they don’t go after the primary source and in actual fact insist that the primary source is blameless and doesn’t know what they are doing and are being manipulated ?
Exactly .
I hired a well-established and connected attorney (he became a judge about a year later) when I was about five months pregnant. My son was born six weeks early and spent those first six weeks of his life in an intensive care nursery. When his father threatened to remove him from the hospital (which would have resulted in the baby’s death), my attorney got an emergency custody hearing and I was awarded full legal and physical custody “due to the premature birth of said child and the circumstances persuant thereto”.
I hired a brilliant lawyer that was a much higher level narcs as opposed to my mid range husband. It was a shit show that went nowhere! Looking back it was humorous now that i understand how a narcissists tools work as they both did the same things to each other. 21k later and this was just over the custody location venue.
I ended up going back to my soon to be ex because my divorce and custody was something I lost the energy to fight. He only received 8 days a month but had a well disguised but dangerous addiction so i couldn’t trust him with my children and essentially made a self sacrifice to go back. (Another topic)
PLUS Having someone completely disregaurd court orders; pretending to not get divorce papers despite a constable serving them and showing he signed for them; making 100s of false claims w no evidence and having his codependent mother backing his every lie, was extremely expensive stressful and almost paralyzed me from moving on with my life.
However, I found a secret weapon… HG’s books and blogs has given me the arsenal of weapons to win this battle. I stayed just until I had enough evidence and did enough prep to escape. I have been out just 2 months but the strength and knowledge I have from these books has already begun to take out these pillars as an indirect result from my unwaivering committment to no emotions and no contact.
Please realize this advice and info is dead on accurate and simply understanding these things will happen is half the battle. Thank you!
HG,
Would you ever recommend divorcing a narcissist without the help of a lawyer? Is that crazy thinking?
Although a ball-washing bastard, a divorce lawyer will bring necessary skills and expertise which are useful. You need to strike a balance between getting the correct advice on your situation and understanding how this meshes with divorcing one of our kind.
“He who represents himself has a fool for a client.” Honest Abe (Abraham Lincoln)
Said over 150 years ago when being a ballwashing bastard MAY have been an honest profession, if it ever was.
No. Please dont. I will tell you why. The narcissist will say and do whatever is necessary to win. You be will at a great disadvantage representing yourself. The judge will be a narcissist, your ex will be a narcissist, and so will your ex”s attorney. They will just see you as a waste of time and an emotional wreck. Your ex will take advantage of walking all over you and seeing you stress, pleading. I hired not the most experienced attornet out there, but she was my third party who negotiated with the other attorney, judge, and made it so the narcissist was not receiving fuel from the event. She even made it so I wouldn’t have to walk into amother court room to play games with the narcissist again.
ANM,
Thank you. You validated my fears. He is pushing me hard and I just want to it to be over. I never thought of them all being narcissists. Damn… scary thought.
HG,
In regards to divorce….I just recently got engaged to him, he finally proposed after 12 1/2 years together (lots of future faking along the way and so much more), then I stumbled upon your interview with Christine on Out of the Box Radio…now so much makes sense to me that never did before. However, I do not see a way out. I do not feel it is even an option….I don’t think there are any. I believe that is how he wants it.
Maybe, I will see the ‘dirty divorce’ in my future.💔
Maybe not?
There is always a way.
I have never agreed with you more, HG. There is always a way out.
You care more about how he wants it?? Worth honest self-examination, don’t you think?
You may catch him banging your Maiden of Honor before the wedding . . . or at the reception. That actually happened to a friend of mine many years ago be4 we knew what a narc was. We blamed the Maiden (what kind of a friend would do that . . . not a friend) and of course the marriage didn’t last long. Thank God they didn’t have a child.
When I said …”I believe that is how he wants it” does not in any way imply that I care more about what he wants… I am simply implying that I most likely feel like I have no options due to the circumstances he has created. Furthermore, I am obviously trying to make things work with him or I wouldn’t have stayed this long, and we do have a child. I am trying to learn what I can and do what I can. Ultimately, it is not in my hands anyhow.
I made your same mistake some years ago, but please know that if a man has demonstrated you bad intentions, hidden agenda, not taking respomsability for what he does, you are bound to alot of unhappiness. Ask yourself why you want to receive so little? settle for the least?
Yes there is always a way like HG says.
Agree
In every circumstances looser will always be winner in the long way,of-course hard to believe
yep hard to believe and I really hope so because against Narcs you only loose but thats okay if it keeps them away.
Portia
You act as if you have no say in your own life which is ridiculous. Its YOUR life. You believe thats how HE wants it? If you want to give yourself over to someone so be it, but dont make claims that there is no way out. That is disempowering to others trying to escape abuse or who want a better life than crumbs thrown to them. And please……dont add to his victims and control by having children.