Divorcing a narcissist: read the contents plus chapter 1

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Is My Partner A Narcissist? that the relationship is over will come, as the final stage. If you are in any of these stages, except acceptance, it is obvious that it will be difficult to assess the situation with clarity. And, if you do eventually come to the conclusion that your marriage was indeed with a narcissist, then you will have the added complication of feeling as though you are grieving the loss of something that wasn’t even real. Many people then add ‘guilt’ to the list of emotions they are experiencing, as they don’t feel they even have the right to grieve. It’s very complicated indeed, and hardly conducive to rational thought. 4. Episodes of ‘hoovering’ If the narcissist does not want the separation, they will employ the hoovering tactic; seeking to persuade the other to change their mind and continue the relationship. This is often done through love-bombing (showering you with ‘love’), promising to change and even threatening suicide. Often, this will lead to you, as the victim, repeatedly changing your mind about whether you want to issue divorce proceedings. You may find yourself having a petition drafted a number of times, or even issued but not served, or withdrawn. Narcissistic individuals are great at sucking their victims back in – especially if they have located their spouse’s Achilles heels over a long marriage or relationship. They will play on your sympathy, your love and your sadness. It’s confusing to say the least, and is guaranteed to throw you off balance. 5. Anxiety You may be experiencing intense anxiety as a result of your unsatisfactory relationship, and especially if you have been experiencing narcissistic behaviours. But anxiety isn’t just an emotion – it has physical manifestations too, as the brain tries to get your attention. We’ve all experienced anxiety in some form, perhaps before a tricky interview, or at an exam. Sweaty palms, shaking, shortness of breath, palpitations. But anxiety can be debilitating too – you can be crippled by episodes of chest pain, convinced that you are having a heart attack. You may suffer from diarrhoea that is so profuse that you cannot go to work. You may be doubled over with abdominal pain, or feel constantly sick. Panic attacks may affect how you live your life. Your sleep may be affected, and you may find yourself regularly waking in the middle of the night unable to get back to sleep, wrecking your ability to function in the following days. Back pain, neck pain, headaches, and every other type of ache, are common. They are not ‘in your head’ – they are real, but the brain is interpreting your emotional pain as being physical, misinterpreting the nerve signals as coming from a physical source. Distracting symptoms of anxiety are hardly going to help you in your quest to understand your situation. 11
Divorcing A Narcissist – The Lure, The Loss And The Law 6. Hope If you are or have been in a relationship with a narcissist, hope that things will go back to how they were when they were perfect is a huge factor. If you do not realise that ‘how things were’ was merely the narcissistic individual reflecting your adoration of them back to you, you will believe that your relationship was real. You will believe that their love for you was deep. You will be trapped by images of their romantic gestures, not only during the initial ‘love-bombing’ phase of the relationship, but also in the subsequent intermittent phases where they sought to draw you back in after they had withdrawn, or criticised you and made you feel bad. Hope can prevent you from seeing the relationship as it really was. It has to be left outside the door, whilst you scrutinise your past to see if the patterns of narcissism were a feature of your relationship. ‘Euphoric recall’, which is the tendency to only remember the fantastic times, is a pronounced feature in narcissistic abuse, and keeps unrealistic hope in the picture. 7. Guilt A big feature, particularly when you are the party leaving the relationship, is guilt, and a real narcissist will play on this with reckless abandon. As if you don’t already feel guilty enough, you will be made to feel as though you have destroyed your narcissistic partner’s “ As if you don’t already feel guilty enough, you will be made to feel as though you have destroyed your narcissistic partner’s life by considering leaving. ” life by considering leaving. Perhaps they will make you feel as though you have used them. That you lied to them when you made your wedding vows. That you are ruining the lives of your children by depriving them of a two parent household. Many people worry that their narcissistic partner’s behaviour may actually be caused by a brain tumour, or any stress that they are under, or some other type of illness. They believe that they may be abandoning them in their hour of need, contrary to their vows of ‘in sickness and in health’. Guilt is another emotion that muddies the waters of objectivity and makes it difficult for you to see your partner’s behaviour as being narcissistic. 12
Page 1 and 2: Divorcing a Narcissist
Page 3 and 4: Published February 2021 ISBN 978-1-
Page 5 and 6: Also from Bath Publishing Narcissis
Page 8 and 9: Contents About the authors v Introd
Page 10 and 11: Contents The golden child, the scap
Page 12: Contents The narcissist’s childre
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Page 19 and 20: A Narcissist’s Prayer That didn
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Divorcing a narcissist: read the contents plus chapter 1

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