How do you actually divorce a Narcissist?

[mynamechangemyrules]

I am a long time (5+yrs ) lurker in these pages and the advice has helped me in many ways to survive and understand my situation.

I have name changed as some friends know my user name.

I need specific answers as to how to actually 'do the deed' and tell my husband that I want a divorce.

Summary if you want background:
A short summary is my husband is verbally and emotionally abusive to me and to my children. It even feels 'bad' writing that down. But the evidence is right before my eyes.

To me: are you stupid or lazy? I can't work it out? I'm not happy with my children's mother being a fat ugly woman who looks 20 years older than she is, it's disgusting. You disgust me. (FWIW I'm UK 12 and my besties would say I'm alright for 40 ) And all day every day: why are you eating/ doing/ saying that? Questioning questioning and 'retaliating' to simple statements. Me:'I had a tough day at work' H:'Have you finished moaning because i was watching tv' etc etc etc. Honestly that's not even an hour's worth.

'I know you accept mediocrity but I don't. Imagine if our kids ended up like you, fucks sake'

To the DCs (7/5/1): What the fuck is wrong with you? You know you're weird right? All the kids at school will laugh and call you stinky kid (he hates to clean his teeth, he hears this every day) Get this kid away from me I can't fucking bear him. Why do you do that? Are you stupid? Well you must be stupid because you don't listen to what I say.

Pins DC1 up against walls/ floor. Locks DCs 1&2 our of the house.

This is awful. This much I know. For reference I work in education. I know this is bad but my normal has just shifted slightly every time it escalates.

So after the most recent 'major event' (I disagreed on a timing question. He dragged DC1 upstairs by one arm, he told me I disgusted him, he told me we were not allowed to leave the house. He told me if I did he would call the police. Obv I realise they would've told him to fuck off but in the moment my brain doesn't work like that.)
I have been to a lawyer. We live overseas and I have clarified that I am in a strong position:
I work, he doesn't, (he is NOT a SAHD- he is 'job hunting', (he has a lucrative career so doesn't need to work all year) he does nothing with them, we have full time childcarer who has known them all from birth. I come home from work and do dinner bath bed while he watches tv or reads the iPad)
His visa rests on my job
I have plenty of financial security of my own (although he 'manages' it all so I'd have to change passwords etc on accounts)

I have told more people in RL about the situation as if to 'prep' them... They were all like 'of course we'd noticed, he's a knob' which was somehow reassuring.

So... technically I am 'ready'.

But how do I even begin?

Despite all above I think he has very little understanding of where we are with this. As everything is brought back to him all the time- eg 'It ruins my night if I have to physically restrain DC1, I just get so upset' rather than how DC1 is feeling- that I think he would be blown away if I just come out and say I want a divorce.

Do I go straight for that?

Do I book counselling? (Such a thing here would be upwards of £200 a session and hard to find someone of a cultural 'match')

How do I say it?

Should I get the kids out for the day?

How do I time it with basic 'family' events coming up? (Holidays/ special days etc?)

Sorry for the ramble and multiple questions but the gist is HOW????

Stay strong

OP this man is just abusing you and using your children.

I lurk but rarely post. I couldn't remember my password so I have created a new account solely to write this message to you.

I grew up with a father like this. His influence has set the path for my whole adult life.

You hold all the cards here and yet you are letting him take advantage of every situation.

He doesn't love you. He doesn't love your children. He doesn't know what it is to love a child like you or I do - or anyone.

It is your job to look after your children and protect them from the harm he is causing them. Just get your house back and get those kids away from him.

The first time my dad flipped and showed me his truly scary nasty side I was 6. I remember it as clear as day. My life changed at that point. He was still at it until the point I had my own home, own keys and could choose not to open the door.

His parting line in every argument with dm was "I'll sell the house then & where will you be" it terrified me. Why would anyone do that to their dc?

In adult relationships anyone who wasn't as bad as that got my total adoration. I was a walk as a result. Then I had 18 months with someone almost as bad as my df. I only finished that when it started to have an effect on my job. I let him be rude and alienate my friends and family - just as df did in my family.

Both long term serious relationships in my life have left me ill as a result.

The only way I know how to live is to work around everyone else. I am 46 and a lp to ds age 5. His dad is not around (neither of the above) but he is also not an idiot so no issuers there. He made it easy for all of us. I am grateful to him for the chance to build a family of my own. We are a non shouting, kind collaborative household.

Your dc deserve a childhood and they deserve not to be manipulated and be used against you.

I appreciate this is very very hard but ring the police and get him out of your house and get your dc's back to some normality.

You hold all the cards here but you are letting stbxh call all the shots. Get him out. Get him away and get him deported.

In all honesty I would also move back to the UK and give the dc's a new normal where they will have sensible role models (mostly) if you can long term.

Sending you
but you also need to pull your big girl pants up once more to protect your babies.

to you Susie. I agree that OP's experience is very triggering. There is NO way to negotiate and try and be reasonable with this type of man.

Once again, just wonderful, useful, words of wisdom.

Thank you.

I do know these things, somewhere deep down, but he is so bloody good at being mean that I just keep veering away from my original intention.

I can't remember who put this earlier, but it's the bit where this behaviour is sort of on the far end of a continuum where women are accommodating and do the awfully nick-named 'wife-work'. And so my experiences can be minimised by others to 'a bad day' or as STBXH says 'it's been a stressful 18 months' when NO, no, no, it's actually just an outlook of entitlement and unkindness.

I am finding it interesting, on reflection, that my brother and dad are the only two men on 'my side'. Friends husbands etc all deathly quiet and avoiding getting involved. I find that significant. Does a small part of them think perhaps I should've worked harder at the wifely duties?!! (Yes, STBXH commented in mediation that I was barren and sexually unresponsive'. I did point out that a basic pre-sex requisite for me was someone who was actually pleasant to me. Apparently I live 'in a dream world' thinking that there are couples who don't say 'are you fucking retarded?' to each other when I forget to do something...)

Scary MoFoBro is all geared up (happily his role means he's actually had contact with the head of police here before!) and lawyers letter is al the ready. Roll on tomorrow!!!

Even if he wasn't abusive, you don't need your friends' husbands approval to make changes in your life.

Wifely duties =being a doormat? If so, fuck em!

often friends are too frightened that actually their marriage isn't great and they are doormats hence keeping their distance!

KOKO

Yay for MoFoBro, handy to have friends in high places! 😁

Keep cool, keep contact to a minimum today, resist engaging in conversation, he will be trying to bait you to get a reaction to prove what an unstable mum you are.
You are nearly there !

Glad your brother is on the way. Have you cancelled his visa yet ? Would he find out straight away ?

I keep giving the children to him in the hopes it is keeping it as normal as can be for them.
But its not normal - you are splitting up. There will always be a certain amount of disruption. If you got him out of your house then that disruption would of course be minimised.

To be honest you need to stop thinking about his needs, he will do that for himself. You have to start thinking of YOUR needs and don't lose sight of all the hideous things he has done, when you start to waver. You are doing great, keep going xx

Myname hope all went ok today.

Really really hope everything went well for you today

I'm in the final stages of divorce from someone with strong narcissistic tendencies. Not as bad as you are describing but he is controlling, entitled and emotionally abusive. His family for the most part enable his behaviour, particularly his brothers. I would say his father was extremely narcissistic.

I wish there was a magic wand I could wave but what I can give you is the benefit of my experience and that of a few friends who were in similar situations. It is very, very tough. I had very little support from my own family (of whom several are narcissistic) who thought I was being selfish and should put up and shut up. My friends mostly did not understand as from the outside soon to be ex looks like the perfect family man. Plus many friends/family members are in less than perfect marriages themselves.

Be very wary about advice from friends and family who, while sometimes well-meaning (albeit frequently with an axe to grind) often do not understand what you are really going through and some are also threatened as their own relationships are perilous.

Strongly advise reading as much as you can about personality-disorders and educating yourself about all the issues therein. Become familiar with the terms flying monkeys, grey rock technique, Machiavellian and parental alienation. Not to mention PTSD. Ignore these issues at your peril..

I strongly advise you seek a counsellor or therapist who understands NPD and other personality disorders. Be vary wary of couple's counselling unless they are well versed in the above. If possible join a supportive group or several and practice very good self-care. You need all the resources you can to exit an abusive marriage. Divorcing a narcissist is very, very challenging.

You may want to educate yourself on the law which was introduced in 2015 against emotional abuse/coercive control. In extremis, it could become another tool in your self-help kit. I haven't (yet) read the whole thread but I would say your case is at quite an extreme spectrum.

With the benefit of hindsight, I cannot emphasize enough how important the grey rock technique can be. I allowed myself to be emotionally manipulated by the narcissistic men in my life who all ganged together to enjoy the fireworks as I reacted to their unreasonable behaviour. I made the mistake of thinking that they would see the error of their ways and be apologetic or change. Narcissists in general would rather chop off their right arms than do any self-analysis. So much easier to pin the blame on everyone else rather than take responsibility for their own behaviour.

While protecting your own children from abusive behaviour is of course paramount, you also need to protect yourself. I've seen too many spouses/partners (often but not always women) try to protect their children but not properly protect themselves and try to minimize their partner's bad behaviour hoping it will somehow protect their children. While of course I do not advocate bad mouthing the other parent, I see no good in pretending that abusive behaviour is okay either - it sends out a terrible message to children and runs the risk of not breaking the narcissistic pattern.

My divorce is still not quite through. When it comes through it will be a bitter-sweet experience. In many ways, I wish I could turn the clock back and I wish I had done things differently. But I suppose I have learnt a lot.

I wish you luck and am always happy to share experiences and help if I can.

Goodness I read this with baited breath.

He sounds utterly terrifying.

I really hope you have the children and that dh has gone.

butterballs great post.
KOKO

What a scary post. I really hope you are away from him now. You do NOT need to keep letting the children see him. He is abusive towards them!!!!!!! And that won't work in your favour I wouldn't think. Just block all contact with him and get the police involved and his visa removed

Dogdays...so sorry this is what can happen.....:(

I hope you're ok.

I really wish there was an update.

Op hope you're ok

Hold on Op you will get there x

While it would be reassuring to know OP is ok , she may well be very busy getting her new life sorted so it's up to her if she pops back to update us!

The other thing is, narcissistic husbands who are being divorced (and probably wives for that matter) turn into obsessive stalkers. My soon to be ex would read my appointments diary whenever he could get his hands on it. Get into my phone (if I tried to have a secret password he would get offended and ask why). Get into my email. He even made sure I was on his computer system (work based but also home based) so it would be easy for him to keep tabs on me.

Whenever I started pulling away, or trying to initiate greater independence, he would up the spying accordingly. He would drive by where I was or even turn up to a girls' night out, say, knowing that I didn't want him there. He would pile on the guilt and shame if I didn't want to go to a family event complaining that 'we always did it' or it had been arranged for months. What I wanted was irrelevant.

He would make sure that he would answer the phone when family members called so he would be in on any wider family events without me deciding whether I wanted to include him and even without me knowing what arrangements had been made.

He wanted to make sure that he was the first port of call when it came to arrangements with our daughters (funny because when they were younger he was never at any of our children's events, even their birthdays! He was effectively a workaholic and never around. ) And he heavily laid on guilt trips about how we needed to stick together as a family and how our children would be negatively affected by a separation.

He managed to get both my narcissistic father and sibling/s on-side for a time. He claimed he was 'very concerned' about me and at one point both him and my father were desperate to medicalize me. I think they wanted me 'zombied out' rather than face the fact that the problem lay in the relationship. Anything than to admit that perhaps an unhappy wife might be to do with a poor choice of husband. (Unfortunately, if one or both of your parents is narcissistic you are incredibly stuffed when it comes to making good choices for life partners unless you have had therapy up to the hilt and even then, imo, you are still quite stuffed...).

I quite simply had become very unhappy with my husband. I had been on and off for years but once the children had more or less left home it reached a point where I could no longer make any pretense about wanting to be in a relationship with him. The physical side of things had been pretty objectionable to me for several years and then his inability to change or self-reflect and his denial of difficulties just sent me over the edge. As he ran his own business (with an equally ineffective partner) he was his own boss with no-one to check what was going on. Finances were never his strong point but it's interesting how him and his narcissistic siblings managed to sniff out partners with family money to bail them out - something that their own parents would never have done in a million years. (Narcs are good at sniffing out strengths and weaknesses which I believe they ultimately do to feather their own nests quite ruthlessly plus bask in the glory of an enviable - from the outside - lifestyle.)

I was desperate for him to leave but he pointblank refused (despite my having paid off the entire mortgage years ago and him effectively having no equity in the apartment). I looked into renting a flat when things at home were unbearable but I was worried about costs mounting up and legal advice was not to leave the family home. Despite his heavily mounting debts due to his inability to stick to a budget, right up to the final legal meeting he was trying to get me or my family to pay his business and the household bills. (He has had a minimum of six holidays this year - apparently, despite being long-haul, holidays are 'cheap').

At one point he went as far as telling my siblings I was stalking him. I think this was after a monumental row we had had when I told him I never wanted to see him again. This was a common tactic of his and in fact always has been. He accuses me of doing what he does. Everything is someone else's fault - usually mine it would seem!

When things were at their worst he became so penny-pinching about money that I swear he wanted me homeless with no contact with my children. He is of catholic faith (or was) and divorce is a big no-no. If a woman (especially) wants a divorce she is the lowest of the low and must be punished. Or at least that is how it felt to me. His family and friends I think must have advised him to be horrible because he could not have been more so. Brutal in the extreme even when I was practically in the gutter and wanting to take my own life at one stage (narcs do tend to take you to the edge and beyond..).

Sorry, this all sounds terribly dramatic. But it was hell on earth for a bit which made me realize why I had not tried to separate sooner - I knew how difficult it would be.

What helped was when he got involved with another woman (which I had wanted as perverse as that sounds) as it got him off my back. I think he has done the classic 'rebound' job. He has done no work on himself, has had no therapy, has gained no real insights into why the marriage broke down. It's all 'poor me' and he now feels entirely justified in spending all his time on holiday despite claiming he has no money.

A long rant. Sorry. But things are so much better. Grown-up children are doing well and I think understanding more why I wanted out. What is silly is that I never particularly wanted a divorce in the first place. I thought we could just do a bit of a 'slow fade' as some couples do and eventually form other attachments and drift apart reasonably amicably. But he was not having any of it. Even getting myself into a separate bedroom was a three year battle with sulks, tantrums, threats and the like.

Narcissists are a bit like toddlers. They lack the impulse control to be able to take a step back and consider things. They are also incredibly self-centered and need constant praise and attention. They also find it very difficult to comprehend another person's point of view and as so many others have commented they CANNOT empathize. That is the biggest red flag, imo. That and they cannot really do 'deep' emotions.

I've only seen soon to be ex deeply moved by another person's plight on a few occasions. I general I have found with me although he professes deep love, his actions speak otherwise. He has never show the slightest interest in my career or in any of the things I am passionate about (unless it concerns him - in other words he wants me worrying about how he will pay his bills and slaving away at home to do just that).

Another excessively unattractive trait is that he won't stand up for me in the company of other people. Whether this is a narc trait or whether it just makes him a weak coward I don't know. I tend to think it is because he doesn't actually respect me - it is really all about him and always has been. I don't think narcs can actually see people as separate entities - they are merely mirrors or extensions of themselves. So they really cannot empathize with another person as they cannot see that person as a separate being with their own emotions which can be hurt.

OP hope you are okay. This is a long journey but you can get through it and come out of the other side. Work very hard on your support system and concentrate on your own boundaries. Narcs push and push and know which buttons to press.