Reddit reviews Splitting: Protecting Yourself While Divorcing Someone with Borderline or Narcissistic Personality Disorder

Everyone who is divorcing or thinking about divorcing a BPD person should read this book FIRST:

Splitting: Protecting Yourself While Divorcing Someone with Borderline or Narcissistic Personality Disorder

One of the first things they will do is run to the court with exaggerated claims and file for emergency protective orders. The book covers that and how to deal with it. It also talks about how to choose a lawyer and has advice for your lawyer to read about what they will be dealing with.

Most lawyers will do a free initial consult, or low-cost (I paid $100). You haven't even told us if you are the mother or the father.

I know that it can be worked out between the two of you, or in mediation, or in arbitration or in court (at least in Oklahoma). If your narcissist is like mine it will be a crazy-making process. And it's the custody that she is being craziest about. She wants full custody of kids she mostly ignored for years. And it's not outside the realm of possibility that she'll get exactly that. That's a nightmare scenario for me and my kids.

I believe you can gain a lot of advantage by carefully planning before filing anything or telling your co-parent anything. There's a book called "Splitting" (Eddy and Kreger) that covers how to divorce a narcissist. Not that you are divorcing, but it should give you some good advice.

The gist of it is that your co-parent will use your emotional vulnerabilities against you. You have to stay calm and appear to be the sane one. Thankfully that makes narcissists crazy, so there is some advantage.

During my divorce, my lawyer and I both read the book Splitting. Just as /user/TheRealJongoBongo said, get that book.

https://www.amazon.com/Splitting-Protecting-Borderline-Narcissistic-Personality-ebook/dp/B0056JX46W


> Turn to this guide to help you:

> Predict what your spouse may do or say in court

> Take control of your case with assertiveness and strategic thinking

> Choose a lawyer who understands your case

> Learn how e-mails and social networking can be used against you

One suggestion: (forgive me if the book title is not exact), look for "Splitting" on Amazon [edit, here's the link: Splitting: Protecting Yourself While Divorcing Someone with Borderline or Narcissistic Personality Disorder. It concerns divorcing people with Narcissistic or Borderline Personality Disorder. Those weren't precisely my ex's issues, but lots of the tips about dealing with crazy ex's and stb-ex's rang true to me.

As far as custody, I hate to say this, but don't get your hopes up too high. Remember that you've been living your life with her, and you're able to see (I'm assuming you're truthful when you say your wife is crazy) the manifestations of her illness on a day to day basis.

The court will care very little for your stories about crazy behavior. Odd people get custody of their children, all the time. If you are intent on getting sole or primary custody, you're going to need provable instances in which your wife didn't provide proper care for your children. You'll need to be able to prove those to people who don't give a shit about you (read as: social workers, judges, lawyers, and potentially mental health professionals). If you don't have or can't get that kind of proof, you're going to have a very tough and expensive fight on your hands, one that you'll likely lose.

If you can't get that kind of proof (that she isn't caring for the kids or endangers them) consider strongly working out a settlement with her with which you can live. if your ex is just garden variety odd, you won't win primary, sorry.

I don't know where you live, but assuming that you live in the US, it is not legal for your wife to unilaterally take your children, absent an agreement between the two of you. Get a lawyer, file for custody, and file an emergency injunction preventing her relocation,now. This can't wait.

Also, if your wife is leveling false abuse charges against you:

• Never be alone with her
  
  
• As much as possible, confine yourself to written, email or text message communications, as those can be reporduced and are maintained electronically
  
  
• If you have to be in your wife's presence, make sure there are witnesses. Never approach her more closely than about 3 feet. If she approaches you, put your open hands up (like a stick up) so that it is clear to a casual observer that you are not making threatening gestures or motions.
  
  Potentially, google the term "dad's divorce" and follow some of the steps you'll find there. Best of luck to you. It's a long slog from where you are, stay strong!
  
  FWIW: I have primary custody of my 12 year old son after a 3+ year custody fight. It IS possible, but I would never have believed how hard it was going to be when I was at the point where you are. Best of luck. It does get better, seriously.

I agree, sounds like BPD with a mix of other things.
Check out the book:
Splitting: Protecting Yourself While Divorcing Someone with Borderline or Narcissistic Personality Disorder

If she is, then the DB won't improve. Narcissists use people for what they want from them. She used sex to get you into a comitted relationship and then turned it off.

FWIW, many NPD people have a high level of anxiety, because they fear being "found out".

The fact that your couples counselor didn't catch her narcississtic traits while you were in therapy is NOT a good sign.

My DB ex-fiancée is cluster B personality disordered, so I've been there.

Is the therapist she's seeing now someone who is well versed in dealing with NPD?

Splitting: Protecting Yourself While Divorcing Someone with Borderline or Narcissistic Personality Disorder would be a good resource for you to have.

You need to protect your children too.


Edit:

r/NarcissisticAbuse

r/NRelationships

r/BPDLovedones


would all be helpful subreddits for you.

If I can make a recommendation, I found [this book] (https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0056JX46W/ref=dp-kindle-redirect?_encoding=UTF8&btkr=1) to be extremely helpful in going through the divorce process with my ex wife.

There's something about this disorder that certainly make behaviors predictable, and I'll be darned if she didn't follow most of the patterns explained in the book.

This book really helped me. "Splitting..." by Randi Kreiger and Bill Eddy.

https://www.amazon.com/Splitting-Protecting-Borderline-Narcissistic-Personality-ebook/dp/B0056JX46W/ref=tmm_kin_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=1511839685&sr=8-1

And like those before said: lawyer up. The book gives good advice on how to pick a good lawyer. It also talks about the games people play and coping with them.

Don't let her bully you into compromise. Your kids are worth having monetarily and so she won't poison them against you.

Good luck.

Read this book:
Splitting: Protecting Yourself While Divorcing Someone with Borderline or Narcissistic Personality Disorder

If she is BPD get ready for her to try to completely fuck you're life over.

Help for divorcing a BPD or an NPD

http://www.amazon.com/Splitting-Protecting-Borderline-Narcissistic-Personality-ebook/dp/B0056JX46W

One book that really helped me months before I actually decided to separate is called "Splitting". If you're dealing with a gas lighter and someone with a difficult high conflict personality who turns things around on you and tries to make you out to be the villain, I highly recommend this book. It helped me immensely with understanding my feelings and getting things in place for divorce.

https://www.amazon.com/Splitting-Protecting-Borderline-Narcissistic-Personality-ebook/dp/B0056JX46W

Wow, so many things you have said of your story resonate with me. So I will give you my perspective. Sorry it’s so long.

Been divorced 5 years now from HS sweetheart, I was married 22 yrs, she is bipolar and didn’t work for 18 months before the split. Kids were 18, 10, and 8 when we split. I was in counseling for about 5 years which I see now helped to lead to the divorce especially when I learned what boundaries were and started having some, which she didn’t like at all.

1. Kids - that was one of my biggest concerns at the time and I must admit it was rough in the beginning to figure out my new relationship with the youngest ones. They had trouble in the beginning but I can now see it was because of being in the toxic environment of the household and then going through a divorce. They are doing great now and I made sure along the way that I focused on doing the right things for the kids no matter the way I felt about their mother even though she didn’t have the same thinking.
   
   
2. Backlash - you are right to fear it! Logic, morals, motherhood, all go out the window. If she already has a victim mentality, then expect it to get worse. Watch out for restraining orders and calling the police. You also will need to get comfortable with calling the police. She will change her attitude when a cop threatens them with being arrested and some time it’s the only way to stop the cycle of chaos that they create and want to keep going to maintain control. Fearing it will help you to prepare to be on the defensive for it mentally.
   
   
3. Finances - It sucks, no other way to put it. Especially the first year. After 5 years I can’t say that I have fully recovered. If things are tight now, they will get really bad. Go into it with the thought process that you will lose everything and have to start over from scratch, this will help you deal with it and give you some type of hope that it will get better because things do get better with time.
   
   
4. What ifs - man those thoughts kept me rooted in misery and honestly I didn’t realize it until after the split. The things you put up with that you look back on as normalcy is shocking. Also, after you can look back and see how it was heading to divorce the whole time and there was no way to stop it. The only thing that happened for me was I kept holding out hope and I can look back now and see there was never really any hope. I wish I would have met with a lawyer before like you have done.
   
   
   Here are my other pieces of advice that I wish I knew about before the split: No affiliate links, just straight to the books.
   
   
5. The end will come as an event, mine was accidentally discovering other guys numbers in her phone. Get the book Uncoupling, it explains the process of splitting up.
   Uncoupling
   
   
6. Get the book Splitting, it’s about divorcing a narcissist.. Once I read it, it was like reading NMMNG, but it was the story of my divorce. It acted as a playbook on how to handle things and she literally followed most of the things the book said she would do.
   Splitting
   
   
7. Make sure your lawyer is in favor of fathers rights. Every guys tells his lawyer that his wife is crazy when going through divorce, so they hear it all the time. But when it really is the case without documented medical support, they will just think you are like every other guy and not realize that things are different especially for the kids. They figure it out eventually, but it takes them a while to get there.
   
   
8. Make your boundaries quickly especially when it comes to the kids. When she talked about reconciling, I created a list of the expectations I wanted in a marriage and from a wife and until I could see that she met those expectations I was only settling on my own happiness.
   
   
9. Don’t tell her anything, disconnect as soon as the papers are filed. She is no longer your responsibility. If you could have saved her, you wouldn’t be going through a divorce.
   
   
10. First year is really rough, keep journaling, but recognize when you shouldn’t go back to review things because it stops you from moving forward and sets you back in the process.
    
    
    My story now is that I met an amazing women and have been married for a year. She loves my kids and they love her. You will probably see once you get out there that you are a good catch and there are plenty of women who will treat you like a king because of all the jerks available on the market.
    
    Sorry it was so long, but hopefully it helps.
    
    Feel free to PM me if you need anything.