Getting through any divorce is tough, given the emotionality involved and the legal issues that you’ll have to confront. The challenges of your divorce can be magnified when you’re dealing with a spouse who lies and focuses on nothing but winning and making you pay.
This can be incredibly stressful, and can also threaten your post-divorce life. If you’ve got a narcissistic spouse, they may do everything in their power to cut you short financially and minimize your time with your children.
What can you do in these circumstances? Your first step is to understand how to approach a spouse who is a narcissist or a habitual liar.
Tips for dealing with a narcissistic, lying spouse
If your spouse is a narcissistic liar, then your divorce isn’t going to be easy. But there are some strategies that you can implement to hopefully make the process easier. Here are some of them:
- Be prepared: Preparation is key to every divorce, but it’s particularly crucial when you divorce a narcissistic liar. Your spouse is going to make outrageous claims and command acknowledgment that they’re right. Simply saying that they’re wrong will fan the flames of your divorce, thereby making the process more contentious. To avoid that from happening, you need to enter your divorce with strong documentary evidence that directly contradicts your spouse. So, take the time needed to identify and gather these records.
- Stay calm: Your spouse’s behaviors and statements are likely to get a rise out of you. But if you give into your emotions, then you might end up saying something that can then be taken out of context and used against you. You might also end up giving in on a key legal issue when you didn’t really want to. Therefore, try to be mindful of your emotions and stay as calm as possible when dealing with your spouse.
- Communicate in writing when possible: Your spouse will use your words against you and twist them to fit their own narrative. You can head this off to a certain extent by reducing your communications to writing. This can better streamline negotiations, too, and ensure that there’s no confusion.
- Find “wins” that you can give away A narcissistic liar wants nothing more than to win and prove you wrong. You might be able to use that against your spouse by finding ways for them to “win.” If there are issues that aren’t that important to you, then it might be a wise strategy to let your spouse come out ahead there so that you’ve got more room to work with on the issues that you truly care about.
- Find support: Dealing with a narcissistic liar in your divorce is going to take a lot out of you. You need to find a way to vent your emotions, unload your psychological burdens, and reenergize yourself for the divorce battles ahead. Turning to those closest to you can be helpful, but you might want to seek support form a mental health professional, too.
Don’t get blindsided by a narcissistic liar in your divorce
If you enter your divorce unprepared, then you’re bound to lose on key legal issues. You might end up with less financial resources post-divorce, and your time and relationship with your children might suffer. Don’t let that happen to you.
Instead, diligently work to develop the legal strategy necessary to fight back against your narcissistic, lying spouse. We think that by developing a clear path forward in your divorce you’ll feel more confident and comfortable with the road ahead.
