Ending a marriage can be a painful, grueling process. Bring narcissism into the mix and this process will only become more challenging, exhausting, and emotionally draining.
Regardless of who initiates the divorce, your narcissistic partner will likely try to make the split as difficult as possible.
A narcissist’s delusional belief in their own grandiosity and superiority can lead them to interpret divorce as a direct challenge to their sense of status and worth. If they feel they are losing control over you, they will do whatever it takes to gain the upper hand.
They might use gaslighting, guilt-tripping, blame-shifting, or other psychological tactics to confuse you and make it difficult for you to make clear decisions.
Additionally, narcissists typically lack empathy, making it hard for them to understand or care about the emotional impact of their actions on their partners. This lack of empathy coupled with their high-conflict nature and manipulative personality can be emotionally, financially, and physically draining for the spouse seeking divorce.
How Do You End a Marriage With a Narcissist?
Ending a marriage with a narcissist can be a challenging and emotionally draining process, but here is some essential advice to consider:
Keep Your Plans Secret
Do not tell your partner you are planning to file for divorce. If they know, they will try to manipulate you into staying. And, if they feel their control over you is in jeopardy, they might become even more aggressive, manipulative, and abusive.
It is also beneficial to document any instances of abuse, manipulation, or controlling behavior by the narcissist. This evidence may include emails, text messages, social media posts, or any other communication that demonstrates their behavior.
Educate Yourself on Narcissism
To understand your narcissistic spouse and how they may react to divorce, educate yourself on narcissism, how to cope with narcissistic behavior, and how to heal from a narcissistic relationship.
Rebuild Your Support System
Narcissists tend to isolate their spouses from friends and family in order to exert control and induce dependency. If you are planning to leave a relationship with a narcissist, it is important to keep trusted friends or family informed about your situation.
You will need as much support as possible – not just for your well-being but also for your safety.
Depending on your circumstances, you may also want to consider contacting a domestic abuse organization. If you fear for your safety, take appropriate precautions and do not hesitate to call the police or obtain a restraining order.
Seek an Experienced Legal Representative
If possible, find a divorce attorney experienced in dealing with high-conflict divorces and narcissistic individuals. A skilled attorney can guide you through the legal process and protect your interests while dealing with the narcissist’s manipulative tactics.
Expect an Increase in Abusive and Manipulative Behaviors
Once your partner learns that you are planning to divorce them, they may initially try to win you back through love bombing and hoovering.
However, when they realize you are moving forward with the split, they can become contentious. hostile, and antagonistic. They might refuse to sign the divorce papers, attempt to ruin your reputation, harass you, or verbally, financially, and/or physically abuse you.
Be Prepared
Here are some steps you can take to minimize risks during the divorce process:
- Collect as much evidence of their wrongdoings as possible – you might need it later.
- Going forward, record conversations and make detailed notes of your interactions.
- Protect your assets, secure your finances, and safeguard any important documents and valuables
- If you have a shared bank account, ensure you have cash stowed away. Consider opening a separate bank account that they cannot access.
- Make arrangements for your children. Develop a parenting plan that prioritizes their needs and minimizes conflict.
- Minimize direct contact with the narcissistic spouse as much as possible. Try to find a new place to stay during the divorce process.
- Sign out of your social media and email accounts on all devices and change your passwords.
- Check your devices, clothes, shoes, and car for trackers.
- Maintain your composure and avoid reacting emotionally to their provocations.
Remember Why You Are Leaving
Their efforts to win you back might make you doubt your decision to divorce them. But you must accept that they will never genuinely change.
Be very clear in your mind about why you decided to leave and stay focused on that. It might be helpful to make a list and keep it somewhere you will see every day.
Establish Boundaries
During the divorce process, you should establish boundaries to protect yourself emotionally and mentally. Communicate these boundaries clearly to your spouse. They will likely overstep your boundaries, but you must stay strong and stick to them, no matter what.
Limit your communication to essential matters related to the divorce and avoid engaging in unnecessary conversations.
Stay Calm and Composed
Narcissists thrive on conflict and drama. They enjoy getting an emotional reaction out of others. Try to maintain your composure so you do not give them this satisfaction.
Avoid rolling your eyes, sighing, yelling, arguing, or crying. Try to be “boring” in the eyes of the narcissist, so they lose interest in you.
Be clear on your boundaries and only communicate when absolutely necessary. Stick to the facts and remain focused on your legal goals.
Look After Yourself
Divorcing a narcissist can be an incredibly draining and stressful process. Not only is it essential to have a strong support system, but you also want to ensure that you are making time for yourself.
Engage in activities that you enjoy. This could include exercising, meditating, going to yoga, taking long walks, spending time in nature, reading a book, or spending time with friends and family.
Consider seeking help from a support group and/ or therapist for emotional support and coping strategies.
How Does a Narcissist Behave During Divorce?
During divorce, narcissists can exhibit a wide variety behaviors – from passive aggression to vicious attacks – that can make the process exceptionally challenging for their spouse and anyone involved.
Depending on their personality and the type of narcissist they are, their tactics might be openly abusive or more subtle. Here are some common behaviors you may experience when divorcing a narcissist:
Controlling Behavior
Narcissism is associated with an excessive need for control. To maintain control over you and the divorce process, a narcissist might withhold important information, “lose” documents, refuse to sign papers, and be uncooperative in the proceedings.
They might also engage in legal maneuvers to prolong the divorce process or gain an upper hand.
They see negotiations as a challenge to their power and authority, so they tend to resist any concessions or collaborative efforts.
Abuse
It is often at the end of the relationship, during the discard phase, that a narcissist intensifies their abusive behavior.
Narcissists have antagonistic personalities, and they thrive on drama and conflict. They may escalate disputes during the divorce process, making reaching agreements on important issues like child custody, property division, and alimony more challenging.
Manipulation
To maintain dominance, narcissists often use manipulation tactics, such as gaslighting, blame-shifting, emotional blackmail, and victim-playing. For example, they might tell you they will hurt themselves if you leave.
Additionally, narcissists have difficulty accepting responsibility for their actions. They may blame their spouse for the divorce and portray themselves as the victim, seeking sympathy and support from others.
Alternatively, they might stonewall or cut you out of their life entirely, complicating the divorce proceedings even more.
Financial Manipulation
If you have shared finances, make sure your money is safe. As a way to exert control, play games, or take revenge, a narcissist might try to steal your money or belongings.
They may attempt to hide assets or manipulate financial information to gain an advantage in the divorce settlement or to exert control over their spouse’s financial situation.
In some cases, they might even claim they are entitled to your money and try to convince you to hand it over. Unless there was a legal pre-arrangement, do not allow them to blackmail or gaslight you into this.
Smear Campaign
To exert control and extract revenge, narcissists may attempt to tarnish your reputation and turn others against you.
They might spread rumors about how abusive, crazy, or unstable you are, while painting themselves as the victim. Narcissists are concerned about how others perceive them, so they might engage in behaviors to maintain their own positive public image while discrediting their spouse to friends, family, and the broader community.
Anything you have told them in confidence might be revealed, exaggerated, or twisted to suit their own agenda.
Fake Kindness
A narcissist might behave in a kind and loving manner toward you in order to gain your trust. But, their motive is usually to get close so they can steal your money, tarnish your reputation, or turn your kids against you.
There will likely be a stark contrast between what they say to your face and how they behave behind your back.
They will distort or deny reality to make you doubt your perceptions, memory, or sanity.
Additionally, after the divorce is finalized, some narcissists may attempt to reestablish contact or “hoover” you, especially if they feel they no longer have control.
How Does a Narcissist Feel After Divorce?
The way a narcissist feels after a divorce can vary depending on their personality and coping mechanisms. However, several common reactions or emotions may arise in narcissists following a divorce:
Anger and Resentment
Narcissists will likely feel angry and resentful after a divorce, especially if they perceive that they have lost control or were “wronged” in some way.
Leaving a narcissist is likely going to be interpreted as a provocation and a threat to their grandiose and superior sense of self. They will direct this anger towards you or others they believe contributed to the divorce.
They will resent you for being happier without them and might attempt to sabotage your friendships, relationships, careers, or property.
Loss of Control
Narcissists need to feel in control of their environment and the people in it. If the divorce is not on their terms, they may experience this as a loss of control.
This can trigger emotional outbursts or attempts to regain a sense of superiority. Some narcissists may even try to reconnect with you after the divorce, either to rekindle the relationship or to regain control.
Playing the Victim
For a narcissist, accepting that they are anything less than perfect is reprehensible. Narcissists typically have difficulty taking responsibility for their actions, specifically the breakdown of a relationship.
They may blame you, the legal system, or anyone else for the divorce, deflecting accountability away from themselves.
They might even portray themselves as the victim, making you believe that you are the problem and the reason why the relationship is failing.
Desire for Revenge
Narcissists have a tendency to ruminate about who wronged them and how to enact revenge. Divorce feels like a threat to their grandiose self-esteem and perceived dominance, inciting feelings of anger and resentment.
To maintain their self-esteem and superiority, narcissists tend to devise (and act on) plans to take revenge. They might hide your passport, steal your pet, or call your boss to get you fired. They might also spread rumors, make false accusations, or attempt to tarnish your reputation.
Relief
In some cases, a narcissist might actually feel relieved about the end of a relationship. They too may have been unhappy in the marriage and considered divorce.
However, they likely will still want to have the upper hand, making the process difficult and draining.
Divorcing a Narcissist When Children Are Involved
If you have children with a narcissist, they will inevitably become entangled in the divorce procedure. The narcissist may try to gain sole custody, use the children as leverage, or try to turn them against you.
Therefore, divorcing a narcissist when children are involved requires careful planning and consideration to protect the well-being of the children and navigate the complexities of dealing with a high-conflict personality.
This process can be frightening, upsetting, and infuriating, but the best course of action is to establish boundaries, seek legal advice, and prioritize the children.
How to Safeguard the Well-Being of Children
Although children have likely suffered significant abuse and trauma as a result of having a narcissistic parent, they most likely still love and look up to their parents. As such, the divorce should be handled with care, support, and communication.
Here is some advice to help you through the process:
Maintain Emotional Stability
You may be feeling angry, frustrated, and anxious, but you must remain calm, composed, and neutral. If your children ask questions, use neutral and objective language to reduce the stress they may be experiencing.
Do not shut them out or keep secrets from them. It is important to communicate openly with your children – just be mindful of your words and tone.
Consider Therapy
It might be helpful for your children to see a therapist who can help them to make sense of the situation, cope with the changes, and manage any emotional distress.
Additionally, it is important that you do not lean on your children for emotional support. As such, you might want to also seek support from a therapist who can help you navigate the challenges of co-parenting with your narcissistic ex-spouse.
Minimize Disruption
As much as possible, try to keep the children’s routines and rules in place to reduce further disruption to their lives.
Their routine and environment will inevitably change during this process, but by keeping boundaries and rules in place, you will be able to provide them with some consistency.
Case Example
The following is a real case of divorce featured in a study by Cohen (1998). This example describes what happened after a mother of two divorced her husband who had a narcissistic personality.
“Custody was awarded to the mother, with the father getting the usual visiting rights of two afternoons a week and alternate weekends. Over the next two years, the father repeatedly turned to the court to extend his access. His first suit was for more visiting days and was denied.
Six months later (the minimum time Israeli law requires between such suits), he sued again, this time for custody. This suit was also denied. Half a year later he returned to the court with the claim that his ex-wife was refusing to let him see the children.
In the examination that followed, it was determined that, in fact, the children themselves did not want to see him because he had threatened that if they told the judge that they wanted to live with their mother, he would cut his ties with them.
His last suit, to our knowledge, came around two years after the divorce. It was a request for a court ordered parental aptitude test, to determine whether he or his wife was the better parent.
This test, which is carried out by court-appointed psychologists, determined that the mother had the greater parental aptitude. Upon receipt of the test results, he disappeared from his children’s lives, and we too heard no more of him.
These suits—for more visiting days, for custody, and for parental aptitude tests—were all made against the background of sparse, irregular visits with his sons.
To be sure, his wife may have contributed somewhat to this state of affairs, since she felt threatened by his demands and, by her own admission, would have been happy to see the last of him.
But the court found no actual obstruction on her part, and the results of the parental aptitude test would seem to confirm that view. Also confirming that view is the social worker’s report that the man was willing to visit only at his convenience, with no consideration for the children’s times and other activities.
If his son could not see him, for example, because he had to study for a test or had a Scout meeting, he would accuse him of not wanting him, charge the mother with instigating the rejection, and refuse to make alternative arrangements.
Yet throughout it all, he claimed that his sons wanted to live with him, and that his wife did not cook, wash, or otherwise properly care for them.
He also repeatedly asserted that he had done “everything” in his power to meet with his sons, though when pressed to indicate what “everything” was, he either repeated the claim or took one instance of something he had done and called it “everything.”
Rather than answer the social worker’s questions, he speechified about what a good father he was, expounding at length on all that he had done for his children. He would say things like, “I’m the best thing that ever happened to my children.”
He treated the results of the parental aptitude test that he had requested as yet another piece of evidence that everyone was against him.
To the extent that he did speak of his sons, he told extensively of how much they resembled him and his side of the family, in appearance, hobbies, likes, and dislikes.
He made no reference to their sadness, which the social worker observed in her meeting with them, or to their anger at him, about which they had told her. His conduct towards the social worker varied with the changing circumstances.
Initially, she reported, he was cooperative and charming in his efforts to win her over to his side. He asked her to recommend that he receive custody and to convince the court that the children would be better off in his charge.
When custody was not granted, he barged into her office in a rage, blamed her for the adverse decision, and assured her that he had no intention of dropping the matter.”
Sources
Cohen, O. (1998). Parental Narcissism and the Disengagement of the Non-Custodial Father After Divorce. Clinical Social Work Journal, 26 (2).
Zajenkowski, M., Rogoza, R., Maciantowicz, O., Witowska, J. & Jonason, P.K. (2021). Narcissus locked in the past: Vulnerable narcissism and the negative views of the past. Journal of Research in Personality, 93.
