Are you in a relationship with a narcissist and you're thinking about getting a divorce,
and you just have no idea how to ask that narcissist for divorce?
Well, by the end of this video, you're going to know exactly how to do it in a way that
helps you plan, and also protect yourself.
Hi, I'm Rebecca Zung, top 1% attorney and the best-selling author of the books Negotiate
Like You M.A.T.T.E.R. and Breaking Free: Step-by-Step Divorce Guide, and I've helped thousands of
people through their divorces, and who've gone from lives of drama, trauma and chaos,
and I've helped them get to the other side by stepping into lives of freedom, possibility
and purpose, and I do the same thing for you in these videos, so make sure you subscribe
and hit that notification bell, and that way you'll get notified when I upload brand-new
content.
You're in this relationship with a narcissist, you've been married to this narcissist, you've
been looking at it and figuring it out, and oh my God, you realize, "I'm actually married
to a narcissist, and I don't want to be."
What are you going to do about it, how are you going to get out?
It's so hard to just start the process.
So one of the things that I want to tell you is when you're preparing to ask a narcissist
for divorce is to get your mindset in a place where you feel strong enough to be able to
do that, and that might seem like a really strange place to start, but that is really
where you want to start, is with your mindset.
You want to believe that you can actually get free of this person.
I've had many, many clients who've come into my office and who've said to me, "I can't
leave," or "I don't know how to leave," or "I don't even think I have the strength to
do it," or "This other person is so powerful."
One of the things that narcissists do is that they have their victims believing that they're
so powerful, and everybody loves them, and they have the whole world under control, and
so no matter what you do, you can't win, there's no way that you're going to be able to get
out of this thing.
That's what they want you to believe.
That is so not true, I've helped people out of the worst situations, the deepest holes,
the darkest places, so the first thing I want you to do is work on your mindset, just understand
that you can do this.
And if you want to know more about having a winning mindset, check out my interview
as part one and part two with Mark Raffan, who is the Negotiation Ninja, and he talks
all about how to have a winning mindset.
Just know that 80% of a negotiation is won before you even walk into a room, and understanding
that you can win is just 50% of that 80%, so just understand that you can win, and you
can get out, and you can escape, and it will be okay, and you will have a new life, and
you will be all right on the other side.
So that's number one, is to have a winning mindset, have...
It doesn't even have to be winning at the beginning, just understand that you can do
it.
So number two, before you even ask that narcissist for a divorce, is have a plan in place.
Make sure that you have figured out where you're going to live, how you're going to
serve this person, are you going to hire a lawyer, are you not going to hire a lawyer?
All these things are going to be in place before you ask that narcissist for a divorce,
because when you go to ask the narcissist for divorce, you may trigger their narcissistic
injury and their rage, and things might start happening, and before it goes spinning out
of control, you want to be able to put all these pieces in place that will allow you
to have control over the situation when you ask that narcissist for that divorce.
And if you're so ready to divorce that narcissist, give me a "Let's roll" in the comments.
The next thing you need to remember when you are going to ask a narcissist for divorce
is that you're going into now the discard phase of a narcissistic relationship, and
if you want to know more about the discard phase, check out my video on the discard phase
of a relationship, because remember, you have your love bomb, you have your devalue, and
then you have your discard.
When you go into the discard phase of a narcissistic relationship, regardless of whether or not
you are doing the discarding or that other person is doing the discarding, it triggers
their rage, and so you need to be able to plan for how it's going to go when you go
ahead and ask this person for divorce, so understand and anticipate that their rage
could come out, and plan for that accordingly.
So, where are you going to be?
Is it going to be a place where you're alone, are your kids going to be around?
Are you going to be at someone else's house?
Are you going to be sitting at Starbucks?
I once had a client who decided to ask his spouse for divorce in their marriage counseling
office, and I actually thought that was a good idea, but he wanted to try to control
the process and they had been going to marriage counseling, and so he decided to tell her
that he was going to be asking for divorce in marriage counseling, but it completely
backfired on him, because he told her that she was going to be served later that day,
and their marriage counseling was at noon or something, so he goes back to work and
she goes home, and he gets home at six o'clock that night thinking that she's going to be
home and that she will have been served.
Well, guess what?
She leaves a note saying "I went to this other place," which was like an hour away, so we
go to serve her at that place that was like an hour away.
Well, we come to find out later that she had gotten in her car with her dogs, she drove
straight to another state where they had another home, she went and hired some celebrity divorce
attorney, a big time heavy-hitter, and ended up filing in that other state first, and then
serving him first.
So we ended up having to litigate the case in another state before we could even get
to the merits of the case in our state, so we basically had to get that other case dismissed,
which we were able to do, but it cost him lots and lots of money to do it, before we
could even get back to our state and start the regular divorce process.
It really backfired on him, so one of the things that I would suggest to you when you're
planning on how to ask this narcissist for divorce is to anticipate what is it that you
think that they're going to do when you ask them for a divorce?
Sometimes the better thing to do is to go ahead and serve them.
Have everything planned, have everything ready to go, you've moved your stuff out maybe when
the person is at work, or maybe in the middle of the night.
I had another client who once her husband was sleeping, she packed up all the stuff
and slipped out in the middle of the night, he woke up in the morning and she was gone.
We were just able to serve him at six o'clock in the morning, and that's how he got told
that she wanted a divorce.
Sometimes the best way to ask a narcissist for divorce is not to ask them, just to let
them know that you want a divorce because they got served with divorce papers, and that
way you don't have to deal with telling them, and you don't have to deal with being there
when their rage is triggered and they might go crazy.
Some people don't like to do it that way because they feel like, "Oh, that's not the nice way,"
or "I want to give them a chance to respond," or "I don't want to hurt their feelings" or
whatever, but if you're dealing with a true narcissist, understand that that narcissist
doesn't have that same feeling for you, they don't have that same sense of empathy, and
you have to do what you have to do in order to protect yourself, and if you've got minor
children, then you need to protect them too.
You should also check out my video on before leaving a narcissist, watch this, because
I go into a lot of these details and even a little bit more.
But you can also just tell them, "I'm leaving, and this is how it's going to go down, and
I'm not coming back, and nothing you can say will make me come back," and just say it very
calmly, and say it without emotion, and I would recommend that you say it where you're
not completely alone, depending on the type of narcissist that you're dealing with.
You don't want anything you say to be twisted in a certain way, so my client's idea of doing
it at marriage counseling wasn't necessarily a bad thing, but if you are going to do that,
then maybe the process server is waiting for them in the parking lot, and when they go
get their car, something like that, so that they don't have a chance to double-cross the
way my client's wife did to him.
But say it without emotion, say it resolutely, be ready, you've got your mindset ready.
If they sense one little piece of waffling in you, they're going to use that to their
advantage and try to hoover you and love bomb you right back into your life, and try to
gain control back over you again.
Those are my suggestions on how to ask a narcissist for divorce.
If you are getting ready to negotiate with a narcissist, make sure you grab my free Crush
My Negotiation Prep Worksheet.
You can get it at winmynegotiation.com, or we'll just drop a link below as well.
If you're dealing with a narcissist, come on over and join me in my free private Facebook
group, it's a support group, there are lots and lots of us in there who are helping each
other, supporting each other, it's called Narcissist Negotiators with Rebecca Zung,
and we'll drop a link to that below.
If you like this video, I'd love it if you give it a like, give it a share, drop me a
comment, let me know that you were here, I'm so glad that you were here, and if you haven't
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Remember that today is a great day to start negotiating your best life, I'll see you in
the next video.