Divorcing a Narcissist

Katie's Mom said:

I'm currently waiting for the judge to sign the divorce agreement my husband and I agreed to. I'm doing my best to lean on God through my divorce, but it's very difficult...I feel anger, sadness, loss, etc. I know it takes two to tango in a marriage and my actions played a role in the dissolution of my marriage. I own my part and am sorry for it. I have confessed this to my ex-spouse. However, as I reflect on the past, I believe my ex-husband is a narcissist. I've done some research about this and he seems to fit every category. Recognizing this has helped me in that I know that what went wrong in our marriage wasn't all my fault, even though he made it very clear that it was. However, knowing this has also scared me in that I'm not sure if he will accept my apologies, develop a soft heart, and one day have an amicable relationship with me. My biggest fear is that he will hate me. Has anyone been married to a narcissist? Any thoughts, ideas or experiences?

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The big question is who is not a "narcissist" to one degree or another...

Maybe the word you might be looking for is an "ego maniac", which is a very high degree of narcissism...? Overboard narcissism...?

Would you consider him that...?

God Bless!

Hi Kate's mom. I've never been friends with a narcissist. But I have heard a couple of women describe what it was like to live with one and I'd not wish that on my enemies. So my heart goes out to you.
I guess I'd say go and figure out the life you want and then build the life you want. So many try to tell us what to do with our life. But I think God wants to see us choose a life of loving and its easiest to love others from a place where we are enjoying the world God created for us to live in.

My ex-husband has many narcissistic traits. My mother IS a narcissist, and I believe two of my siblings might be narcissists also (or they just learned our mother's behavior patterns).

Your primary goal is the health, safety, and wellbeing of your child and yourself.

When dealing with a narcissist, or someone who has some narcissistic traits, you can't base your decisions on how they feel now or will feel in the future. The main reason for this is because they will use emotions to manipulate people. You have to base all of your decisions on what is morally right, ethical, and healthy. In order to do so, you have to remove your own emotions from it temporarily to be able to make good judgements, and even seek professional advice on how to do so.

Once decisions are made and you are firmly committed to sticking to it, then you can feel your feelings and work things out in your own heart and mind for your own sanity. Nothing you feel is wrong, but it is very easy to make mistakes in situations like this.

BTW, a typical trait of narcissistic behavior is to blame other people or situations and circumstances that are beyond their control. Nothing is ever their fault. It is part of the manipulation they do.

I think that label is severely overused. I’ve met so many people who think their ex is a narcissist. My wife also thinks I’m a narcissist, but both of my therapists say not even close.

I don’t know if your ex is or isn’t, but my ex seemed to be during the divorce and shortly after and has mellowed our drastically after she took all my money and my kids. So I think you should be careful focusing on a label, as there is an echo chamber currently in the divorce community on this and in my experience hurt people hurt people, so when you are going through a divorce it’s easy to see the worst.


Im not an expert tho and maybe I don’t know what I’m talking about. All that to say my narcissistic wife turned out to just be mean and vindictive because of pain and anger, now it’s much more manageable

JAM2b said:

BTW, a typical trait of narcissistic behavior is to blame other people or situations and circumstances that are beyond their control. Nothing is ever their fault. It is part of the manipulation they do.

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Most people I know are narcissists then

GaveMeJoy said:

Most people I know are narcissists then

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You need to find new circles to move in then. Unless you are misunderstanding this.

TheDag said:

You need to find new circles to move in then. Unless you are misunderstanding this.

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"Most people HE knows are narcissists"?? agreed, find new friends, and this seems to be a cop out statement.

[QUOTE="Katie's Mom,

Finding a local divorce support group can be a real help.

It takes two to tango, but I don't think there is much tangoing if one person is running the show.