I finally received our property settlement orders last week: 2 years and 2 months after starting settlement proceedings. We were divorced 11 months ago. Married 30 years.
I never realised he was a covert narcissist. But after months of self discovery, therapy, watching dozens of youtube videos and listening to podcasts on the subject, I now know that what I felt all along was real. Not in my head.
Everyone knows an overt or malignant narcissist. They are the dumb ones, who can’t hide their grandiosity or toxicity. Covert narcissists are an entirely different beast. Well, not really, but they are more clever. They hide in plain site, being the “good guy” while exposing their “loved one” to a campaign of targeted psychological and mental abuse.
I always thought domestic family violence was about black eyes and bruises, threats and name-calling. He was never violent. He was too clever for that. But I now know how he treated me was abusive: the gaslighting, the devaluation, his point-blank refusal to work and his subtle little tricks to make me jump through his hoops.
So when I finally left him he smugly thought I’d be back. After all, I’d come back before, and it wouldn’t be long before I realised I couldn’t do without him and be back with my tail between my legs and he could graciously accept me back into his warped orbit.
What he didn’t know was I had spent three years preparing for the inevitable day I couldn’t stay with him any longer. It came as a shock to him. There was a week of silence, and then he called. Asked me to come back. I refused. At that point I still didn’t know what a narcissist’s playbook looked like, so I continued to engage with him and be nice.
Then I turned the money off. I was the sole breadwinner for years and I was damned if I was going to continue to fund his lazy lifestyle. That’s when he really stepped up the love bombing. Narcissists are highly manipulative, and he was so clever and subtle I didn’t even realise I was being manipulated. I filed in the court for a property settlement as soon as I could, and got a good lawyer.
Thank goodness I got a good lawyer. He understood the type, and their playbook, and proceeded to counter it with his own, and gradually my ex and his cheap lawyer (who was also a narcissist by the way) got boxed into a corner where they had no option but to settle out of court. It took 2 years and 2 months to get there. My lawyer wasn’t cheap, by the way, but looking back I think a cheaper lawyer would have ended up costing me so much more.
We weren’t even fighting over a lot of money. In fact, he didn’t even fight, he just passively resisted and refused to respond to anything. Even court orders.
Here’s what I learned about divorcing a narcissist.
It’s not about the money
He didn’t care what it cost, even though he’s a cheapskate at heart. He just wanted to continue to control me and punish me for leaving. And he had to win at that at all costs. So he didn’t care what it cost, as long as I bled money and time.
The gloves come off
He buttered up our kids and tried to alienate them from me.
He told the most horrible lies about me and tried to damage my reputation, including to his lawyer.
When his father (who I loved) died he did everything to prevent me from coming to the funeral.
When I read his affadavit about my conduct through our marriage and why he deserved the lion’s share of the marital pool, he used everything he could to paint me as a financially irresponsible, abusive narcissistic wife. I couldn’t read it all the way through, it was such a pack of lies.
It will always cost more than it should
My lawyer told me best case I could get a consensus property settlement for around $3,500. It ended up costing me around $75,000 in lawyers fees. This is because he refused to engage and we had to keep going back to the Court to force him to.
It will always take longer than it should
Best case, I could have had a property settlement in less than a month with a further month to have the Court order finalised. He had no interest in setting me free. For as long as he played his games, he had me on his hook still. He and his lawyer had me jumping through hoops during the discovery phase where we both had to submit our financials. No matter how fast I provided the requested documents in full, they always came back asking for more. Going back years. Looking for the Lear Jet I had parked in my balance sheet (which wasn’t there — I wish it were!). This process took about a year before he started submitting his own discovery documents. In the meantime, I ended up submitting over 500 documents.
Mediation will work, but only if they have a new supply
My lawyer advised me to go to mediation, as the Court prefers you try that route first before tying up court time. The first time, he agreed as long as I paid for it, but it didn’t go ahead. Finally I agreed, and to my surprise he agreed a settlement. Then I found out from the kids he had met another woman. Makes sense.
I refused to mediate in the same room, which my lawyers were happy to comply with, so the mediator bounced between the two rooms (me in one, him and his lawyer in the other).
I also refused to leave until the consent orders were drafted, signed and lodged with the court the same day, as I knew he would never sign them once drafted. Because he didn’t want people to know what an asshole he is, he signed.
However, the Court had questions, and he had to prepare and sign documents. By that time the new relationship was over, and his eyes swivelled back to me. It was time to make me miserable again. So he didn’t comply. Finally the Court ruled in our favour as they lost patience with his games and saw them for what they were. I was so lucky.
Don’t Engage
I blocked him from my phone and told him to only speak to me through my lawyer. I did that out of self-preservation: he is so manipulative I didn’t want to expose myself to further unintended grief.
I didn’t talk about him to my kids, 27 and 30 years old. Well, almost. It was hard not to.
Eventually he stopped sending me messages and just got on with using his lawyer to get to me. But my lawyer acted as the filter, and only discussed something with me if it needed discussion.
Get Therapy
Something I had to understand was “why on earth did I stay 30 years?”, but I also needed to fully understand the trauma bond and my poor boundary setting so I showed up in my next relationship a different person.
I am also grappling with the endless subtle abuse he exposed me to. At the time I didn’t recognise it for what it was, all I knew was I didn’t like what he was saying. I didn’t think that needing to keep a notebook with me at all times so I could fact check when he gaslighted me was an abnormal to do. I am currently going through a process of realisation and therapy helps a great deal.
But the therapist needs to understand narcissism. My first therapist helped in some areas, but was clueless how to deal with narcissistic abuse. It took me a while to find someone who understood the dynamics and can really help.
In Summary
I ended up giving him 55%, which is about 15% more than he deserved, as “fuck off” money, because I just wanted to get on with my life. That plus the legal fees and 2 years of my life were what it took to rid myself of a toxic parasite. I knew it wouldn’t be easy, but was unprepared for how traumatic, frustrating and expensive it actually was.
Bottom line is if I had known what I was in for I don’t think it would have made any tangible difference to the outcome, but I would have felt better prepared for the journey, and it would have just been long and expensive, and not nearly as frustrating and traumatic.
