Divorcing a Narcissist

"In divorce proceedings, narcissistic parents will seek sole physical and legal custody of children during a divorce even if prior to the separation they were not involved parents. Even after the separation, they may care little about parenting but rather their own selfish personal pursuits. But it is important to them to appear to be the better parent. Also, if they have sole physical and legal custody of the children, it gives them another way to continue to control and abuse their former spouse.

Narcissists will also use visitation/access as a means of control and harassment. They will control who and when will care for the child, and often that does not involve the use of the former spouse even when clearly the child would benefit from more involvement of the other parent. Narcissists may refuse to accommodate the spouse’s requests for more access even when the requests are very reasonable, the child is requesting more time, and the requests would benefit the child. The narcissistic parent cares little about the child’s interests and more about their own personal pursuit for control."

Adapted from: Splitting: Protecting Yourself while Divorcing Someone with Borderline Narcissistic Personality Disorder

If I didn’t know better, I would think they had been following the life of the Dragon.

The sacrificing of the lamb (Jessie) started quite early after physical separation. When Max and Carmen discussed access to Jessie before she left the marital home with their daughter, it was agreed that Max could have her two overnights per week and alternating weekends. They hadn’t discussed holiday sharing, but this was a reasonable time sharing Max felt for now until a more final agreement could be reached. Well, enter me. And enter in Carmen’s hate and resentment towards me. Suddenly access was measly 4-hour visits once to twice a week and alternating weekends. Start of the excuses as to why Jessie can’t spend more time with her Dad. “Jessie needs a routine; Jessie needs to be in her own bed during the week; Jessie misses me when she is gone.” Than they became more desperate: “Jessie has been wetting the bed, I think she is stressed about not being with me.”  Funny, because she has NEVER wet the bed at our house, wonder where she is feeling the stress? 

Do you think we are all stupid?  You send Max a text saying you will do everything in your power to keep “Ho” out of Jessie’s life and somehow you expect everyone to believe you have concerns about Jessie’s wellbeing away from her “absent” Mother.  Funny how Jessie is enabled to have repeated overnight sleepovers at her maternal grandma's but can't at her own fathers - claiming "she needs to be in her own bed on school nights". 

After several months, Max gets nowhere in having Carmen agree to more meaningful time with his daughter. There would be days she would be angry with Max for one reason or another –and his access would be denied. There would be days he would be off work and her at work – and she would not allow for him to see his daughter – stating “her routine is to be with my Mom”. No, you fear her getting too close to Max or heaven forbid, spend any time with me. So better to just keep her under close guard by your own family Dragon.

Frustrated by the denials, the uncertainties, Max asked me about what my ex and I did to settle our matters. Looking back now, that was not a fair question to ask as there is no comparison. My ex and I are sane, reasonable, understanding, empathetic people. She lacks all of the above.  But regardless, I shared my story.

Mine was simple – sat down at the kitchen table, drank a pint of beer and drafted up an agreement. Brought it forward to a lawyer we each independently hired to protect ourselves, had it written up, and signed and all was well.  $1500 each.  Nothing written in stone, but an agreement that we each walked away with feeling that our interests were protected. No unknowns. Some assurance. Peace. Closure.

Enter in lawyer for Max. At the time he felt he had no choice. He missed his daughter tremendously and he wanted more meaningful time with her. He wanted to have the assurance that I felt knowing what laid ahead for holiday and summer time-sharing etc. He didn’t want to feel like he was always at Carmen’s disposal – if she was in good spirits – he would get to see Jessie; if she was angry, he may not.  His only other choice was to throw his hands up in the air and say – you tell me when I can see my daughter and I will bow down and thank you for your generosity. Believe me, those words have come out of her mouth: “Max, you should be grateful I give you as much as I do, most Dads don’t get the time you do”. Oh I am sorry, didn’t realize he needs to be grateful that he gets time with his daughter, because last I checked, she was half his. Pretty sure the birth registration says so.

Papers served: requests for meaningful access, nothing outrageous. But Ouch! The fire from the dragon’s mouth could be felt across the small town. No one contests the Dragon; no one attempts to take control away from her. How dare he? He will pay the price. 

She goes for sole physical and legal custody, an attempt to take ALL control away from Max. The paperwork to support her request paints this beautiful picture of a Mother who has done everything and anything for her daughter from the beginning. The picture of Dad is one of an absentee, uninvolved deadbeat. You got to be kidding me. This is coming from the “parent” that has repeatedly said in public she should have just had another dog (instead of a child). I guess she needs to be reminded that she was off gallivanting with another woman for 2 years, absent from the home, while Max parented Jessie. This is the “parent” that spends more time caring for herself and her extra-curricular activities than her own daughter. But for some reason she think she needs sole custody?

She lays out a request for a limited bare access schedule, more limited than the one that she currently dictates.  They live in the same city. He wants to be an involved parent. And he is great at it. Not like many of a father that could care less how often they see their kids.  

To top it off, up until this point Max was paying child support, well prepared to adjust this amount yearly based on his previous year’s income. Well her greed and her self-admitting desire that “ho” does not get any ounce of his money, she went for the gusto, requesting a total of $4000.00 per month in child and spousal support. Max worked out West for 5months, a short term contract he hoped would help him gain experience to further his career. While it may have done so, it also temporarily inflated his income. Cha-ching! She saw dollar signs when she saw his previous year’s income and she went for the throat. Problem was, now that he was back working in town, he wouldn’t be making even remotely close to what he was making out West. She didn’t care. He would pay no matter what state he ended up in.   She will claim she is "entitled to this", another characteristic of narcissists (entitlement and self-pity attitude).  

There are many problems that need to be resolved in the family law system, but one of them is around setting temporary orders with no defined follow up plan. While Max was temporarily ordered to pay a lot less than she was requesting, it ended up still presenting a hardship for him several times over the 2+ years following. There were times work was minimal and he was sent home, making less than $100 per week. Then there were periods of time he was unemployed. But he still had to find the money to pay her, while she lived the life of luxury with her partner, renovating her kitchen and traveling to the Dominican Republic.  My only means of sanity was suggesting to him that he was paying for TWO dependents – Dragon and Jessie – since Dragon was so pathetically dependent on him financially as she lacked the skills and assiduous nature to support herself.

Somewhere in the middle of all these legal proceedings Max came to me in tears and said he was exhausted, so much money has been spent, and he didn’t know what he should do – should he just throw in the towel. My only advice was – look ahead 10 years, you want to have no regrets, you want to be able to look Jessie in the eye and say you fought for her. Can you say that now?  His answer at that point was no. He couldn’t give up just yet. Jessie deserved the fight. He would have no regrets over money spent, but would over not doing what he could to secure more meaningful time with his daughter.

Moving ahead two years I have come to realize as has Max that there is NO reasoning with someone that is unreasonable. So you could say he has spent thousands of dollars and precious time and energy trying to get an uncooperative, unreasonable, non-empathetic person to empathize and cooperate in coming to a reasonable access agreement.  Does that seem reasonable?

Max was presented with two options. Surrender and let her dictate everything and everything when it came to access to his daughter and live with her control and minimization of time with Jessie. Or two, fight for what he sees as just, but expect a hard battle. Narcissists DO NOT like to lose.  But with choice two, you can look back with no regrets. You tried.