Most people know that I have worked in the dating industry for the past few years. I have been quiet about my previous work as a child forensic psychologist mostly because I’ve been trying to recover from extreme burn out. I also had my life threatened on the last psychological evaluation I did for a child custody case that involved the worse case of Battered Women’s Syndrome I’ve ever seen. Intimate Partner Violence (IPV) is way more prevalent than any of us would like to imagine. In this case, the mother had her head slammed on the floor so many times that she was also suffering from a Traumatic Brain Injury.
Needless to say when the subpoena for my files came, along with a threat to “find me” for “lying” and being “biased,” I knew I needed a break. It is only now that I feel like I can go out to teach what I know and serve people going through their darkest moments. What I have seen through the years is that our family court system, in multiple states (I’ve worked in three of them), gets used as a playground for people’s egos.
The work of a mental health professional associated with the family court system is to act in the “best interest of the child.” Unfortunately, given the way our legal system works, contentious custody cases really just turn into an argument over who should have control over a child. I’ve seen divorce cases spend upwards of a million dollars to litigate a case over a child’s lifetime. Had you handed that money over to a team of mental health professionals, you would have saved money, created a healthy new family system AND had money left over for your child’s college. Anger and access to money definitely override reason in many cases.
Why We Resist Moving to An Empowered Place?
Between these professional experiences and the experiences I’ve had as a dating coach and matchmaker, I’ve come to the conclusion that the reason why we all stay so stuck in conflict is that we are missing the golden opportunities that come about when these relationships end. Fortunately, cases of Battered Women’s Syndrome are not the norm but are part of the reason why some people cannot move to a more empowered place — treatment is necessary. As such, these cases, and cases of abuse and violence in general, do need to be handled differently and they are often perpetrated by someone with psychopathic traits. Yet, for the vast majority of cases, the perceived victimization without support to move toward a more empowered stance is the reason why these cases simply do not result in a happy ending. Our system exacerbates the toxic insecurity of both parties and does not exactly provide many solutions or even the referrals needed to actually heal the insecurities. Our life’s biggest opportunity for intervention is often just used to continue the conflict.
When cases are at the extreme as the one above, there is no choice but to litigate. However, in the majority of the cases I’ve worked on, the conflict was driven by someone (or both parties) with rigid personality traits — usually, someone labeled narcissistic and someone who feels victimized but expects the system to bring about justice. Both people have their agenda, feel horrible, and simply want to be validated that they are “right.” They are both hurting and expressing their hurt in two very different ways. The manipulation of finances is often the biggest contributing factor to feeling victimized and often the one most ignored by the court — yet a lot can be discerned by how money is used in these cases.
As conflict begins to escalate, usually because attorneys are simply doing their jobs to be zealous advocates for their clients, stress and anxiety increases. The person you used to love is now seen with hatred and this perception is supported by our legal system. When you are physically and emotionally in such a place of threat and stress there is no way you are going to be able to shift your perception of the other person or the situation. Your body has geared up for a fight. Your mind has been validated by your attorney that you are doing the right thing. Your soul is just trying to survive. You simply believe that your life is over and you are unable to see that things are falling apart for a potentially very good reason.
“If we learn to open our hearts, anyone, including the people who drive us crazy, can be our teacher.”― Pema Chodron
Deep down most people who are going through a highly contentious divorce or breakup know that their intuition is trying to tell them something. Things haven’t been right for a long time and we simply do not know why.
One Client’s Story
I had a male client come in for a consultation a few months ago. He was seeking psychotherapy to help him with moving past his divorce and help to deal with ongoing child custody issues. I told him that I no longer do psychotherapy but would be happy to do an intake and make appropriate referrals. Knowing that he was coming out of a difficult divorce, I asked him to send me a summary of what was on his mind. Not surprisingly, he sent ten pages worth of information to try to convince me his ex was a narcissist.
The very first thing he wanted me to know in our session was that his ex was a narcissist. My response was, “If your ex is the narcissist, what does that make you?”
My client went silent for a moment and he then talked about being a victim his whole life. He was bullied as a kid. His family thought he was a “loser” because he didn’t make enough money. He had a near-death experience in his twenties where he went on to meet the love of his life — but he chose to break up with her because she didn’t have the right family credentials. It was a decision he regretted. It would be a few years later that he would meet the women who would become the mother of his children.
Given what he shared, I simply asked, “Is there a part of you that is grateful for the opportunity to get back on your right path? It seems to me that you have a lot to offer if you are in the right career and in the right relationship.” He could only hold this in his mind briefly before he circled back to discussing how his ex-wife was a narcissist. All I could do was point out the pattern of opportunities that have shown up to him all his life to overcome his victim mentality and move forward to becoming the man he is actually supposed to be. That man, the one who is supposed to go out and mentor the next generation of men on love and compassion, be a good father to his children, and find a career he loves — is the one I hope to see soon.
We made the decision together to refer him to other professionals to help him with understandable grief and anger. I told him, when he was ready, he could come back and we would work on moving to a more empowered place but he would have to let go of his narrative of his ex being a narcissist. I told him that it simply doesn’t matter if she is or not, it only matters that he gets back on his correct life path. Sometimes the person we think is supposed to be our soulmate is really only the person we are supposed to have children with. Sometimes they are just our teacher. The longer we stay stuck in the conflict, the longer it will take to course-correct and find the next soulmate whom we may spend the rest of our life with. Or we may realize that we need to fall in love with ourselves and what brings joy to our life.
What Exactly is the Opportunity?
The divorce from the narcissist is usually one big, very ugly opportunity to heal years of victimization and move out of a self-involved mindset driven by anxiety (often rooted in trauma). That victimization could be from your childhood or it could honestly be from previous generations. We now know that trauma is carried from one generation to the next and that this divorce may be the only way to make sure your children do not have to heal the trauma that does not belong to them. Your individual choices in how you manage the personality difficulties of your ex will be noticed by your children. A long term view can be helpful when you want to call your ex a bunch of obscenities over an ever-changing custody schedule and make the decision to simply not go there — a choice that I firmly believe should be celebrated every time it happens as it represents to the path to true emotional freedom.
The subtle shift in mindset from seeing your ex as just a perpetrator to an imperfect person who is dealing with their issues in an inappropriate manner is not easy. If you have a history of trauma or victimization, the likelihood is that your ex does too but is further behind in the insight department. Like attracts like and you and your ex are dealing with it in two different ways. Yet, walking into court thinking that just because someone is a narcissist means you deserve justice is erroneous thinking. Every step of your divorce will be full of opportunities to speak up, advocate, and let the control go enough to compromise. It is often our need for control, which is rooted in fear, that keeps the conflict going. And our biggest fear is often the fear of abandonment. Divorce represents the realization of that fear but also the opportunity to overcome it.
In a twist to the narcissist story, it is often the narcissist that has abandonment fears and you’re simply the messenger. These are karmic relationships and understanding them with a touch of spirituality may make it easier to move forward. Choosing to deliver that message from an empowered and assertive stance is very different than delivering it out of hatred, fear, and anger. Choose wisely — there was a reason why this person showed up in your life but you have the choice in how to move forward. Learning how to do so will be your biggest and most important life lesson.
Fear-of not being loved, of abandonment, of being thought to be selfish-is the main thing that keeps us vulnerable and bound in the chains of emotional dependence. Therefore, our two most difficult challenges are to truly believe it is okay for us to be ourselves and to learn to live with, move through, and heal our fears. — Sue Thoele
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Previously published on Medium.com.
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