Divorcing a Narcissist: Why It Can Be So Much Harder Than a Normal Divorce

Why leaving someone with narcissistic traits or emotionally abusive behaviours doesn’t always mean the emotional struggle is over.

 

You’ve spent years trying to work out how someone who says they love you can make you feel so alone, so anxious and so unsure of yourself. You’ve been blamed for things you didn’t do, told you’re too sensitive when you’ve tried to explain how hurt you feel, and punished with days of silence for saying something they didn’t want to hear. You’ve found yourself apologising just to bring the tension to an end, questioning your own memory of what happened, and slowly becoming someone who thinks twice before speaking.

You’ve watched your partner charm everyone around them, while behind closed doors you’re left feeling like nothing you do is ever quite good enough. And perhaps the hardest part? You’ve spent so long trying to understand them, make them happy and keep the peace that somewhere along the way, you’ve stopped asking yourself whether you’re happy at all.

And then, after months or perhaps years of trying to make things better, you finally reach the point where you cannot keep doing this anymore.

You make the decision to leave.

You might expect to feel relief. Perhaps a little freedom. Maybe even some excitement about finally getting your life back.

But instead, things seem to get worse.

Perhaps your ex is telling friends, family and even the professionals involved in your divorce how much they want to keep things amicable. They’re calm, reasonable and seemingly willing to do whatever it takes to make the separation easier.

Yet privately, you’re receiving messages blaming you for destroying the family, questioning your parenting and reminding you of everything they’ve supposedly done for you.

And when you finally become upset or defensive, you’re suddenly the unreasonable one. The difficult one. The person who can’t seem to move on.

Maybe you’re trying to agree on arrangements for the children, but a simple conversation about school holidays becomes another opportunity for your ex to tell you what a terrible parent you are. Perhaps they change plans at the last minute, then blame you when the children become upset. Or they send you a perfectly pleasant message one day, only to accuse you of being selfish, difficult or deliberately trying to hurt them the next.

You never quite know which version of them you’re going to get, so you find yourself constantly preparing for the worst.

Or perhaps you’re sitting in a meeting with your divorce lawyer, being asked what you actually want from the financial settlement, and you genuinely don’t know how to answer. Not because you haven’t thought about it, but because you’ve spent so many years putting somebody else’s needs first that asking for something for yourself now feels incredibly uncomfortable.

And then there’s the guilt.

The guilt when your children are upset. The guilt when your ex tells you that you’re destroying the family. The guilt when you start wondering whether you should just agree to whatever they’re asking for because you’re so emotionally exhausted from it all.

You might even find yourself thinking, "Would it actually be easier to go back?"

Sound familiar?

This is something I see in my work with clients navigating divorce and separation, particularly when they’ve been in a relationship with someone who displays narcissistic traits or emotionally controlling behaviours.

And it’s something I recently discussed on Dubai Eye Radio, alongside divorce lawyer Byron James, as we explored why divorcing a narcissistic or emotionally abusive partner can feel so different from what we might consider a more typical divorce.

Because here’s something worth understanding: the marriage may end, but the psychological patterns you’ve developed within that relationship don’t necessarily disappear when you decide to leave.

What Makes Divorcing a Narcissist Different From a Normal Divorce?

Firstly, I want to make an important distinction. We seem to live in a world where the word narcissist gets thrown around rather easily, particularly on social media. Someone behaves selfishly, refuses to apologise or has an affair, and suddenly they’re labelled a narcissist.

But narcissistic traits, narcissistic personality disorder and emotional abuse are not all the same thing. And not every difficult divorce involves narcissism.

What I’m interested in, both as a psychologist and relationship therapist, is understanding the repeated behaviours within a relationship and the impact those behaviours have on the person experiencing them.

In a more typical divorce, two people may be incredibly hurt, angry or disappointed. They might disagree over finances, children or the circumstances surrounding the separation. Divorce is rarely easy, regardless of who makes the decision to leave.

However, when a relationship has involved ongoing manipulation, intimidation, emotional control or a pattern of blame, the divorce itself can become another place where those same behaviours continue.

Perhaps throughout your marriage, you learnt that raising something which upset you would somehow end with you apologising. You’d try to explain why a comment had hurt your feelings, only to be told you were overreacting, remembering things incorrectly or making a problem out of nothing.

Before you knew it, the conversation was no longer about what had happened. It was about your reaction to it. And rather than feeling heard, you’d walk away feeling guilty for bringing it up in the first place.

Over time, you may have stopped raising things altogether. Not because they no longer mattered, but because you knew how the conversation was likely to end.

And now, during your divorce, you’re expected to negotiate finances, parenting arrangements and your future with the very person you’ve spent years learning not to disagree with.

The relationship might be over, but the behaviour doesn’t necessarily stop at the point of separation.

Why Are You Often the One Who Has to Initiate the Divorce?

Something that can be particularly confusing in relationships involving narcissistic traits is that the person experiencing the emotional abuse may eventually be the one who initiates the separation.

Perhaps your partner has repeatedly told you how unhappy they are, criticised the relationship or threatened to leave during disagreements. Yet when it comes to actually ending the marriage, they seem unwilling to take that step themselves.

Why might that happen?

For someone who is highly concerned with how they’re perceived by others, being seen as the person who ended the marriage may feel uncomfortable. They may want to maintain an image of being the devoted partner, the reasonable one or the person who did everything they could to save the relationship.

And if you’re the one who eventually says, "I can’t do this anymore," that decision may then become part of the story they tell others.

You become the person who gave up. The person who walked away. The person who broke up the family.

Even if you’ve spent years trying to make the relationship work.

Of course, we cannot know another person’s motives simply because they didn’t initiate a divorce. But where there has been a long-standing pattern of blame, image management and emotional control, this can become another painful part of the separation.

You may find yourself carrying responsibility for ending a relationship that you spent years desperately trying to keep together.

And that can make the guilt even harder to manage.

What If Your Ex Was Already Having an Affair or Moves On Immediately?

Another experience that can be incredibly painful is discovering that your partner was already involved with somebody else before the marriage ended, or seeing them move into a new relationship almost immediately after separation.

Perhaps you’ve only just begun trying to process the end of your marriage, while your ex appears to have moved on without a second thought.

Maybe there was an affair you discovered towards the end of the relationship. Perhaps you suspected something for months but were repeatedly told you were imagining things, being jealous or making accusations without reason.

And now you’re watching them publicly share a new relationship while you’re still trying to understand what happened to your marriage.

For someone who has experienced years of emotional invalidation, this can raise some incredibly painful questions.

"Did they ever really love me?"

"Was I that easy to replace?"

"How can they be so happy when I’m struggling so much?"

"Was the whole relationship a lie?"

Some people with strong narcissistic traits may seek attention, admiration or reassurance through new relationships. Others may struggle with being alone or may have emotionally disengaged long before the marriage officially ended.

But having an affair or moving on quickly does not, by itself, establish that someone is narcissistic.

What matters is the wider relationship pattern and the impact it has had on you.

And one thing I would really encourage you to remember is that how quickly somebody appears to move on tells you very little about your worth, or whether your experience of the marriage was real.

Their new relationship doesn’t erase what happened in yours.

1.

Why You Can Be Successful in Life but Feel Powerless During Divorce

Here’s something I find particularly interesting.

You can run a successful business, manage a team, make important financial decisions and be incredibly capable in almost every other part of your life.

Yet one message from your ex can leave you feeling sick with anxiety.

You read it. You reread it. You write a response, delete it, rewrite it and perhaps send it to somebody else to check before finally pressing send.

Maybe it’s a perfectly ordinary question about school pick-up arrangements. But you know from experience that even a simple disagreement can turn into hours of messages, accusations or criticism.

So rather than replying with what you actually want to say, you begin thinking about what response is least likely to upset them.

And before you know it, you’re doing exactly what you spent years doing in the marriage.

Managing their emotions instead of expressing your own needs.

Why?

Because somewhere along the way, you’ve learnt that standing up for yourself, disagreeing or simply saying no might lead to consequences you desperately want to avoid.

This is where understanding our nervous system becomes particularly useful.

When we repeatedly experience criticism, anger, rejection or unpredictable emotional responses, our brain can begin to associate certain interactions with threat. We become increasingly alert to changes in mood, tone of voice or behaviour.

Psychology often describes our automatic responses to perceived threat as fight, flight, freeze or fawn.

And it’s the fawn response that I particularly want to explore here.

Fawning is when we try to keep ourselves emotionally safe by pleasing, agreeing with or accommodating another person. Rather than expressing what we actually need, we focus on keeping the other person happy because that feels like the safer option.

Perhaps during your marriage you became very good at anticipating moods, avoiding certain conversations or apologising simply to stop an argument.

Those behaviours may have helped you manage a difficult relationship at the time.

But what happens when you carry them into your divorce?

You might agree to arrangements you’re uncomfortable with, give up something financially important or avoid asking for what you need because the thought of another confrontation feels unbearable.

Imagine being offered a financial settlement that doesn’t feel right. Your lawyer encourages you to consider your options, but all you can think about is how angry your ex will become if you don’t agree.

So you say yes.

Not necessarily because you believe it’s fair, but because you want the whole thing to be over.

And here’s the difficult part.

Sometimes we’re not agreeing because we think something is fair. We’re agreeing because we desperately want the conflict to stop.

Learning to recognise the difference is an important part of rebuilding trust in your own decisions.

 

2.

Why Leaving a Narcissistic or Emotionally Abusive Relationship Can Feel Worse Before It Feels Better

One of the questions I often hear is, "If I know this relationship wasn’t good for me, why do I still miss them?"

Or perhaps, "Why am I questioning whether I made the right decision?"

We often assume that once we’ve decided to leave an unhealthy relationship, we should immediately start feeling better.

But human emotions don’t work quite like that.

When you’ve spent years attached to someone, you don’t simply switch those feelings off because you’ve recognised that their behaviour has been harmful.

You may still love them. You might miss the good times, the familiar routines, the family life you built together or the person you believed they could become.

Perhaps your ex suddenly sends a lovely message, telling you how much they miss you, how sorry they are and how they now understand everything you’ve been trying to explain for years.

For a moment, you feel relieved.

Maybe this is finally the person you’ve been waiting for.

Then a few days later, something doesn’t go their way, and the familiar criticism, anger or blame returns.

And you’re left feeling confused all over again.

If your relationship involved repeated cycles of affection, withdrawal, conflict and reconciliation, separating can feel particularly difficult.

This is where the concept of trauma bonding can sometimes help explain what’s happening.

In some abusive relationships, periods of distress are followed by affection, reassurance or promises that things will change. That unpredictable pattern can create a powerful emotional attachment, making it difficult to step away even when we recognise the harm.

You might spend months preparing yourself to leave, only for your ex to suddenly become kind, understanding or apologetic.

And there it is again. Hope.

Perhaps they’ve finally understood. Perhaps this time will be different.

But it’s important to look beyond individual moments and consider the repeated pattern of behaviour over time.

Because one kind conversation doesn’t necessarily undo years of emotional distress.

And equally, missing someone doesn’t automatically mean that leaving them was the wrong decision.

Sometimes we’re grieving the relationship we had. Sometimes we’re grieving the relationship we desperately wanted but never quite experienced.

Those are two very different things.

 

3.

Gaslighting During Divorce: When You Start Questioning Your Own Reality

Have you ever walked away from a conversation wondering whether you’ve completely misunderstood what happened?

Perhaps you remember an incident quite clearly, but your ex insists it never happened that way.

Or you’re told that you’re too sensitive, unreasonable or responsible for all the problems within the marriage.

Maybe you’ve been told, "Everyone thinks you’re being difficult," or "Even your own family can see what you’re like."

You start wondering who they’ve been speaking to, what they’ve been saying and whether people are beginning to believe a version of events that feels completely different from your own.

Sometimes this involves triangulation, where another person is brought into the conflict in a way that creates pressure, competition or distrust.

Over time, repeated experiences like these can leave us questioning our own memory, judgement and emotional responses.

This is where gaslighting may become part of the relationship dynamic.

Gaslighting involves a repeated pattern of undermining someone’s trust in their own perceptions or understanding of events. It’s more than two people remembering an incident differently.

And during divorce, that uncertainty can become particularly difficult.

You might find yourself going back through old messages, replaying conversations or desperately trying to explain your version of events.

Perhaps you’re collecting screenshots, not simply because you need information for your legal case, but because you want to reassure yourself that you haven’t imagined what happened.

You want the other person to understand. You want them to acknowledge what happened.

But what happens when they simply refuse?

We can become so focused on trying to get somebody else to agree with our experience that we lose sight of what we actually need to do next.

One of the important things we work on in therapy is learning to recognise that two people can interpret an experience differently without you having to abandon your own judgement.

You don’t need somebody else’s agreement to begin taking your own experiences seriously.

And sometimes the most useful question isn’t, "How do I get them to understand what they did?"

It’s, "What can I do differently if they never acknowledge it?"

 

4.

When Divorce Becomes Another Way to Maintain Control

For some people, separating from an emotionally abusive partner doesn’t immediately bring an end to the controlling behaviour.

Instead, the way that control shows up may change.

Communication becomes difficult. Financial discussions seem to go around in circles. Parenting arrangements become another source of repeated conflict. Agreements may be challenged, delayed or revisited.

Perhaps your ex repeatedly changes arrangements at the last minute, leaving you to reorganise your work, childcare and personal life.

Or they send messages late at night demanding answers about matters that could reasonably wait until the following day.

You may find yourself cancelling plans because you’re worried about how they’ll respond, or avoiding certain decisions because you simply don’t have the energy for another confrontation.

And if you share children, the situation can feel even more complicated.

You might be trying to protect your children from the conflict while also feeling that every parenting decision is being questioned, criticised or used to start another disagreement.

In some situations, these behaviours can form part of a wider pattern of post-separation abuse.

Now, I want to be careful here. Not every disagreement over money, children or legal arrangements is abusive. Two people can have very different views about what is fair without either person being narcissistic or controlling.

The distinction is in the wider pattern of behaviour.

Is somebody repeatedly using fear, intimidation, threats or pressure to influence decisions? Are they trying to maintain control over another person’s life after the relationship has ended?

These are the behaviours we need to pay attention to.

And for the person experiencing them, the emotional impact can be exhausting.

You might find yourself constantly anticipating the next message, the next disagreement or the next problem.

Even when nothing is happening, you’re waiting for something to happen.

This is one reason why having the right professional support during a high-conflict divorce can be so important. A lawyer can help you understand your legal position and protect your practical interests, while therapeutic support can help you recognise the emotional patterns influencing your decisions.

Where there are threats, stalking or coercive control, specialist safety advice is particularly important. Ordinary relationship communication techniques aren’t always appropriate or safe in these circumstances.

 

5.

Why an Unfair Divorce Can Keep You Emotionally Stuck

I think this is one of the hardest parts of leaving an emotionally abusive relationship.

The need for fairness.

You might have spent years feeling misunderstood, dismissed or blamed for things that weren’t entirely your responsibility.

And now you’re going through a divorce, perhaps there’s a part of you hoping that somebody will finally recognise what you’ve experienced.

That your ex will admit what happened. That someone will acknowledge the unfairness. That there will be some form of accountability.

Maybe your ex is telling everyone how unreasonable you’ve been, while you’re sitting at home wondering how somebody can present such a different version of the marriage.

Perhaps you’re frustrated that the legal process seems to focus on practical arrangements when what you desperately want is for somebody to understand the emotional impact of everything you’ve experienced.

And I completely understand why that matters.

When we’ve experienced prolonged emotional distress, wanting our experience to be recognised is a very human response.

But here’s the difficult reality.

A divorce can settle the legal questions without necessarily settling the emotional ones.

You may reach a financial agreement, finalise the divorce and establish arrangements for your children, yet still feel deeply upset about how you’ve been treated.

And if your emotional wellbeing remains dependent on your ex apologising, accepting responsibility or agreeing with your version of the marriage, you may find yourself waiting for something that never happens.

That doesn’t mean giving up legitimate legal claims or pretending that what happened was acceptable.

It means beginning to separate the things you can influence from the things you cannot.

You can pursue a fair legal outcome. You can protect your interests. You can ask for support.

But can you make another person feel remorse? Can you force them to understand your experience?

Unfortunately, no.

And I often wonder how much of our lives we can lose while waiting for somebody else to finally give us the acknowledgment we want.

 

6.

Radical Acceptance: Preparing for the Behaviour Rather Than Hoping It Will Change

One of the psychological approaches I find particularly useful when working with people experiencing narcissistic relationship dynamics is radical acceptance.

It’s also a concept explored in the work of Dr Ramani Durvasula, whose writing on narcissism and emotionally abusive relationships I often refer to.

Now, radical acceptance doesn’t mean accepting poor treatment, agreeing with somebody’s behaviour or giving up your right to protect yourself.

It means recognising the reality of what has repeatedly happened rather than continuing to make decisions based on what we hope might happen.

Let me give you an example.

Perhaps every time you ask your ex to stick to an agreed parenting arrangement, they respond with criticism, blame or an accusation about something completely unrelated.

Each time it happens, you find yourself thinking, "I just can’t believe they’re doing this again!"

But if this is the twentieth time you’ve experienced the same response, perhaps the more useful question is why we’re still expecting something different.

And I don’t mean that critically.

Hope can be a wonderful thing. But when hope keeps us attached to a pattern that repeatedly causes distress, it can also make it harder to protect ourselves.

So rather than asking, "Why are they doing this again?", we might begin asking, "If this is how they tend to respond, how can I prepare myself differently?"

Perhaps that means taking time before replying to a message, seeking advice before making an important decision or learning to tolerate the discomfort of somebody being unhappy with a boundary.

For situations involving abuse or intimidation, it may also mean developing a safety plan with appropriate specialist support.

The important shift is moving away from constantly trying to change somebody else’s response and beginning to focus on our own choices.

You can understand someone’s behaviour without continuing to accommodate it.

 

7.

The Divorce Is Final. So Why Does Your Ex Still Affect You?

Here’s another part of narcissistic divorce recovery that doesn’t always get enough attention.

The legal divorce might be finished, but psychologically, you may still feel connected to the relationship.

Perhaps you avoid certain places because you’re worried about seeing your ex. Maybe you check their social media, wonder what they’re doing or compare yourself to their new relationship.

You might even find yourself making decisions based on how you imagine they would react, despite no longer being together.

Perhaps you’ve started dating again, but you find yourself constantly checking whether somebody is upset with you, apologising for things that don’t require an apology or feeling uncomfortable when someone treats you with genuine kindness.

Or maybe you’re so used to explaining and defending yourself that even a simple disagreement in a new relationship can leave you feeling overwhelmed.

And this is where I think we need to recognise that legal separation and emotional separation aren’t necessarily the same thing.

If you’ve spent years managing another person’s moods, reactions and expectations, those habits can take time to change.

We may need to learn how to make decisions without seeking reassurance, express our needs without automatically feeling guilty and build relationships where disagreement doesn’t feel like a threat.

We may also need to explore our own attachment patterns, beliefs about love and the reasons we became accustomed to certain relationship dynamics.

Not to blame ourselves for somebody else’s behaviour, but to understand our own responses and begin making different choices.

Because ultimately, recovery isn’t simply about no longer being married to that person.

It’s about reaching a point where their behaviour no longer determines so much of how you think, feel and live.

 

How Therapy Can Help During and After a Narcissistic Divorce

Something I regularly remind clients is that we don’t have to wait until the divorce is final before beginning this work.

In fact, therapeutic support can be particularly valuable while you’re still navigating the separation.

You might be struggling to make decisions, feeling overwhelmed by communication with your ex, questioning whether leaving was the right thing to do or simply exhausted from the ongoing conflict.

Perhaps you feel embarrassed that you’re still affected by somebody you know you don’t want to be with anymore. Or you’re frustrated that everyone around you seems to think you should be moving forward when you still feel stuck in the same emotional cycle.

Together, we can begin exploring the patterns that have developed within the relationship and how they may still be affecting you.

That might involve understanding your nervous system responses, recognising people-pleasing behaviours, working through guilt, rebuilding confidence in your decisions or learning how to respond differently to familiar triggers.

And sometimes it’s about something as simple, yet incredibly difficult, as learning that another person can be disappointed with you without it meaning you’ve done something wrong.

My approach is casual rather than overly clinical. I don’t believe therapy should simply involve sitting opposite somebody and asking how they feel each week.

I want you to understand why you do what you do, recognise the patterns that may be keeping you stuck and begin developing practical ways to move forward.

Not every difficult divorce is caused by narcissism, and we don’t need to diagnose your ex to begin understanding what you’ve experienced.

We can start with you.

What has happened? How has it affected you? And what might need to change so that your future no longer feels organised around somebody else’s behaviour?

 

Listen to My Dubai Eye Radio Discussion on Narcissistic Divorce

I recently joined Dubai Eye Radio to discuss the psychological impact of divorcing someone with narcissistic traits or emotionally abusive behaviours, alongside a divorce lawyer who explored the legal challenges these situations can create.

We discussed why leaving doesn’t always bring immediate relief, how years of emotional control can influence important divorce decisions, why people begin questioning themselves during separation and how to prepare for difficult behaviour without becoming trapped in the same emotional cycle.

Listen Now

If you’re currently going through a difficult divorce, or you’ve already separated but still feel emotionally affected by the relationship, I hope this conversation helps you make sense of some of what you’ve been experiencing.

My Final Thoughts…

The Marriage Can End, but the Patterns Can Continue

I want to leave you with something to think about.

How much of your life is still being organised around somebody else’s behaviour?

Perhaps you’re waiting for them to become reasonable. Perhaps you’re waiting for an apology, for the divorce to feel fair or for them to finally understand how much they’ve hurt you.

And perhaps, without realising it, you’re still putting your own life on hold while waiting for that change.

One of the most important shifts we can make is recognising that somebody else doesn’t necessarily have to change before we can begin changing our own responses.

That doesn’t make the process easy, and it certainly doesn’t mean the hurt disappears overnight.

But it does mean we can begin moving away from the familiar patterns that have kept us feeling stuck.

You don’t have to spend the next chapter of your life trying to convince somebody else of what happened in the last one.

 

Ready to Start Making Sense of It All?

If you’re navigating a narcissistic or emotionally abusive relationship, considering divorce, going through separation or struggling to move forward after leaving, I offer private online relationship therapy and support.

We can explore what’s been happening, understand the psychological patterns involved and begin working towards feeling more confident in your own decisions and relationships.

Book a free 20-minute discovery call to talk about what you’re experiencing and how we might work together.

Let’s get out of the maze together.

From me to you,

Charlie x

Charlotte Spurway | Psychologist, Relationship Therapist & Coach | Dubai | Online Internationally