Marriage, Divorce, and Narcissism: Part 3--Strategies for Dealing with NPDs and their wounded spouses in Divorce Litigation

The narcissistic paradox: Narcissists have the ability to inspire confidence in their grandiose assertions about themselves without a shred of evidence.


For those of us who must deal with narcissists (Narcissistic Personality Disorder or NPD) as  part of our personal or professional life, whether as clients, partners, spouses, employers or bosses, few relationships are more challenging and frustrating. Literally millions of dollars are spent each year on professional counseling by the hapless victims of these charming, successful, and intelligent but toxic people to try to figure out how to live with inevitable scars resulting from a relationship of any kind with a narcissist. 

So who are these women who marry these malignant narcissistic men? If you're representing the wife of an NPD, you need to know. 

While some NPD men marry other NPD women (mutual deceit), the pattern is more often that these men marry vulnerable, naive, beautiful, smart women who come from troubled or abusive families themselves. Many of these women have NPD fathers or alcohol or substance abuse family histories that have taught them that denial is their best defense against an abusive present, and that ignoring crazy behavior is the key to survival. They have been adoring, bordering on worshipful, to their NPD husband, and eventually they have been discarded and replaced, usually with a younger version of themselves. Once self confident and sociable, now they are anxious, irrationally self-critical, self-doubting, and depressed. They have very low stress tolerance, and probably call your office to ask the same fear-driven questions at least daily, frequently many times a day. When custody evaluations are written, these women are frequently found to be borderline personality disorders (Google that for more information), or at the very least clinically depressed with anxiety disorders.

The personal suffering of the millions of victims of NPDs has been well documented over the last 20 years or so by many talented and articulate writers. Both the DSM-V and Sam Vaknin (a self-admitted NPD himself) have clearly explained the characteristics of NPD, and their impact on people who love them, so I won't repeat that list here. Rather, I want to address the toxic and systemic impact of narcissism on the functioning of the courts, particularly the family court system, and the Courts' decisions about conservatorship of children.

As we all learned in law school, our system of justice is predicated on the principle that out of the conflict of two trained advocates zealously representing the differing interests of their clients before an objective trier of fact, the truth will rise like a Phoenix out of the fires of conflict. I contend that in too many family court cases where an NPD is a party, this fundamental assumption about how truth is uncovered and justice is administered is fatally flawed.

First, when a NPD divorces, their spouse is already at a significant disadvantage. Spouses of NPDs are inevitably grossly wounded by their relationship, and many are so wounded that they have symptoms similar to those of combat veterans and PTSD sufferers. Worse, the isolation that they have lived with as a normal feature of their marriage has prevented them from realizing that the criticism, threats, insults, and humiliations that they suffered in private were NOT their fault, and they are NOT worthless human beings. As a result, they are difficult clients to represent because they have such low expectations that anyone can help them, and have to learn to stand up for themselves again. 

This background of humiliation and intimidation makes meeting with a divorce attorney a surreal experience where they are asked about details of their married life they frequently know nothing about: money, property, investments, and other assets. (BTW this is another clue that hubby is an NPD) Inquiries about the children are more comfortable, and these moms are frequently very engaged with their kids (sometimes overly so). As mom's attorney begins to prepare for negotiating the terms of temporary orders for visitation, conservatorship, and support, their client's unease grows as she realizes that the odds of an agreement without a fight are very low. Furthermore, she knows how persuasive her NPD husband can be and how fearful she is of facing him in court.

Second, increasingly crowded family court dockets mean that time allocated for temporary hearings is declining. This trend favors NPDs, who can make damaging and completely specious allegations about their wounded spouse in their hearing testimony with no fear of being successfully challenged by their spouse's attorney with contravening facts.  
Two more core characteristics of the NPD style only make the challenge of finding facts in a short hearing even more difficult. NPDs respond to challenges of their outrageous fictions in two predictable ways: first, they "double-down" on the allegations and make even more grandiose and fictitious claims about their own character, accomplishments, and parenting ability; second, they increase their personal attacks on their spouse, again with no regard to the actual facts or the effects of those attacks on the mother of their children.

One NPD characteristic, ironically, is actually helpful to the insightful attorney representing the spouse of a NPD. One of the primary ways that NPDs cope and protect their grandiose views of themselves as "all good" or perfect, is to blame others for actions they themselves are doing. For example, in a recent case, an NPD dad accused his ex-wife of substance abuse, but when the court ordered drug tests, the results showed that HE was using cocaine and pot, while his ex had nothing but prescription drugs ordered by her doctor in therapeutic doses in her blood.  Bottom line: If you want to know what an NPD has done or is doing that they know to be wrong or "bad", listen to what they are accusing their usually innocent spouse of doing!

The problem for family courts who do their best to find the truth and administer justice for children and families is this: While our legal process is the best in the world for catching witnesses in a lie, that process takes time in court for painstaking fact-checking in cross examination and the requisite pre-trial preparation to work. In a world where Twitter's 140 character limit now sets the standard for meaningful communication, NPDs have substantial advantage, and the same goes in Courts who only have time for a 45 minute hearing to make a decision. 

The abbreviated hearing system is tilted toward the charm, confidence, and baseless but alarming allegations of the NPD litigant whose lies are unlikely to be successfully challenged in 20 minutes. As I teach my coaching clients, confidence is a large component of how people (and Courts) evaluate witness credibility, and NPDs have the charm, intelligence, cunning, and confidence to be very credible sounding witnesses while they spout an ever changing string of outright lies.

The system is likewise tilted against the shell-shocked spouse of the NPD who knows the allegations are completely false but largely because of her toxic relationship with the NPD appears anxious, confused, uncertain, and is unable to defend herself against the lies and be an effective witness for herself and her children. And she knows that after the hearing is over, regardless of the outcome or what the Court orders, the NPD is going to do exactly what he wants to do anyway because that is what he has always done.

Advanced Practice Tips and Tools for Attorneys Representing the Spouse of NPDs:

1. If your client looks unusually anxious, depressed, and hopeless despite being married to a highly successful, professional, executive, or especially political man, suspect NPD in the man and get the wife to confirm the list (Google narcissistic personality to find everything you need). Plan to "slow walk" the litigation to give your client time to recover from the daily criticism and abuse so she can learn to testify against him with confidence.

2. Suspect hidden assets and extramarital relationships as well as substance abuse from the outset. NPDs will do or say anything to get what they want or think they deserve (which is everything BTW). When custody evaluation reports are filed in these high conflict cases with fact patterns like I have outlined in this series, if dad is NOT diagnosed as an NPD, it's time to get a highly qualified MHP expert to consult with you and review the report. NPDs are damaging to the emotional development of children and joint managing conservatorship (custody) is NOT a reasonable recommendation in these cases.

3. Remember, whatever the NPD is telling his attorney about your client is mostly self-serving lies, and the opposing attorney is most likely "under the spell" of the charming and persuasive NPD. Remember the old joke "Q: How can you tell when X is lying? A: His lips are moving" was written about NPDs. They will lie even when the truth would help them if the lie makes them look better.

4. Take the time to prepare your client to testify in the temporary hearing by first, getting a good marital history that you also need to prepare for cross examination of the NPD spouse, and second, by coaching and practicing her direct testimony and the expected cross examination. (Many of these spouses freeze when they hear the enormous lies and incomprehensible allegations about themselves for the first time in court; they just can't process it fast enough to effectively respond, so they look "guilty".)

5. NPDs only back down when they are humiliated in public, in my experience. Their grandiose and perfect self image is the most important thing in life to them; if that's damaged or in danger, they lose interest in litigating and are more likely to be amenable to settlement.

Finally, especially if you're representing the wife of a suspected NPD in divorce litigation, get your client a coach who really understands NPD and can help her learn what happened to her during the relationship. Unfortunately, a majority of counselors and psychologists still don't understand NPD and consequently can't help these clients recover from narcissistic abuse. However, an experienced professional with the right training and experience can make a big difference in a short period of time. This will make representing her much easier and less frustrating, and may be the difference between a good outcome for the client and something far worse.

Whether you're a client or an attorney, I look forward to your comments and questions: connect to me on LinkedIn, or email me here--karlson.kevin@gmail.com.