How To Get A Narcissist To Reveal Themselves

Being married to a narcissist can make your life miserable. But divorcing a narcissist can create a potentially explosive situation.

Divorces involve child custody, child support, spousal support, and property division. A narcissist could try to manipulate you, the judge, or a jury to deprive you of a fair divorce outcome.

Here are some ways to get a narcissistic spouse to reveal themselves.

Narcissistic Personality Disorder

Narcissists have an inflated opinion of themselves. In most cases, this character trait might merely strike you as annoying or obnoxious.

But in some cases, it crosses the line into a personality disorder. Someone with narcissistic personality disorder sees other people as a means to an end.

As a result, they engage in antisocial behaviors like:

  • Lying
  • Gaslighting
  • Exaggeration
  • Sense of entitlement
  • Selfishness
  • Overreaction or deflection

Symptoms of narcissistic personality disorder can improve over time or with therapy. But in some cases, these behaviors worsen and destroy the narcissist’s relationships.

Narcissists During a Divorce

For most people, divorce is one of the most stressful events they experience. The combination of a major life change, plus the mourning of the “death” of their marriage can create intensely negative emotions.

Narcissists feel the effects of a divorce in a slightly different way. A narcissist will view divorce as an attack on their worthiness as a spouse.

They may respond to this attack in a way that shifts blame onto their spouses. They denigrate their spouses to preserve their inflated view of themselves. They gaslight others, including judges or jurors, into questioning the evidence before their eyes.

Dealing with a narcissist during a divorce will cause you distress. Rather than fighting over facts, you will need to overcome lies, exaggerations, and blame-shifting. Here are some ways to expose these behaviors as symptoms of your spouse’s narcissism.

Hire a Lawyer

A lawyer can provide invaluable assistance when dealing with a narcissist. A lawyer can look at the divorce objectively and based solely on the evidence. This will guarantee that your responses to the narcissist remain even.

A lawyer also understands how to impeach your spouse’s testimony. Exposing your spouse’s lies will help you vindicate your positions and prevent your spouse from benefiting from lies.

Devise a Plan

You know your spouse will deflect, lie, and exaggerate to make them look good and you look bad. But you do not need to respond to every instance of blame-shifting.

Instead, prioritize the most important issues to you and focus on those lies. For example, you do not need to respond to lies about your contributions to household tasks if those lies do not ultimately affect the divorce’s outcome.

Instead, you can concentrate on knocking down your spouse’s lies about your contributions to raising your children so you can get a fair child custody and child support order.

Stay Calm

Narcissists remain the center of attention by provoking others. They say things solely to bait you into a response. By doing this, the narcissist hopes to agitate you into making a mistake, having an emotional outburst, or retaliating. If you respond in any of these ways, you lose and the narcissist wins.

Instead of a knee-jerk response, remain calm and think through your response. Oftentimes, you can expose the narcissist’s behavior by responding calmly. In particular, citing facts or evidence can show how the narcissist has lied to try to provoke you.

Getting a Fair Divorce Outcome

You do not need to expose your spouse as a narcissist to get a fair outcome. But you do need to expose the lies, exaggerations, and gaslighting that might deprive you of what you deserve.

Hiring a lawyer, choosing your battles, and relying on facts rather than emotion can help you get a fair divorce decree. This might not give you the satisfaction of exposing your narcissistic spouse. But once the divorce ends, you will see that a fair outcome is all that matters.

Contact Our Divorce Law Firm in Orlando, FL

Contact the experienced Orlando divorce lawyers at McMichen, Cinami & Demps today for legal assistance. Contact our Orlando, FL office at (407) 898-2161 to schedule a free consultation.

McMichen, Cinami & Demps – Orlando Office
1500 E Concord St
Orlando, FL 32803