More on NPD and custody litigation: Dr K’s top 10 list of tips and tools

More on NPD and custody litigation: Dr K’s top 10 list of tips and tools

After more than 30 years as a consultant to family lawyers and their clients (and as a custody evaluator/expert and therapist), I have been involved with hundreds of cases where one of the parents is a narcissist (NPD-usually the dad). What follows is some lessons learned from coaching their former spouses during and after they divorce the NPD, and try to co-parent their kids with them.

1. Former spouses of NPDs are traumatized and need treatment even if they look like they’re fine.

NPDs inflict major but usually invisible and long-lasting wounds on their spouses. The damage to the self-esteem and self-confidence, not to mention the trust, of the spouse is remarkably deep and pervasive. What’s more, many of the spouses are so wounded that don’t realize how wounded they are. They may have lived an outwardly very affluent and seemlingly happy life but behind closed doors at home, their existence was a wasteland of criticism, cruelty, and loneliness which they daren’t not reveal to anyone. By the time of the divorce, they doubt their own perceptions and judgment, as they have been “gaslighted” into near insanity by the controlling  and lying NPD. Despite their physical attractiveness (NPDs never marry average looking women) and expensive and tasteful wardrobes (NPDs would never been seen in public with someone that’s not wearing designer clothes), they are emotionally exhausted and impoverished on the inside. They are are emotionally prepared to litigate against an NPD whose goal is not just to win but to destroy them personally.

2. Former spouses of NPDs are frequently incompently treated by counselors and therapists.

The internal dynamics of former spouses of NPDs is much like traumatized combat veterans. Having lost their trust in their own perceptions of reality, and having been brainwashed by alternating periods of worshipful devotion and unexpected cruelty and denigration, they are anxious, depressed, and distrusting, bordering on paranoid. They are also able to pay for therapy, and difficult to engage in meaningful dialogue; for poorly trained or unethical mental health professionals, these are long-term patients who keep coming but have the same unending complaints and symptoms. Some of these women have been therapy for years without signficant progress or relief, believing their lack of improvement is their fault (another legacy of a close relationship with an NPD).

3. Children of an NPD parent are at significant risk for damage to their emotional, cognitive, and relational development.

The NPDs lack of empathy and overwhelming self-absorbsion means children are treated both as “furniture” and also as “reflections of perfection” of the NPD. NPDs need unending and uninterrupted worship and devotion; hence parenting is extremely unsatisfying and bothersome for them. Rules for children are arbitrary, usually cruel and unreasonable, and change at the drop of a hat.

Because NPDs see the world in black/white/all good/all bad terms, failure by the children to be “perfect” (whatever that might be at a given moment) results in harsh criticism, personal attacks and belittling, public humiliation, and/or rage and physical abuse, usually followed by complete neglect and emotional abandonment. Nearly all of these kids underperform at school, act out in rebellious or defiant ways with authority figures, have poor peer relationships, and are at very high risk for anxiety and depression. The greater the exposure to the NPD parent, the greater the risk and harm for the child. 

Post divorce visitation with an NPD parent is almost always represents a significant increase in the risk of harm to the normal growth and development of the child, since mom has usually buffered the kids from as much of the chaos from the NPD as she could. NPD single parent dads are frequently incompetent and uncaring parents with limited parenting skills and absolutely no real interest in their children. 

4.  Consequently, co-parenting with an NPD is impossible; “parallel parent”.

NPD’s do NOT “play well with others”; never have, never will. What a NPD hears when the court order says “co-parent” is this: “great, I am still in charge. I can do what I want, and I can make her do what I want, just like old times”.  Any attempt by Parenting Facilitators to engage dad in shared parenting, mutual sharing, and communication will be fruitless because NPDs don’t want to parent; they want to punish their ex by harassing the kids and generating control issues and threatening to take the kids from mom in a custody fight,

So moms should make good decisions about the kids knowing that they are going to be criticized  by dad no matter what they do. Communications should be by text and limited to the details of the exchanges, or to respond to the infrequent and unreasonable requests about the kids. Remember this
is not a reasonable, rational, normal dad; don’t expect normal loving dad behavior.

5. Before you litigate a reduction in visitation (or a custody change), get a competent therapist who understands NPD and NPD traumatized spouses.

The US Constitution guarantees “due process” in any court proceeding and that means you are going to have to see your ex in public, and probably more than once, during your hearings, depositions, and trial. In order to be seen as a credible and truthful witness  in face of your former spouse, who is ana an accomplished liar and manipulator, you have to be calm, confident, and not intimidated by “the look”. That means you have to be far enough along in your recovery from NPD trauma to be cool and calm and focused in your testimony. Competent treatment will get you there in a year or so.

If your new therapist is not able to describe NPD in a way you recognize, and talk to you about the effects of that relationship on you (that matches your feelings and symptoms), then find another therapist. It would be best if they experience testifying, have treated other NPD victims, and understand the challenging task of getting judges and lawyers to understand the dangers of NPD to kids.

6. Hire a family lawyer who both understands NPD and is willing to aggressively pursue visitation for dad that is dramatically less than “standard visitation”.

Family lawyers are getting better informed about Narcissistic personality disorder (NPD), but even those who know what the diagnosis is don’t really understand the impact of an NDP parent on children. Before embarking on any change of custody litigation, have a lengthy interview of your lawyer and make sure they can not only explain NPD acccurately, but also articulate the dangers to your children, and explain the hurdles in the legal system to getting dad’s visitation (and therefore the risks of damage to your kids) reduced.

NPD is found in less than 1 or 2 people for every 100 people in the general population in the US. However, NPD is found in most of the high conflict family cases, which are about 1/3 of all divorces.  Your family lawyer must be willing to agressively pursue a non-standard visitation solution that is in the children’s best interest even though it does not fit into the “cookie cutter” mold for most visitation orders. If your lawyer is unwilling or unable to explain how that could work in your jurisdiction, then find another lawyer. NPDs respond to attacks and criticism by “doubling down” and increasing their threats and personal attacks through bigger lies, intimidation, and manipulation so the litigation will be long and costly and the case is unlikely to settle. You both have to be ready and willing to go to trial. If this lawyer is not comfortable in a trial, get a different lawyer.

7. In order to get the judge to order less than standard visitation for your ex to protect your children from an NPD dad, you will need compelling evidence of current and past harm to your kids and the testimony of a highly qualified expert to explain to the judge the current and future damage he’s doing to your children.

That means hiring a clinical or forensic psychologist (or maybe psychiatrist) who is willing to testify that NPDs inflict harm on both children (and spouses), and that no “dose” of exposure to an NPD parent is safe for children. This expert witness must clearly explain that greater exposure to this toxic parent means greater harm to children. Counselors rarely are trained to recognize NPDs; many of them naively assume that the NPDd will change or even can be coached or counseled to be more empathic parents (NPDs can’t and most won’t even try). There is NO known effective treatment for NPD.

8. Expect the fight to go to a trial.

As I explained earlier, NPDs response to criticism or disagreement, much less a public loss of “their time with MY children” does not lead to compromise or problem solving but to nasty, personal, emotional warfare.  You can expect to be intimidated, attacked, and accused of parental alienation. (Nearly half of all proven cases of parental alienation are non-custodial dads; a small fraction are mothers) .

In my experience, NPDs only give up the fight after they have been publicly humiliated in court as a chronic liar and emotionally/physically abusive parent (in a hearing or trial) or they have been “bought off” by getting something that assuages their egos and makes them look good in giving mom what she’s asked for in reduced (or even almost no visitation). Or in unusual cases, they are outgunned and out spent and run out of money, and they they fold.

It is hard for most judges, lawyers, and juries to grasp that a father really has absolutely no real interest in his children as people apart from what they can do for HIM. But a settlement offer of a sort that feeds the ego of the NPD dad (money, recognition, glory, admiration). NPDs can be bought but they are not cheap.

9. Because NPDs are so concerned about their public image, they are very vulnerable to having their family histories exposed. These family secrets can be leverage in negotiating a settlement right before trial.

NPDs create little NPD children, so most NPDs have one or both parents who are NPDs and siblings who have been damaged as a result. The NPD is likely the outwardly best functioning sibling, and the others are likely suffering from a variety of mental disorders including anxiety, depression, and substance abuse.  These family members represent an unacceptable narcissistic injury to their perception of their perfect selves and family, and are usually ignored or disavowed by the NPD. Careful discovery and thorough depositions can lead to useful leverage.

10. Don’t start this process if you can’t finish it. This process will be at least 2 years long and very costly. If you can’t afford the costs or are not emotionally equipped with person stamina and a good support system of friends and professionals who are NPD savvy, learn to live with the chaos and ongoing personal attacks.

On the other hand,  if litigation is not an option for you there is some good news. In my experience, when  left alone, NPDs eventually tire of parenting since there is nothing in it for them. NPD men do rapidly move on to the “next, younger, hotter model” and if they are not reminded of their children, most fade into the distance leaving their children not only emotionally but also physically fatherless.  Under the circumstances, perhaps the best of all the bad alternatives...

Commentary: Two troubling trends in custody litigation and the social cost

In my role as a divorce litigation consultant, I work with both moms and dads as they navigate the often unpredictable and frequently heartbreaking road of custody litigation and post-divorce co-parenting. Since two of three divorces are low conflict, my career has been spent dealing with the small group of high-conflict divorces—some of the one third of divorcing couples that just can’t agree on what’s best for their children during and after divorce. As mediation has become the standard pre-trial procedure in Texas, the number of litigated custody cases going all way to a jury verdict is down to about 1% of all cases—a trend that’s good for every child of divorce (and their parents, too).

Despite that trend in the decline of jury trials in Texas, two other trends have emerged among litigated custody cases that concern me:
1. The apparent rise in the number of cases of alleged “parental alienation” by unhappy non-custodial fathers, and
2. The simultaneous increase in a subtle but pernicious bias against how fathers parent their children, whether they are the primary parent or have various ranges of visitation rights.

First, as I have written elsewhere, the actual numbers of “parental alienation” cases is very low—a tiny fraction of those high conflict divorces I mentioned above. And the best available research looking at more than 1000 of those cases revealed that when mom alleges abuse, 50-70% of those allegationswere proven to be true in the courtroom, and intentionally false allegations made by mothers were exceedingly rare. Interestingly, the largest source of FALSE allegations was made by non-custodial fathers.

The danger to the children (and to the family court system) is that once the allegation of “parental alienation” is made, the burden of proof (real not legal) falls on the accused parent to prove the negative “I am not an alienator!”. Just as in the Salem witch trials, where innocence was established when the “witch” drowned during repeated dunkings, ALL attempts by the alleged “alienator” to establish her innocence are interpreted as further evidence of her guilt! (She didn’t drown, she must be a witch; she denies it, she must be an “alienator”).

This toxic labeling is frequently given unwarranted credence by uninformed or poorly professionalized mental health professionals who jump on the unproven and statistically unlikely band wagon, even though the APA refused to include “parental alienation” as a diagnosis in DSM-V because of a lack of valid and reliable criteria! Based on my experience in more than 1000 contested cases, “alienation” is family dynamic/pattern, not a personality disorder, and should be treated as a symptom of the dysfunctional family system (these parents are divorced or divorcing after all), and NOT attributed to one parent.

BTW based on my review of the research, there is NO evidence supporting the forced removal of the children from the “alienating” parent and moving the children to the home or primary conservatorship of the other parent, and much data on attachment, bonding, and childhood stress to suggest that such a “solution” is harmful to children and unhelpful in resolving the underlying parental conflict.

Back to the numbers for a minute: according to the US Census Bureau, 10 years after divorce, 87% of children reside primarily with their mothers (91% of those as a result of agreed custody decrees at the time of divorce) and fewer than 1 in 25 fathers actually fight for primary custody at the time of divorce. This disturbing trend brings me to my second point...

2. The failure to fully appreciate a father’s role in a healthy family, the difference in how men form and maintain relationships, and a resulting denigration of a father’s contribution to the development of his children by divorcing moms and sometimes, by family courts.

As I have noted elsewhere, there has been a remarkable lack of research into the role of fathers in normal children’s development until the last 30 years or so. Maternal-child bonding-attachment has been investigated for nearly 100 years but there has been little attention given to father-child bonding-attachment. Recent research, especially advances in brain imaging, have opened the door to the importance of the father’s unique contribution to the health development of children—beginning at birth! When fathers are engaged in holding, feeding, changing, talking to, and swinging babies around (as only fathers do), there are positive, identifiable changes in the brain structure and development of these fortunate children, and concurrent identifiable neurotransmitter and hormonal changes in dad as well. Dads and kids develop neurochemical “attunement” over their time together, and this attunement is reflected in positive parent-child relationships later in both their lives.

Regardless of the parents’ marital status, this father-child relationship needs to be fostered and encouraged, for the good of the children (and for society, as I will explain shortly). Children need to be nurtured, certainly, but they also need to be stimulated, challenged, and encouraged to be independent and courageous, and that’s what engaged fathers (in healthy families) do...

On the other hand, too many dads are opting out of being fully engaged dads, beginning at birth. Their own family histories, extreme attitudes about traditional family roles, economic/career pressures to work long hours, narcissistic personality features--whatever the reason--about 1 in 4 dads apparently are NOT bonding to their children through early, frequent engagement with their babies and toddlers, and consequently, both they and their children are missing out on the benefits of the potential attunement to each other.

This failure of dads to be engaged with their babies is a warning sign of marital problems occurring at the time or coming later.  Disagreements about how to raise children are a major cause of divorce in young parents, and these dads who have not been involved in caring for their young children are likely to be clueless when they have a whole weekend of visitation with children they barely know or know how to care for. They are not closely bonded to their children, and their children may not be securely attached to them either.

This attunement failure can lead to challenging visits for both dad and the kids, and if not remedied by giving good information and training to dad, to children resisting visitation with a parent they don't trust. When this happens to a dad with narcissistic features, the resulting insult to the image of a "perfect" dad can lead to accusations that the mom is "poisoning" the children, "otherwise why wouldn't they want to be with a guy as wonderful as I am". It may also contribute to the alarming number of dads who completely bail after divorce (particularly after re-marriage-more about this below).

On the other hand, for dads who have been fully engaged from the children's birth in caretaking and parenting, unresolved marital conflict and parental hostility can lead to "Disneyland dad" allegations by mom. Dad may not have daily contact or caretaking responsibilities and spends his weekend visits doing fun, active, sports or recreational activities with the kids. In healthy families, it's what dads do.

In contrast to women, who make and maintain relationships by talking; men make and maintain relationships by doing things together. Children need two parents who can provide both kinds of relating in order to develop normally. Unfortunately, in the family court, even an engaged dad can find that his relationship style and contribution to his children's development is frequently not appreciated or inappropriately criticized as "not in the best interest of the children."

This failure to appreciate dad's different contribution to parenting can lead to less access and visitation for dad, and a loss of needed father contact for the children. We all need dads to stay engaged with their children, not just for them, but for all of us.

Unfortunately, an alarmingly large percentage of dads (nearly 25%, and I suspect they are NOT bonded to their children) completely disappear within a few years after the divorce from the child's mother, leaving the kids fatherless. The consequences for the children are shocking...


As you can see, fatherless children are at the root of some of our more serious and costly social problems. This is a problem that crosses racial, ethnic, and economic boundaries, and costs all of us more $700 Billion a year in services, facilities, and lost tax dollars.

It seems that are some partial solutions:
1. Continue to encourage the growth of collaborative divorce which early data suggests lessens ongoing family conflict post-divorce.
2. Challenge allegations of "parental alienation" by dads who don't have history of engaging with their children from birth;
3. Recognize and respect the complimentary but different contributions that moms and dads make to the development of healthy children, especially in divorce.
4. Fatherless kids need mentors when they don't have dads; support and participate in mentoring programs for fatherless kids.

Communicating with your Spouse During and After Divorce: An excerpt from my book

“Good communication does not mean that you have to speak in perfectly formed sentences and paragraphs. It isn't about slickness. Simple and clear go a long way.  John Kotter

[The following is Chapter 20 of my latest book "Your Best Divorce Now: Tips and Tools Before, During, and After"-KK]

Once the two of you decide to divorce, there will come a very uncomfortable period when you are still living in the same place, and if you have children, that discomfort could go on for years as you co-parent. Regardless of your unique circumstances, the divorce process, with or without children, requires periods of intensive communication to complete the divorce. A few people figure out how to communicate with their soon to be ex-spouse under the new circumstances and manage it well. Most don’t.

Here are my suggestions for how to do it with the least stress:

1. If you can still communicate face to face, stay on task, and NOT have a “Xerox conversation” (an identical repetition of an argument you two have had 100 times before), then sit down over the kitchen table and have a meeting with an agenda (written, but no more than 3-4 items per meeting) is the way to go.

2. Schedule the meeting at a mutually agreeable time, preferably NOT too late at night when you are both too tired to stay in control and solve problems.

3. Write down the agreement you reach for each item and sign it; give each spouse a copy.

4. If face to face meetings don’t work because the level of hurt and anger are too high, then choose the channel of communication LEAST likely to lead to escalation and MOST likely to lead to solution or agreement. This is my ranking of channels, from LEAST likely to escalate to MOST likely to escalate into an argument:

• Letter writing (Least likely to escalate)
• Email
• Texting
• Phone calls--scheduled ahead of time with an agenda
• Face to face with a counselor or parenting coordinator/facilitator
• Face to face meetings in a public place--scheduled with an agenda
• Face to face in private with a friend present--scheduled, with agenda
• Skype or Face-Time--scheduled, with agenda
• Spontaneous, unscheduled phone calls
• Face to face alone; no agenda (Most likely to escalate)

5. If you are already in the “can’t talk without arguing phase” of your divorce, then start with “letter writing” and work your way DOWN the list above until you find a channel that works for the two of you.

The challenge with letters, email, and text is that all the emotional content is removed, making communication harder and misunderstanding more likely. The benefit of these more impersonal channels of communication is that these same channels remove the “triggers” which re-ignite old arguments because usually the triggers are facial expressions and tone of voice that are signals of criticism, defensiveness, or contempt.

When children are involved, use email and text to set up or change visitation arrangements and to share information about the kids. Keep your face-to-face interactions at the door during exchanges of visitation Brief, Informative, Firm, and Friendly (remember the acronym BIFF).

This BIFF strategy also applies to texts and emails you send to the other parent. Protect your kids from seeing more of the conflict and start a new pattern of civil, friendly, cooperation and co-parenting for THEIR benefit. (Special thanks to Bill Eddy for the BIFF strategy.)

Even after the legal divorce is completed, you will still have occasions when you must communicate. Use the channel that works best for both of you.

My book "Your Best Divorce Now: Tips and Tools Before, During, and After" is now available on Amazon and as a Kindle e-book here:
http://preview.tinyurl.com/6llezrm

Research shows that witness training improves the accuracy of testimony

Traditionally, both judges and lawyers looked on witness "coaching" with considerable suspicion. Judges were concerned about lawyers subverting the judicial process by using their witnesses as a "mouthpiece" for the lawyer to improve their cases. Lawyers were suspicious of other lawyers for the same reason. No one considered the plight of the witness very much.

Fear of speaking in public is the single phobia endorsed by more than 2/3 of all respondents in surveys of the US public--no other fear comes close to these numbers. Testifying in court is not only "speaking in public", it is also accompanied by the very common fear that testifying falsely will lead to a jail sentence (I know of no research detailing the prevalence of this myth, but my guesstimate is that nearly 2 out of 3 witnesses believe it.) Lawyers who live their professional lives in the courtroom frequently don't appreciate how intimidating the setting and the jargon can be to someone experiencing it for the first time. And, when the witness believes that their children are on the line, the fear and pressure rise exponentially.

The research cited below nicely highlights the primary value of witness training: IMPROVED accuracy of the testimony! What Ellison and Wheatcroft found was that training witnesses about the rules and tactics of cross examination led to a REDUCTION in errors in responding accurately by more than 66% to complex questions on cross examination. Accuracy of answers to simple cross examination questions improved by 52%. Just as importantly, witnesses reported having the confidence to ask the cross examiner to clarify questions.

More than 25 years of teaching people how to testify effectively has convinced me that witness training, done right, not only helps the witness but significantly aids the administration of justice. This research confirms that belief. Of the hundreds of people whom I have trained, NOT ONE has ever said the training about how to testify effectively, especially how to handle cross examination, was a waste of time. Not one.

Now that the advantages of witness training to the system as a whole have been documented, there is no reason not spend the time to provide witnesses with the tools they need to testify accurately. Justice would seem to require it.


Ellison, L. & Wheatcroft, J. (2010). "Could you ask me that in a different way please?" Exploring the impact of courtroom questioning and witness familiarization on adult witness accuracy. Criminal Law Review, 11, pp. 823-839.

What Next?

Ok, so now, after months and months of legal wrangling--you're divorced. Congratulations! What next?

This question is one I have seen many newly divorced people, both men and women, struggling to answer. Whether the end of the divorce comes in mediation, collaborative divorce, or litigation, it seems to arrive with unexpected suddenness, leaving the newly single people relieved, weary, and bewildered. Having spent so much time, energy, and money focused on getting divorced, few are prepared for "what next?".

Research which has followed divorced people for 10 years after their divorce found that 90% of the men and 60% of the women were emotionally "unchanged" at the 10 year mark. For some, the emotional scars of a "failed" marriage or contentious divorce means that counseling or therapy is the first step toward a new life and a new approach to relationships. For a few others, because of counseling or some other helping relationship during their marriage and divorce, the end of the divorce signals the opportunity to renew and change the dirction their lives with a freedom previously unknown. That dissolution of life structures creates the promise for "positive divorce". Unfortunately, few have a "positive divorce" experience.

As a director of a divorce recovery program, I saw many people begin to heal as they shared their divorce experience with others who were "in the same boat". Most left the six week program with a good start down the road to recovery, but as the research cited above has confirmed, that process does NOT continue for most post-divorce people. For most women, and nearly all men, divorce doesn't lead to a new life, but a return to the "old life"--same values, same habits, same choices in work and relationships. For men in particular, most remarry too quickly (within a year) and then divorce again just as quickly, creating a sense of increasingly cynical disillusionment. For these men, life balance is usually the first casualty, leading to a retreat into too much work, too much drinking, or too much casual sex.

It has been my observation that those divorced people with a clear life purpose, a solid value system, and a supportive network of friends bounce back from the trauma of divorce better than those without those fundamental and foundational elements. It is in these areas where coaching can be invaluable in transforming life after divorce into a "positive divorce" experience and the beginning of a new and different life.

Coaching, not therapy, is intended to:

*improve life planning and performance
*clarify personal values
*re-discover life purpose
*re-define life balance
*return to or begin a habit of service to others,

with a focus on action learning as vehicle toward a more purposeful and meaningful life.

The Decline of Litigation and the Paradoxical Increase in the Need for Witness Preparation

Even before the economic climate turned stormy, family law litigation has been on a trend toward less litigation and more mediation and collaborative law. This trend is very beneficial for both children and divorcing families, and I expect the trend to continue. As with any significant change in the legal system, this one has consequences for lawyers and their clients that may not be obvious, because the cause and effect are so distant in time and challenging to discern.

In short, the fewer the number of hearings or deposition appearances by the parties, the more important each appearance becomes in determining the final outcome of the case. In the old days, lengthy litigation meant multiple hearings, sometimes repeated depositions, and then a final trial with a full day on the stand for each party. Generally, that meant a terrible performance by a party at a temporary hearing would be separated by a year or more from the final trial, giving the judge plenty of time to forget the first performance or to explain it away to "nervousness" or "stress". Those days are gone.

Today, a temporary hearing may be the only court appearance a party makes during a divorce or custody case. Depositions are unlikely to be seen by the judge or jury, leaving the temporary hearing performance of the parties of increasing importance for judicial decision-making or for negotiation leverage. Consequently, the importance of witness performance early in the case increases as the length of divorce litigation declines.

What hasn't changed though, is what makes witnesses effective.

1. Well prepared witnesses don't look coached, they look confident and calm.
2. Well prepared witnesses are responsive to questions because they understand the rules of evidence.
3. Well prepared witnesses give answers that are brief and clear.
4. Well prepared witnesses tell stories and give examples and avoid making judgments.
5. On cross examination, well prepared witnesses answer "yes" "no" or "I don't know" and do NOT try to explain.

These characteristics of effective courtroom communication have only increased in importance as the number of opportunities to testify decline. In courts where hearing times are increasingly limited, the need for intense preparation and crisp performance increase exponentially.

Due diligence requires that attorneys give clients the tools they need to compete effectively in the legal arena where most clients have NO experience and many unhelpful tendencies to unlearn. There is no substitute for effective, professional preparation, and the need is growing daily. Delay disadvantages both attorney and client.