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.
Get weaponised
Divorcing the Narcissist – What To Expect
12 thoughts on “The Dirty Divorce”
Vent Your Spleen! (Please see the Rules in Formal Info)
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HG,
I know you have been married before. This might seem rather personal, and you don’t need to answer it if you think it is. But out of sheer curiosity, I was wondering when going through your divorce with your ex, as a Greater, were you fair and amicable or were you perhaps something else. Thank you.
Best,
DB
Of course I was fair.
By my standards.
HG, who asked for the divorce – you or your wife?
Oooooooo good question lickem!!! Inquiring minds wanna know 🙋♀️
Haha, k mac, that’s an expression I use myself from time to time 🙂 The thought of who left who and asked for a divorce never crossed my mind before. I just know in the first instance I left my husband, and after being hoovered back in the second instance he left me. It was his ‘coup de grace’ as it mercifully ended the relationship permanently.
It is also the case, I now understand, that from the narc’s perspective they must feel they ended the relationship, which was a likely reason my ex-husband got me to return with promises of change Ha! I was also caught between a narcissistic marriage dynamic and a narcissistic family dynamic. In other words, between a rock and a hard place. Decision making becomes difficult in those circumstances.
It’s a long time ago now, but those thoughts were prompted by the question I asked HG.
Of course, he doesn’t need to answer. It’s within his gift whether he does or not and it’s within mine to be patient 🙂
I’m super curious what he would say. My narc told me that his ex wife walked into the bedroom on valentine’s day while he was reading in bed. She told him am not in love with you anymore and this marriage is over!
Then a year into our relationship he says that he is so glad that he kicked her to the curb. He was looking at her while he dropped off his kids and he can’t understand what he ever saw in her. Wtf?
The his kids told me he got caught cheating on her. He didn’t stop seeing her even after being caught and given a second chance by his wife. Now that has a ring of truth to it. 🙄
k mac, sounds like a mask slipping moment with your narc when he said he was glad he kicked her to the curb. It’s always going to be that way with narcs … it’s never their fault, they’ll have some reason made up why she/he was a terrible person, how despicable they were, etc. Eventually the truth comes out, but not until they’ve sucked us dry first. Then we often see that we were just like her and she was just like the one before her and so on. It’s a harsh reality to confront, but now we have the answer.
I wondered if the way the question was phrased had anything to do with it going unanswered. Not that I saw anything wrong with the question, but a narcissist might bristle at the word “ask” and easily dismiss it (superiority).
Not saying that to be the case here, but it reminded me of times in my personal life when in discussion with a narcissist, that they would cite a need for “accuracy” where I would consider it a bit exacting. Of course in those incidences it was more likely a demonstration of superiority and/or provocation.
In this case HG may just not have felt the need to answer, not had the time, or felt we could find the answer elsewhere in his work.
Just to be clear – I found nothing wrong with LET’s question. It just reminded me of personal experiences and HG’s article How To Make A Request Of A Narcissist.
Wow, thank you for that reminder NA. Trying to ask questions in a way so as not to offend the narcissism is a real thing and is part of our learning, I think.
Makes me think she was the one that’s asked for the divorce but what do I know.
NA, I never thought of HG bristling at the word “ask”, as in it’s a question. I can accept a dismissal based on a sense of superiority, which is why I suggested it was within HG’s gift whether he answered or not. At the same time, how a question is phrased can often predict the likelihood of an answer. It wasn’t meant to be demanding, but I’m not very good at obsequious either!
I agree, HG may not have felt the need to answer – it’s nobody’s business but his own and tbh I respect that. He should not, and obviously would not, feel obligated to answer. It was a question (albeit maybe not phrased very well), I was curious, and in all honesty I don’t remember ever asking the last narc whether he or his wife requested the divorce. It was so many years before I ever met him, I just accepted somebody did and ‘voila’, their relationship had come to an end. It was a good riddance from both of them. In that sense, it doesn’t really matter who asked for what.
I also respect HG has an enormous amount on his plate and time has to be a factor. I honestly don’t know how he produces the amount of work he does, but no doubt the answer would be that he’s the Ultra, and so in that sense I am grateful for any response I do get.
If the answer is in his work I’d love to know where to find it, I just don’t think I’ve come across it yet.
I appreciate you saying you found nothing wrong with my question, although it could be considered quite personal and on the basis of that it has been rejected. I also appreciate you sharing about your own personal experience and where to find a reminder of how to make a request. Never above learning and it’s good information to have.
That bygamy comment hit me hard. It’s what my narc ex managed to do.
He managed to “forget” to mention being still married in his 90 day fiancée visa. Married her and then, years later “happened” to realize he wasn’t divorced just yet…
When I tried letting his Air Force superiors know, I was the “crazy, vindictive bitch”.
Mind you, no papers and no money for our child was his way to keep me chained to him.. But he played the victim with our daughter later on saying it was me who refused the paper and would not cash the money. Delusional and bad liar. Thank God my daughter was much better at seeing through his BS than me