Attorney Tips - Narcissistic Divorce

hey guys Dwayne here today I wanted to talk about tips for whenever you're initially getting your attorney and you're going through your divorce this has come up a lot recently with a couple of different folks who are currently going through this or I've just finished it so I thought it would be important to talk about this again for anyone who is actually in the initial state initial stage where you're still actually dealing with an attorney or you're getting an attorney and you're just starting starting out now the first thing is you know whatever attorney you pick you know they work for you but I mean and that's okay so that's obvious right obviously you're paying them but I think it's important to remember that because sometimes they get into these situations where they're kind of giving you decisions or ideas that's easy for them and they want to just settle it and they're like throwing it out there to see if in my opinion they're throwing it out there to see if you're willing to agree with it and you know slow speed things speed things up now conversely there's also attorneys that will manipulate you to try to suck as much money out of you as possible so there's kind of a balance and hopefully you can find an attorney with some integrity to where they're not just telling you what you want to hear and just running up the court costs and stuff like that now when I say that they work for you I know for me in my situation there were times where had I just let the attorney direct or guide me where we were going to go I would have been in a much worse situation than I ultimately ended up with now I was fortunate that my attorney wasn't a well what's the right word somebody he wasn't just trying to look for ways to maximize how much money he could get from him so he wasn't trying to force going to court and and stuff like that so and ultimately we only went to court a couple times and then and typically what would happen is when a court date would come up it would it would get pushed back and delayed now they only follow your direction right so if it's oh if they offer something like hey why don't you give the personal custody and you know give them more money than they really need not that they're going to say it that way if you say okay I'll do that then they'll write it up sign it boom and be done with it and you know send you a bill so you have to take an active role in the process so and and guys I get it it's stressful you know you're you're completely overwhelmed and the idea of basically handing it off to someone else and say here you deal with it you figure it all out and you let me know how it goes now the problem with that is you know that could bite you in the butt later and it did me even though I was taking an active role and that kind of rolls into roll roll roll rolls into my next point which is creating a detailed parenting plan now I know I think in another video I've talked about this but but this is where it also gets into where you take an active role you need to know what you want first right I mean you need to know what you're going in position is and and and typically okay so typically if you're in our situation I I think and I could be wrong but I think that you know if you're coming up from a normal perspective you want your child to have a relationship with the other parent so you're not actively going at it trying to say that the other person is a horrible person and trying to get full custody you know whether you're the dad of the mom and saying that the other person is just horrible now I guess in my case that's what was being said about me but I was like my take on it was the kids need both parents the kids need to have a relationship with both parents I coming from a divorced family I didn't have a relationship with my dad and I didn't want to do that same thing to my kids now I mean obviously would have been easier if I could have got full custody but that's not what I was going for I was going for a joint 5050 I erroneously thought that we were going to be able to work things out and co-parent and get along for the good of the kids so as soon as you get an inkling an inkling any indication that you are in a contain a in a high conflict divorce and I think you know people will say high conflict divorce and typically I think what it really means but it's not really said is that you're in a you are in a divorce with a narcissist which means that they are going to fight you on every every step of the way and they're not going to use any reason or anything like that now this is where a detailed parenting plan is crucial it is like super import like super important what what am i 15 anyways it's really important because everything you put in there is going to drive what happens later now it doesn't mean that the ex isn't going to be able to take you back to court or you know try to make things more complicated but your best bet right out of the gate is to make sure that that plan covers everything it covers um you know choices on schools it covers a vacation time it covers transition times I mean think about you know like what what type if you're going to be working what time if it's if it's in the summer and the kids aren't in school how is that going to work but one of the best things I think I did initially and when it got really weird I was like I didn't want to be around her and there were you know so I'm like hey I do not I want to minimize any opportunity where I have to interact with her or be around her or anything like that and I wanted the transitions to be at school which in some ways that might be more complicated for the kids because they have to you know during the during the school year they're they're dealing with you know if they want something that's at the other parents house it's complicated but honestly I tell you at the end of the day whenever it's your day to pick the kids up you know whatever day it is if you know that you're going to the school and they're going to be there and you don't have to worry about it you still a transition day so it still be complicated but it's just one more way to minimize the interaction that you have with the X I and on that note the other thing I would highly recommend is you put in there how communication is supposed to be done now I didn't do that okay it was recommended you know they added my attorney added in wording that said it is recommended that the both camera-like both parties utilize our family wizard for communication or email well our family wizard cost money X didn't want to pay any money for it or she used that as an excuse well I don't have any money so I won't I won't do it and I was I probably should have just paid her half of it but at that time I was so irritated and frustrated that I am not paying an extra dime that I needed to for for it honestly it was a method of gaslighting me and manipulating me and keeping me engaged longer and so I basically did it to myself but my point is is write it in there you know you know say email or save our family wizard now the reason that I don't just say use email and ultimately that's kind of what we do now but initially there were always problems I didn't get your email my emails crashed you know oh I did you must have gone to my you know my deleted but whatever I mean it was there was always an excuse why there was no way to to to confirm that that communication was taking place and honestly all it was was another gaslighting manipulative technique to try to get me frustrated and it worked actually you know annoyingly but but it did so that's why I'm saying so think about it now right um another example is you know our birthdays my birthday my ex's birthday are really close like three days apart three days yeah three days apart which is total pain because like you know the way it was written is you know every year one of us would have you know every year you know the parties whose birthday it is can see the kids on their birthday well when it's that close that means you can't plan anything you can't say okay well my vacation mine happens to be in August my vacation time I will take you know that and we'll go do something couldn't really do it because two days later three days later I'd have to be back to ensure that you know that kids could see their mom not that I'd want to see their mom but I mean it's like if you are okay with that great if you have a problem with that you need to think about it one of the things I was really fortunate that was put in the court order was a Christmas time that each you know whoever you know one person had the the Christmas vacation and the other person would get to see him on Christmas Day had that not been written written in there every year she was going to take the kids someplace else in the first year she tried to do that I think I talked about that before so so just try to forward think through the scenarios that might happen and what would you need to be be put in there to protect you and to minimize conflict and to try to make sure that things you know go as smoothly smoothly as possible and the final thing I want to say is don't rush into an into it don't just get into a panic state to where you just want it done now for in my situation what happened with that is I mean okay so the costs are going up I was being brutalized with child child support and alimony I mean it's significantly so and I wanted it to stop so I had my incentive to finish things was to try to keep you know try to prevent that to be perfectly honest I should have fought a little bit longer a little bit harder to make sure that things were were written and flushed out just a tad bit more because it would have saved me problems down the line now I I haven't gone back to court to fix those way I've looked at it is the framework that we have is good enough to not be worth spending thousands upon thousands of dollars and you know think of stuff like where they're going to go to school what happens if your your your career changes or whatever try to get some of that stuff in there because what you don't see because here's the problem as if it's if it's specific enough to where the other party can say oh well I'm not going to do that because the court order doesn't say that then you're in a bind so and then but the problem is is that conversely a narcissistic person if there is wiggle room in there to to interpret it another way they will do that okay so I'm going to wrap this up just make sure I mean my main point is remember that your attorney works for you and take an active role in the process because you know if you don't you can end up in a situation that you're going to be dealing with and living with and ultimately probably happen to go back and fight on later on down the road and that's that's just just a pain and you don't really you don't really want to do that so all right so on that if well let's see here you know if you if you have some experiences how you've dealt with that I because I know everyone's a little different I know my situation in some ways is better than other folks and my situation is worse in some situations I mean it's really it really depends and everyone has their own experiences on this but I'm I would I would venture to guess that most folks would agree that what I'm telling you is pretty sound advice in this stage of the thing so if you liked the video give it a thumbs up and if you like the channel subscribe I've said this before or on a you know anyways if you want to get a hold of me there on the YouTube channel and the about page there's links to stuff too to connect with me if you want to I've tried to connect with people through the YouTube stuff it really doesn't work well it's like if you understand what it is it works okay but if you haven't used it it's the pain and the notifications are weird and whatnot but on that I hope you guys are having a good day if you're going through this just take it slow don't rush into anything and try to keep calm and try to work through or think through the different scenarios that you may have to go through its not going to be pleasant but you know what a little bit of pain now can save you some significant pain later all right on that I'm going to wrap it up hopefully you guys having a good day and I will talk to you later thanks bye

Channel: DSD

Views: 60,938

Rating: 4.8188405 out of 5

Keywords: narcissistic abuse, dad surviving divorce, abuse, co parent, divorce, dad, parenting, narcissism, attorney, parenting plan, solicitor, surviving, narcissist, recovery, co parenting

Id: 4EhDrW2tbPY

Length: 13min 32sec (812 seconds)

Published: Fri Sep 02 2016