Husband blackmailing wife.

[Fallinginlovewdme]

Hi,
I have a friend who wants to divorce her narcissistic husband. However the husband blackmails her with a video he secretly filmed of the wife slapping their son. He has also made the son record videos against his mother saying she hits him. DH is now using this to blackmail wife so that she doesn't file for divorce as she will lose her child .The mother doesn't want to lose child. However she is trapped.please advise.

Well, narcissistic or not, his wife hits his child. That would top it for me too

The whole thing is completely toxic, but I sure as hell wouldn’t want to see her run off with the son either without worrying about his welfare.
He should just report her full stop, no blackmail.
She should just divorce him, because they are two people who shouldn’t be in each other’s company creating such an awful environment.

Did she actually slap the son or is this something taken out of context? Obviously there is a big difference also between slapping a small child for no reason, a tap on the hand in fun, and a slap to defend yourself against a teenager who is bigger than you and coming at you.
How old is the footage? Personally I would try women's aid and see what they say. Maybe look at if she can get help to understand things eg freedom course

If he had time to film it it obviously wasnt one slap. Poor child. Both parents sound utterly dreadful.

It would be incredible if the only time she was violent towards her child it happened to be caught on camera.

Could it be that the husband is terrified his violent wife would be granted primary custody of their child? Maybe he is staying due to fear of the repercussions, lots of women stay in relationships or the same reason.

What a coincidence that not only are you & your “friend” both married to narcissists (& trying to divorce them at the same time) but that you’re both also having trouble concerning your sons too - in her case, there being video of her slapping her son & him saying she hits him & in your case, your son turning against you.

Still, at least you have each other for support.

With regard to your friend, I think lunar makes a very good point so it would be really reckless for anyone on this board to give advice / ideas on how someone can keep residence of their child who they’ve physically abused.

Obviously none of us know what goes on behind closed doors so I think the best thing your friend can do is get legal advice, go ahead with the divorce & then state her case / side of the story to the relevant authorities & work with them to get the best outcome for her son.

Both of these people need therapy and parenting classes. In Scotland, smacking is illegal, but it isn't in the rest of the UK. I suppose how damaging the video would be depends totally on the context. Would it be seen as "reasonable" within the law (outside Scotland) or would it be beyond that? What have you done since this incident to work on your parenting? Also how come the other parent was videoing? Were they videoing when they should have been intervening? Do you have any evidence of the blackmail? Maybe do some covert recording of your own, as blackmail is illegal and really sinister if they're saying "stay married or I'll do xyz".

I think you have to accept you've done some shit parenting, do everything you can to resolve that (like therapy and parenting classes) and call in social services, police, women's aid, and explain the whole dysfunctional situation and follow their advice on what to do.