13 Unfortunate Realities I Learned While Divorcing a Narcissist

Hopefully, my story helps others who leave a narcissist

When I was still married to a narcissist I teased myself into believing he wasn’t who he was. I was smart enough to recognize the danger of a narcissist. But I was caring enough to see the best in the narcissist.

It’s one of the reasons I underestimated divorcing a narcissist.

As our marriage counselor once said, “Your husband keeps showing you who he is but you don’t want to believe him.”

The day I told my husband I was thinking of leaving him…

He responded with emotional blackmail.

“If you leave me I will make sure there’s no money,” said my narcissist. “And you work for the rest of your life.”

Again, I teased myself. It’s just anger. The kind of thing people say when a marriage is crumbling. The type of ugly words even four walls shouldn’t hear.

I would later learn an important lesson.

Believe a narcissist when they threaten you.

I divorced an unrelentingly punishing narcissist who inflicted an overly long and abusive five-year divorce on our children and me. It would change the course of my personal and professional life.

I’ve spent more than a decade in the counseling and research of love, relationships, marriage, divorce, and narcissism. I was unprepared despite my husband being diagnosed with a narcissistic personality disorder on the severe end of the spectrum.

I miscalculated a narcissist.

I underestimated that anger forces a narcissist out of hiding.

And nothing angers a narcissist more than divorcing them.

If you leave a man or a woman who is a narcissist, there are 13 things you must absolutely know before divorcing a narcissist. These things shouldn’t discourage you from leaving a narcissist.

They should empower you.

You have to be prepared to divorce a narcissist.

I wish I had known some of these things. I would have been up for the unfortunate battle of freeing myself from a narcissist. Instead, I was blindsided by a narcissist.

1. Divorcing a Narcissist — The divorce lawyer

It’s critical you get the proper representation before divorcing a narcissist.

If you are divorcing someone with a narcissistic personality disorder it will typically result in what is known as a high-conflict divorce. High-conflict divorce is considered to be a divorce that lasts two or more years in duration.

High-conflict divorce involves extremely bad behavior and an unwillingness to compromise or negotiate the terms of the divorce. The behavior could include emotional and financial abuse, manipulation, bullying, blaming, etc.

High-conflict divorce accounts for approximately 20% of all divorces.

This statistic emphasizes the need to find a lawyer who is acutely specialized in the area of high-conflict divorce. You will need a family law attorney who understands the abuse, manipulation, control, and tactics of an individual with a narcissistic personality disorder.

Interview multiple lawyers before making a decision.

The right attorney is critical because a narcissist seeks to win, not divorce.

2. Divorcing a Narcissist — Understand narcissistic divorce

It’s important to understand what divorcing a narcissist means.

If you are divorcing a narcissist, you are divorcing an individual with a mental health disorder. You aren’t divorcing a rational human being. You are divorcing an abusive individual.

When you divorce a narcissist you start a war.

This is how a narcissist views divorce.

A narcissist isn’t seeking a fair and equitable resolution to the unfortunate end of a marriage. A narcissist is looking to win the war they believe you started.

And a narcissist will do whatever it takes to gain the desired outcome.

They will use, confuse, and abuse their own children if they see it as a means to win. A narcissist will be ruthless and use divorce as an excuse for abuse.

When you leave a narcissist they believe you have wronged them.

Divorce is a war and the narcissist’s only goal is to win.

3. Divorcing a Narcissist — Believe what a narcissist tells you

When you have angered a narcissist believe what they are telling you.

My husband wasn’t venting a few angry words when he told me he would leave me with nothing. A narcissist was making a promise.

When an angry narcissist promises to punish you believe them.

There were other foreshadowing moments in my narcissistic divorce. My husband would say I had bitten the hand that fed me. A nod to his belief that he was responsible for our entire life and financial situation.

He would scoff and say, “Who would leave The Golden Goose?” and “What will you do?”

A narcissist making another nod to his success. A narcissist was taunting me only I didn’t know it. He was alluding to the financial abuse that would come if I had the nerve to leave him.

It’s impossible for a narcissist to control themselves when they believe they’ve been wronged. This anger can make the typically charming narcissist more visible to the average person.

A narcissist will seek retribution when you divorce them.

A wronged narcissist will punish you, believe them.

4. Divorcing a Narcissist — Reduce your vulnerabilities

A narcissist will attack your vulnerabilities.

I knew I was divorcing a narcissist.

I knew I was a stay-at-home mother.

But I didn’t comprehend the depth of my financial vulnerability. I foolishly believed a narcissist and the divorce legal system would somehow leave me with an equitable outcome.

But I had set myself up to endure extreme financial abuse at the hands of a narcissist. I was no match for the financial bullying a narcissist inflicted. My husband had control of all of the money and I had access to nothing.

If you are divorcing a narcissist you need to have a plan.

You need to reduce any and all vulnerabilities.

If you are financially vulnerable you need to save money, get a job, or borrow enough to survive while you divorce a narcissist. You need to have a backup plan for food, housing, and anything else that may prevent you from divorcing a narcissist and allowing a narcissist more control over you.

If a narcissist is manipulating your children you need to get them into counseling. The narcissist I divorced began to manipulate our children as soon as he knew I was going to potentially leave him.

He did this because he was losing control over me.

A narcissist will figure out a way to intimidate and control you even when they are losing that ability. My husband thought the money would keep me in the marriage. When that wasn’t enough of a threat he went after our children.

You need to protect your children with a very good counselor. You need a marriage and family counselor who is a psychologist or who is highly, highly specialized in the area of narcissism since it is such a complex disorder. If the average counselor doesn’t have the advanced training to necessarily recognize this disorder, it underlines why you need an excellent counselor for your children in a narcissistic divorce.

I always say I was more controlled in divorce than I was in marriage.

Reduce your vulnerabilities because a narcissist will attack them.

5. Divorcing a Narcissist — Understand your Achilles Heel

You need to understand your Achilles heel while divorcing a narcissist.

A narcissist seeks to control you. Again, when a narcissist feels they are losing control they will amp up their manipulative tactics.

I have two Achilles heels. Call them my pressure points or stress points. They were never an issue during our marriage. But after I went to my husband and told him I was unhappy and thinking about leaving a manipulative narcissist kicked into high gear.

A narcissist could no longer adequately control me so he sought to weaken me.

Remember a narcissist is looking to win in the event you leave them and divorce them. You become a narcissist’s prey. You have inadvertently put yourself in the crosshairs of a narcissist.

My husband attacked my Achilles heels to reduce me.

He began uncharacteristically drinking and scaring our children and me. My Father was an alcoholic although he was a great guy. My Dad was never abusive or mean. He was a life of the party drinker. Regardless, my husband knew that if drinking got out of control it was a childhood trauma.

Next, my husband began aggressively driving and frightening me.

He had never done anything like this before. I always felt safe when he was driving. But again, the manipulative narcissist knew one of my core weaknesses. I had a severe car accident when I was 19 years old.

I didn’t understand the severity of telling a narcissist I might leave him.

I didn’t know why he was doing what he was doing. I thought maybe my husband was having a mid-life crisis. I thought his temperament was changing because he was in some type of pain.

Take an assessment of your pressure points and be alert to a narcissist’s attempt to weaken you. It allows the narcissist to gain control back over you and reduce you when you do finally divorce them.

If you tell a narcissist you are leaving or divorcing them beware.

You need to understand your Achilles heel when divorcing a narcissist.

6. Divorcing a Narcissist — Surround yourself with support

Surround yourself with support when divorcing a narcissist.

If you are thinking of leaving or divorcing a narcissist you need to have a strong support system. The moment I told a narcissist I was divorcing him he withheld food and school supply money.

My family, friends, and neighbors had to bring us food.

I remember my son saying, “Mom I know Dad is mad at you but what about us we live here too. We need to eat.”

It was hard for my child to recognize that his father was willing to hurt him to hurt me. It was one of the most gut-wrenching moments of my divorce. No child should ever have to have that unnaturally painful realization.

I ended up having to borrow my neighbor’s car when my husband withheld transportation. I had to borrow money for legal expenses. I don’t know what I would have done without the people closest to me.

In retrospect, I should have had a better plan before leaving a narcissist. I was relying on the man I ‘thought’ my husband was down deep. And the divorce system.

You need a definitive plan to leave a narcissist.

And surround yourself with support when divorcing a narcissist.

7. Divorcing a Narcissist — Make your world smaller

You need to self-protect and make your world smaller divorcing a narcissist.

No one really believes a narcissist is who they are.

The world laughs at us because they see an attractive charmer.

You have to be one of us to understand the danger of a narcissist.

You will need every ounce of strength you have to divorce a narcissist. You do not need to waste it on people who only recognize the charming side of a narcissist.

It doesn’t matter how close a friend it may be.

You need to stay centered on your own truth while divorcing a narcissist.

I cried my eyes out over a few people. Believe me, they won’t always be the person you thought they were. The friend who lets you down may be the one you thought least capable of it.

As I always say, “Some will surprise you and others will disappoint you.”

Other people do not matter while you are divorcing a narcissist.

You matter. Your children matter. Your family matters. Nothing else.

You aren’t experiencing a divorce. You are experiencing the battle of your life. You are in the fight of your life to protect your children. You understand this even if others close to you do not.

Don’t exhaust your energy on proving your narcissistic relationship truth.

You need to self-protect and make your world smaller.

8. Divorcing a Narcissist — Don’t feed the narcissist

Don’t feed a narcissist, it only makes them hungry for more.

I’m mad at myself for how crazy I allowed a narcissist to make me feel.

In my defense, I’m not sure I could have lessened my reaction.

Our home had become a battleground. One day I was in my kitchen and a car flew across the front of our two-acre yard. A person jumped out of the vehicle and started taking pictures.

I was scared to death seeing a car fly across our lawn.

I’m sure it was one of the foreclosure vultures who sat in our cul-de-sac for over a year as my husband taunted me with unpaid mortgages.

The day the first sheriff’s deputy pulled into our driveway I was shaking. I had no idea why they were there. The deputy handed me a warrant in debt and left.

There’s no end to the stories I can tell. It was frightening, abusive, and I’ve never felt more alone in my life. I questioned if I could ever get away from him. I was no match for a narcissist.

But I regret the fear-induced angry texts I sent him.

I regret yelling at him.

It only took me down.

It only made me hate my own behavior. It only changed my children’s mother when they needed me more than ever. My kids needed me to remain the person I had always been because emotionally they were mourning who their father had become.

I shouldn’t have engaged an abusive narcissist, it only bolstered his control.

Don’t feed a narcissist, it only makes them hungry for more.

9. Divorcing a Narcissist — Don’t trust a narcissist

Do not trust a narcissist when you are divorcing them.

Actually, let me rephrase that.

The minute you experience marital trouble do not trust a narcissist.

I told my husband I was unhappy and that it felt lonely being married to him. I spent the next five years miserably attempting to save my marriage. I foolishly trusted a narcissist.

He began hiding all of our money the moment I confided my feelings.

He also began lowering the business income.

I knew I was married to a diagnosed narcissist. But I lied to myself. I told myself he was a good person with a terrible personality disorder. I told myself the guy I met in Catholic college would never cheat me out of everything we owned.

Stop lying to yourself about who a narcissist is.

Stop seeing the best in them despite them showing you who they are. Believe a narcissist is a narcissist. Believe a narcissist is self-addicted. Believe a narcissist will feel no need to provide for you and your children in any fair manner.

Stop trusting a narcissist in any capacity.

I exhausted myself for two while a narcissist set himself up for a win for one.

Do not trust a narcissist before or after you divorce them.

10. Divorcing a Narcissist — Have a financial plan

If you are divorcing a narcissist you need to have a financial plan.

Again, a narcissist will seek to make you as vulnerable as possible. They will seek to control you. They will seek to punish you for leaving them.

They will seek to win.

Pull all of your financial documents before you divorce a narcissist. Bank records and investment accounts typically only go back seven years. Request these records from your bank and financial institutions, especially if you own a business together.

Check to see if there’s any unusual activity.

Get a bank account and credit card(s) in your name only. Not only for access to money but for credit purposes.

The narcissist I divorced destroyed my credit to make it appear as if we were broke. And to prohibit me from having money even for legal costs. Establish credit and accounts in your name and also pull your own credit as soon as you are having marital problems. If I had done this annually, I would have discovered what my husband was doing.

Call your mortgage and life insurance companies. Make sure these loans and policies have not been borrowed against.

Make copies of all of these documents and store them in a safe place.

Put your cell phone on a different bill and/or carrier. Protect your entire digital footprint, not just your phone. Collect devices you may have such as Ipads, computers, etc., and keep them in a secure location.

Change all of your passwords so email and financial accounts can’t be accessed from other computers. If you are living separately make sure you have the locks on your door changed to prevent access when you are not at home.

My husband went into our house and stole the documents I had copied.

Fortunately, I had already made additional copies.

Look for copies of your taxes. Assess any and all of your financial assets and accounts.

Do all of this the moment your marriage begins to struggle.

If you are divorcing a narcissist you need to have a financial plan.

11. Divorcing a Narcissist — Legal and mental health professionals

Understand the family law system when divorcing a narcissist.

The divorce system isn’t necessarily equipped to deal with mental health disorders. It goes under the aforementioned classification of high-conflict divorce.

It’s why it’s critical to get a divorce lawyer who specializes in high conflict.

But it’s still the legal system dealing with a mental health issue.

This is why high-conflict divorce can last for years while controlling narcissists over-litigate or passive-aggressively controlling covert narcissists ignore the process.

Mental health experts can be called in for consults/evaluations.

But it’s the legal system navigating a narcissist.

It’s not perfect. A narcissist doesn’t abide by normal societal rules and norms. They play outside of societal boundaries. They laugh at the legal system.

Sadly, narcissists can get away with a lot of their bad behavior.

The divorce system isn’t truly equipped to deal with a narcissist. The raised awareness of narcissism only happened in the 1980s. It’s why you tend to hear so much about narcissism these days.

Hopefully, that will in turn, better equip the legal system to eventually deal more effectively with narcissists.

This underscores the necessity to not only have great legal representation but to have a great family counselor. Again, one who is highly specialized in a narcissistic personality disorder that many counselors miss.

A good therapist is every bit as important during a divorce, as the right divorce lawyer, and support system. You owe it to yourself and your children to protect yourself from a narcissist’s emotional battery.

Bad behavior works for a narcissist so they abuse the divorce system.

Understand the family law system when divorcing a narcissist.

12. Divorcing a Narcissist — Don’t underestimate a lack of empathy

Do not underestimate a narcissist’s lack of empathy.

I will never forget the day our marriage counselor looked at my husband and told him he lacked empathy. He told my husband what a critical deficit it was.

My husband did not believe him.

This is not an unusual response for a narcissist.

A narcissist does not believe they are a narcissist.

I took this moment as validation. There were two sides to my husband and I wasn’t crazy. This man whom the world at large thought was the greatest guy had an equally sinister side.

I should have been more frightened, less validated.

What makes a true narcissist so terrifying is their critical lack of empathy.

It’s a narcissist’s inability to feel the pain of another human being. This can extend to even their own children. My husband did not feel our children’s pain when he withheld food and other basic needs.

I won’t lie.

There were times during our divorce when I was terrified of my husband.

His escalation in our divorce far surpassed any man I witnessed during our marriage. It made me wonder exactly what he was capable of. And this was while a narcissist believed he was ‘winning’ in our divorce.

In other words, achieving the desired outcome he wanted.

And he was still a formidable threat.

Do not underestimate what an individual who lacks empathy is capable of. If you are afraid of a narcissist go with your gut feeling. Do not ignore it in any capacity.

There’s a reason some who leave a narcissist can suffer from PTSD. The emotional, financial, and sometimes physical abuse can be severely traumatizing. I do not suffer from PTSD but at times, I feel I have a much milder version of it.

Divorcing a narcissist isn’t a divorce, it’s a battle.

It’s been hard to get beyond the threat, unpredictability, and abuse of divorce.

Do not underestimate a narcissist’s lack of empathy.

13. Divorcing a Narcissist — Prioritize boundaries and self-protection

When divorcing a narcissist prioritize your boundaries and self-protection.

You have to remain strong while divorcing a narcissist.

There were nights I put my head on the pillow and wondered if I would have the strength to endure another day. I was sleep deprived, stressed, and under great duress.

I worried about my children because I was in the fight of my life to protect them from their own father. I found it difficult to concentrate and found myself over-talking and externalizing my stress.

Some nights I would cry and wish my mom were still here.

It was that brutal.

I wouldn’t always take all the help people were offering to me. I felt like I needed to figure out everything on my own. But that was prideful because I was just wearing myself down and I needed all of my energy to run interference with a narcissistic bully.

It also weakened me and made me react to a narcissist’s abuse.

I should have prioritized my self-protection and self-care immediately. I should have done everything possible to ensure I was as healthy and strong as emotionally and physically possible.

I shouldn’t have tried to do as much on my own.

I should have enlisted as much help as was being offered to me.

When divorcing a narcissist prioritize your boundaries and self-protection.

I do not regret divorcing a narcissist.

It was one of the best decisions I’ve ever made. A narcissistic relationship is an unhealthy and abusive relationship. A mother who chose to stay with a narcissist was not an example I wanted to set for my children.

I was afraid to leave a narcissist.

I had all of the typical fears and worries about divorce.

But I am glad I found the strength to confront them.

I just wish I had been more prepared to divorce a narcissist.

If this helps even one man or woman leave a narcissist, it was worth it.

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