How to Win a Custody Battle - Episode 203

Episode Transcript

Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.

Jon McKenney (00:03):
If you're married to a narcissist and you're about
to go through a divorce oryou're going through one, you
have to understand that this isa fight to the death over the
kids in some respects. That thenarcissist is weaponizing the
kids to hurt you.

Voiceover (00:19):
A caring heart, a guiding light, leading us
through the darkest night.Escape the grip of a narcissist
on our journey to recoverybliss. This is the Narcissist
Abuse Recovery Channel.

Hodita, good morning. How are you today?

Padideh Jafari (00:36):
I'm doing well. How are you?

I'm doing really good. You're in San Diego this
time around recordings, a littledifferent from last go round.

Yeah. Actually from where I live in Orange
County, San Diego's, really thenext street over from where I
live. Oh, really? Yes.

I didn't I didn't realize that.

Yeah. Because I live in South Orange County, and
so it's a twenty five minuteride, and I love driving here.
So I'm at the Olas Media today,and Fantastic. Really looking
forward to our conversationtoday.

Wonderful. And our conversation, the last couple of
podcasts we've done, we not hadguests. What we decided we were
gonna go do is kind of leveragesome of our own strengths and
have conversations that perhapsother people don't have
sometimes. And what we wanna dohere is to go talk about how to

(01:32):
win a custody battle. You're adivorce attorney, and these are
the kinds of things that you areworking on all the time.
And I I wanna make sure that wewe leverage your strengths, to
go help our audience of people,because there are a lot of them
out there who have narcissistsand are married to narcissists

(01:52):
in some capacity, some some way,shape, or form. And they're
having to go deal with this,particularly with their
children. So so first questionis is it winnable? Can can can
it can it be won? Because we weknow that narcissists tend to
what's the exaggerate, lie,gaslight, and I'm sure they they

(02:15):
don't change when they're infront of a judge either.
So what's the process of ofprotecting your kids and and and
getting your kids back and thosekinds of things and winning a
custody battle.

Well, I wanna just say that, I've been a
divorce attorney and custodyattorney for over twenty two
years. And in the last five tosix years I've learned about
narcissists and cluster Bpersonality disorders. And one
thing that all of this educationhas taught me is that there's no

(02:53):
winning with a narcissist. Youdon't win while you're dating
them. You don't win while you'remarried to them.
And you're sure as shit notgoing to win when you're
divorcing them because they aregoing to I always say this to my
client, it's like you're on theTitanic with your narcissist,

(03:14):
You're going through a divorce.Imagine you're on the Titanic
and instead of throwing you alife vest, they're actually
trying to drown you before theydrown themselves. So imagine
that visually, I'm very visualso I always like to tell my
clients these visual things.Imagine that's what it's like.

(03:38):
So there is no actual winning.
In a divorce. Are going to beseparating assets, debts, debts
you might not have even knownabout, especially when it comes
to a narcissist because theyalways have this other life that
you don't even know about. Andthen you're trying to sort of do

(03:59):
what's amicable and fair and inthe best interest of your child
and they are trying to drownyou. So there's no winning.

You make a really good point there. And we we
should probably say thisupfront. When you're divorcing a
narcissist, this is not like aregular divorce in a lot of
ways. There there are people outthere who have fell in love and
fell out of love and haverespect for their spouse, and

(04:31):
they respect them not only as aspouse, but as a parent. And
they decide that they they wantto divorce as peacefully as
possible, and and and championthe idea that both parents still
need to see the kid and to beinvolved in their lives, even
though mom and dad are not inlove anymore.

(04:53):
They they they find a way to godo this peacefully. This is not
the case with a narcissist. Itjust it just doesn't happen.

Correct. So those people, yes. So they might
be in the litigation phase for acouple of months in the
beginning, But they soon realizethat litigation is not the way
to go and they want to mediate.And so we help them negotiate
and mediate a custody settlementthat makes sense for both of the

(05:22):
parties and for their children.So that is very different.
Or they come to mediation orcollaborative law which is also
something that we practice. Andwe can talk about those at
another time. But for a truenarcissist, they want to make
sure that they go the litigationroute. Now they might trick you.

(05:42):
They might say, well, let's domediation first.
It's a waste of time.

Is it just because you can't resolve anything with
a narcissist? There's no sensein mediating? You just need
somebody to

Well

kind of

With a narcissist, they're always
thinking 10 to 20 steps ahead ofyou because they're playing
chess while you're playingcheckers. And remember one
thing, some of our clients thatcome into the office they've
never heard about narcissism. Sothey're just thinking, Okay, you
know, my spouse was toxic, myspouse was cheating on me, my

(06:21):
spouse was sort of now they knowsort of gaslighting. They'll say
like, my spouse was gaslightingbut so they don't really know,
right? So they come into adivorce attorney's office and
for the first time and you'relike, well, spouse sounds sort
of narcissistic or other clusterB personality disorders and

(06:41):
they're like, what?
What does that even mean? Sothen you have to sort of educate
the client of what that meansand tell them to go read some
books, look at YouTube, look atchannels like yourself, male
victims, a female narcissist.I'm always sending my male
clients to you just to kind ofeducate them about what

(07:02):
narcissism is. And obviously wecannot diagnose someone as a
narcissist. We're lawyers, we'renot therapists.
But people have narcissistictendencies, right, which can be
equally as bad. So that's how Ieducate my clients. But nowadays
clients call and they say I'mdivorcing a narcissist because

(07:25):
they've already looked up thelaw firm. We have a lot of
education about narcissism onour website. And then also
they've heard this podcast.
So they're like, my spouse is anarcissist. So what we do is a
strategy session and we makesure that we sort of follow this

(07:46):
guideline. It could definitelychange. But it's a strategy
session of how do we get fromthe first document which is the
petition for divorce inCalifornia and the settlement
and trial. And so there's a lotobviously that goes in between
that but the first thing I tellclients is you need to start

(08:09):
documenting if you haven't been.
Journaling is very importantbecause you want to know dates
and times. Because a narcissist,what they'll do is they'll start
to lie and manipulate and you'rethinking, wait a minute, did I
say that? Did they pick up thechild here or there? And you
won't remember. So I start tosay journal and if they're not

(08:32):
good at journaling, which I knowyou're great at journaling
because you did that during yourdivorce, but I say just do a
timeline and just put it in yournotes like when things are
happening that you

can refer back to What kind of things are you
interested? Like what kind ofthings matter in a journal or in
a timeline? If you're keeping alist of things, what kind of
things do you want in there? Youwant conversations with the
kids? Do you want me understandshould be in a journal, what

(09:05):
kind of documentation should bein a journal of sorts.

So if they're coming for a divorce from the
date that they're sitting with adivorce attorney, I want to know
going forward, when is the coparent we don't co parent with a
narcissist. Actually counterparenting. They're calling

Anti parent.

Anti parenting, but counter parenting. But I
wanna know sort of when are theypicking up the child? When are
they spending time with thechild? How many hours? I want
you to go back and if my clientdoesn't know this, they should
know this.
Like who's the principal at theschool, who are their teachers,

(09:47):
get me their grades. I want toknow all of that because what
the narcissist will do is saythat my client now is not a good
parent. And so I want to startto strategize that if you don't
know then you need to know. Likeask your child what's your
favorite color? Spend morebecause listen, sometimes you're

(10:08):
not thinking about this, right?
You're just parenting your childbut see if there's any
allergies. Like when was thelast time you went to the
pediatrician? Start to do thosethings and document it because
that becomes really important.Because the first thing that
happens is we'll file for thepetition, they'll file for the

(10:28):
response, and then what's calleda request for order. And you're
saying like, I was a primaryparent, right?
And they're saying, no, youweren't. You were an absentee
parent. And so that's why wewant to make sure that we have
this sort of documented like,No, I was the parent that was
always dropping off and pickingup. I actually had court

(10:51):
yesterday. I was in a trial forseven hours, John.
That's why I'm so tired today.And it was in that case, dad was
saying he was the, stay at homeparent, but the two oldest
daughters, 12 and eight, don'twant anything to do with them

(11:12):
because he's lying. And so I hadto show, you know, the judge
that like, no, my client was theprimary parent and this is why.
Sometimes when you do daycare,have to sign your child out. So
we were able to get that andsay, dad never picked up the two

(11:35):
daughters from daycare, andhere's the evidence of it.
Because remember that judgeslike to see evidence and
documents. They don't like itwhen you go to court and start
name calling. And becausethey've heard this word
narcissism now, because that's atrendy word unfortunately, and

(11:55):
it shouldn't be, but it's atrendy word, they don't want to
hear it. They're like, unlessthe person is diagnosed as a
narcissist and I want an expertto say that in court you can't
diagnose your spouse. So give methe documents to show that you
were the primary parent.

So so ultimately, you're trying to build a case,
for custody, and I'm I'massuming primary custody. And
then there's there's sharedcustody as well, and there
there's gotta be tension inthis. Right? So if I'm in a
position and unfortunately, Iwas not, didn't have to deal
with child custody. I waitedtill my kids got out of high

(12:39):
school, intentionally, so Ididn't have to deal with that
and child support and all thatother nonsense, and that would
have changed things for me.
But when people are doing thisand are married, find themselves
married to a narcissist, whetherthey know it or not, they know
the narcissist isn't good forthe kids. What are you fighting

(12:59):
for? Are you fighting for sharedcustody? Are you fighting for
soul custody? How do you feelabout, do you wanna take them
away from that parent, eventhough they're biological father
or mother?
How do you figure that out?

So each case is different obviously. So every
case, I mean, I've beenpracticing for twenty two years,
like I said, and each case isdifferent. But with the
narcissistic cases there's verymuch similarities and there's a
blueprint I like to say becausethe narcissistic parent is
always going to say that the, Icall them the innocent spouse,

(13:38):
even though I don't meaninnocent like they did
everything right in the but theperson that doesn't have the
personality disorder, they'realways going to say the
narcissist is always going tosay that that parent is not a
good parent. And they haven'tbeen parenting and they want
sole custody. And so becausethey are very much extremists

(14:00):
you have to build your case tosay no that's not true.
And either you're fighting forprimary custody or what
California more and more likesto see is the fiftyfifty equal
timeshare they call The 223,Monday through Wednesday drop
off at school, the other parenttakes the child Wednesday after

(14:24):
school till Friday. And thenparent A that had it Monday
picks up the child Friday afterschool to Monday morning. So
that's sort of what they like tosee is the 223. There's the 225,
and then there's every otherweek. That's really the
parenting that could potentiallyhappen if you have fiftyfifty.

(14:45):
If you have ahead. If you haveprimary custody, then obviously
it could be one parent sees thechild Wednesday for dinner,
after school until dinner, andthen every other weekend. But
courts in California, especiallyin Southern California where we
practice, they are workingtowards fiftyfifty. They just

(15:07):
are. They want both parents nowbecause it used to be when we
started practicing law twentytwo years ago, mostly the
husbands were working and sothey couldn't have that sort of
fifty-fifty because it would,conflict with their work
schedule.
Now because women and mothersare working more and more,

(15:29):
courts like to see thatfifty-fifty or even like if it's
forty-sixty of, you know,custody arrangement.

Yeah. Interestingly enough, I mean, if
you're if you're married to anarcissist and you're about to
go through a divorce or you'regoing through one, you you have
to understand that this is afight to the death over the kids
in some respects.

Yes. %. That that

the the narcissist is weaponizing the kids to hurt
you. And in in many, manysituations, they are going to
lie. They'll cheat. They'llfalsify documentation that it
will be hard full full courtpress to keep you, the victim,
from from perhaps even seeingyour your kids. And I Yes.

(16:14):
I I know men that I've I'vespent time in conversation with
over the years who who havewives who have made up stories
about them so that they'rereported to child services to
try and and keep them from theirkids and do a pretty damn
effective job at that. So thesestories are ridiculous. I mean,

(16:36):
some of these guys are millionsof dollars in debt defending
themselves against the lies ofthe narcissist. So this is not
for the faint of heart. You saythey're ant you say they're, you
know, they're counter parents,they're antiparents, and anti
human even in some respects.
They they will lie aboutabsolutely anything to win
custody of their children and totry and keep you as the good

(16:59):
parent even out of the picture.

Yes. So journaling is the first
strategy. The second is keepingcommunication on a parenting
app. There's two that we use inSouthern California and judges
love these apps. They're calledTalking Parents, which I just
did an interview with TalkingParents.
So go read that interview ontheir website. So Talking

(17:22):
Parents is one of them and it'sfree for the parents. The other
one is Our Family Wizard. Thething I like about Our Family
Wizard is that the attorney canhave access to the conversation
and so can the judge. So we canlog on sometimes on behalf of
our client and see what theother spouse or the narcissistic

(17:45):
spouse has written sort of helpand guide our clients into how
to respond.
Because remember that when thevictim, I don't like to call
them victim, I like to call themsurviving spouse, when the
survivor walks in they're sortof like how do I respond?
They're triggered by everythingthat the narcissist is doing and
sometimes with our Family Wizardwe can log on and see and I'll

(18:09):
tell my client like you have torespond in one or two sentences
maximum. Cannot talk aboutanything that deals with
emotions. You can't talk aboutanything that deals with the
actual divorce process. You haveto just keep it to talk about
your child.
So those are also, that's thesecond strategy is to get the

(18:30):
parents quickly on this appwhich makes the narcissist sort
of have to play nice in thesandbox knowing that at any
point instead of a text messagewhich you know people now and
narcissists know this you candelete text messages. You can't
do that on these two apps. Ithink there's another one called

(18:52):
Onward. So those are the threeapps. So definitely get on a
parenting app quickly with theadvice of counsel, obviously.
And that way everything isdocumented. And you can also put
expenses on there, John. So ifthey owe you something from a
copay, you can put that onthere. And the good thing about

(19:15):
the app is you can see when theyopen it, like there's a read
receipt. So you can see whenthey open it, you can see when
they responded.
And judges like to say you haveto respond within twenty four
hours.

And those apps, if I'm not mistaken, are also used
later on after the divorce tocontinue to make sure, parents
are playing nice, with respectto their kids. I know I was in a
situation with one of guys Iknow and have kinda coached over
the last couple of years is, hisex didn't wanna bring the kid,

(19:51):
you know, let the kid come overfor their custody. So he's
having to go escalate this and Ithink an app like that might
really help in some situations.You can see, and a judge can see
exactly what's going on andwho's not playing nice and who
is. I imagine it's very hardsometimes for a narcissist to
play nice when they're not nice.

Right. And it's funny because, not funny but
ironic, but you can see fromwhen the client first comes in
how the narcissist is respondingand then you say, okay, we need
to make this a court order thatthey respond on the app. And
then you could see I mean, I'veseen this so many times where
the narcissist totally switches,right? And they're like, dear so

(20:34):
and so. And they start to playnice for a while.
And you're just like, Okay, Ican see that they're trying to
put a good front for the judge.But it doesn't matter because at
the end of the day, this keepsthem as accountable as you can
keep a narcissist. Can't reallykeep them accountable. So that's

(20:54):
the second strategy. The thirdstrategy is do not retaliate.
I have seen this, John, blow upin people's faces. You cannot
retaliate against a narcissist.You as the sympathetic,
empathetic surviving spouse, youdo not have the tools to fight

(21:18):
this battle with the narcissist.If you did, you'd still be
married to them. So Yes.
What you need to do iscompletely remove yourself from
the situation. I mean, I'm a bigadvocate of therapy, as you
know. Other divorce attorneysthat are my friends and
colleagues, they don't like thatI say if you're going through a

(21:40):
divorce seek therapy. It doesn'thave to be therapy for the rest
of your life it could be threesessions or seven sessions. But
if you're dealing with anarcissist in court you want to
make sure you know what they'redoing and you want to make sure
that you stay as grounded andstoic as humanly possible

(22:01):
because they will trigger you.
Their job is to make your life aliving hell, and they're very
good at accomplishing that.

And I would guess that throughout the process, is
constantly from the narcissist,expect the unexpected. You don't
think they're gonna go dosomething, they're absolutely
gonna go do it. And they willthey will they will turn every
screw they can possibly turn totry and sway it their way and
unpredictably so. You think youmight think you've got

(22:31):
resolution, and then the nextday, it's gone. Yes.
I know I I know I I have afriend who was in divorce court
for five years. He was trying toget this divorce done, and I I
don't know whether his his wifehad some narcissistic
tendencies. She was ultimatelyjust a very difficult person.
And it was five years of thisbefore they'd actually come to

(22:55):
resolution. So it's a constantbattle at the highest level and
in the most difficultcircumstances.
Right. And therapy and thingslike that also, you it it's also
a time where financially, youdon't know you don't know what's
gonna happen on the other end.You enter into this, you know,

(23:16):
deconstruction period wheremoney doesn't go where it once
went and jobs may be differentand they may not be. And then
you've got child support and allof that. And you don't know what
the other side of the equationfinancially is going to look
like.
I mean, are people that drophundreds of thousands of dollars
on a divorce. Yes. I'm sure. Andchild custody on top of that. So

(23:40):
so it becomes a time where moneyis also uncertain adding to the
stress.
And by and large, I think you'dagree with this statement. The
more difficult the more the morepeople fight, the more expensive
it is.

Oh, yeah. Absolutely. And I wanna say two
things. The first thing is thelongest divorce I've ever been
involved in was twelve years.

Oh my gosh.

In LA County, downtown.

You're kidding.

No, Stanley Moss Twelve years? Twelve years. The
child at that point was over 18,okay? But they were fighting for
royalties and things of thatnature. Yes, twelve years is the
longest.
And then one thing I want to saywhich this can sound so self

(24:27):
serving but it's important Ithink for me to say this as a
practitioner. What happens is alot of times, not every time but
a lot of times, we'rerepresenting the innocent
spouse, right? We discussed thatin the beginning what that
means, right? The nonnarcissistic spouse. What

(24:50):
happens is that they will gettired of playing nice in the
sandbox.
And what happens is they willturn on the attorneys because I
had this just happened, the endof last year and they will say
you know, you're not advocatingenough, you're not doing this,

(25:12):
you're not, they're fighting,you know, they're fighting
dirty, they're lying, they're,you know, forging documents,
they're doing all these thingsand you're not doing that. Like,
and so what happens, John, isthey'll turn on and I've had
this happen so many times andI'll go back to the client and
say, we are an ethical firm, wehave morals, we are not going to

(25:37):
play by these rules, we're notgoing to start manufacturing
things that don't exist, we arenot going to lie on your behalf.
And so sometimes what happens isyou'll see even though the
client wasn't the narcissist,they start to get those
narcissistic tendencies like italmost transfers over from one

(26:01):
table to the next. And you cansee because they're like
fighting fair in family court issort of not the best solution
sometimes when you're dealingwith a narcissist. So I'll say
and what I said to that clientwas I don't think that our law
firm is the right law firm foryou.

(26:22):
If you wanna start playing dirtylike the narcissist's ex is
playing dirty and thenarcissist's ex attorney, then
maybe you need to go and get anattorney that's going to lie and
manufacture evidence and forgedocuments, but that's not going
to be our law firm. And I don'tthink this is discussed enough.

Actually, this is a good question. I just thought
of this. So do narcissists oftengo through more than one
attorney? Yes. Because perhapsthe attorney is not being
aggressive enough ormanufacturing things like you
say.
So they go through more than oneattorney. Yes. The second
question would be, does thevictim often wind up going

(27:09):
through more than one attorney?

Yes. What happens is the narcissist
definitely goes through, I wouldsay, between three to seven
attorneys from the beginning ofthe divorce to the end. So I
would say about three to seven.That's what I've seen the And

(27:32):
then the innocent spouse, theywill usually go anywhere from
one to three attorneys. So ifthey get this, if they
understand what I'm telling youfrom the beginning of when we
first started this conversation,if they start to do the
documentation, doing the app,And the third thing I said was

(27:55):
not engaging, not going tit fortat because you cannot win
against a narcissist if you'regoing tit for tat.
Because don't forget, they'relying, manipulating,
manufacturing evidence. They'reforging documents. I've seen
this multiple times in court.What will happen is you will
start to get very angry and youwill turn on your attorney

(28:18):
because you're saying, Whyaren't you doing the same things
they're doing? So I've seen itwhere a client will start with
us and end with us.
And I've seen it where they getreally mad and either they'll
self represent because they'reout of money or they will get an
attorney that is really, youknow, there's a fine line,

(28:43):
right? And they will just gobeyond that fine line. And
believe it or not, in LA County,we all, the ethical attorneys
know those attorneys. We knowabout them. And so I had a
situation where I wasrecommending because our law
firm was too busy and so we havecolleagues that we recommend.

(29:05):
And my colleague, she said,well, who is the opposing
counsel? And I said the name andshe said, oh no, I'm never
taking a case against that lawfirm because they lie, they
manufacture evidence and they'reactually the narcissist too. And
so those law firms are we knowthem. We know that they lie for

(29:27):
their clients and they don'tcare. And as long as their
client is paying them, thenarcissist is paying the
narcissist dick attorney,they'll take the case.
But a lot of times those alsoblow up, right? Because once the
money is gone, like let's saythere's a house and there's
equity in the house and thehouse is sold, so there's some

(29:49):
liquid cash there to pay yourattorney. Once you can't pay
your attorney, the case iseither going to settle quickly
or that narcissistic client willgo to another attorney. So as
soon as they don't like whatthey hear, the narcissist
They're gone. They're gone.
And I've had and I tell myclients this, Okay, we won this

(30:13):
battle in court, but I'm goingto give it thirty days before I
get a substitution of attorneywhere the narcissist is going to
get another attorney. And myclients are like, Are you a
fortune teller? I'm like, no. Ijust know how the narcissist
thinks, unfortunately, becauseI've been battling them for so

(30:35):
many years.

Yeah. So that I again, do do have you found also
that that narcissists are areseeking out narcissistic
attorneys, like birds of afeather flock together? Oh. And
and not only are you having todeal with the narcissist, but
you're now having to compoundthat with another narcissistic

(30:59):
attorney who's literally forgingor faking information for the
case just to win and continuethe weaponizing against the
victim.

Absolutely. We do, at our law firm, we do a lot
of vetting in the beginningbefore we accept a client
because we don't want to berepresenting narcissists.
Because if we do represent thenarcissist, guess what happens?
They're not going to last as aclient at the firm very long,

(31:31):
right? Because we talked aboutthe ethics and the morals of the
law firm.
And so, absolutely. So whathappens is the narcissist
usually will find a narcissisticattorney that won't fact check
anything they say. They'll justput forth whatever narrative the

(31:53):
narcissist is claiming, which isuntrue. And so they'll just keep
coming to court and telling thejudge the same thing. They won't
have documents, right?
They won't have those, in thebeginning I talked about those
documents and sort ofjournaling. They won't have
that. But they'll just say thisnarrative over and over and
that's what the narcissist does.Like they say this narrative

(32:15):
over and over and eventuallyyou're like, I think I believe
this now. And so they're tryingto sort of trick the judge into
believing this narrative.
And so the other side, which iswhat we represent, we have to
come with actual documentationand the law. The law matters to

(32:36):
judges, believe it or not. Imean, think some people would
argue with me on that. But thisis the law. This is what the law
says.
We have documentation sayingthat our client has been the
primary parent. And so we wouldlike to continue the status quo
going forward. The other thingwe can do, the fourth, strategy

(32:58):
is get an evaluation. There'stwo types in Southern
California. And you can ask forminor's counsel, which is an
attorney for the child or thechildren.
That also can sort of helpbecause that's a third party
neutral that is coming to courtand testifying before the judge
on behalf of the child. That'slike a fourth strategy. Again,

(33:23):
that costs money. So if for somereason you don't have that kind
of money to shell out, thenyou're not going to get that
third party neutral for yourchild. It is listen, it is very,
very difficult.
I mean, I'm not going tosugarcoat this. We decided that

(33:44):
we were not gonna sugarcoatanything and be very raw on this
podcast from the very beginning.It is very difficult to divorce
a narcissist. I would say it'shard to get a divorce but it is
a % more difficult with anarcissist. Not a hundred or a
thousand, a hundred thousand,it's a % more difficult to

(34:08):
divorce a narcissist becausethey're constantly going to be
lying, manipulating,gaslighting, projecting, and now
they're doing this to the judge.
And let's say that the judgerules for you. It doesn't mean
that the narcissist is going tosay, oh, okay, I have to now
abide by the court order. Theywon't do that. They don't like

(34:32):
authority. As you know,narcissists hate authority.
So you'll have to then file acontempt action, which is very
expensive. So it's not like onceyou get a court order, you're in
the clear. Now you have to filecontempt actions and you have to
go back to court. And so it isvery, very difficult.

Is it harder? And my passion is men who have been
through all this stuff is ittougher for a man to wait
custody?

I want to say with the right attorney no

Okay.

But if you have an attorney that does not
understand narcissism, and thiscan be again self serving, but I
don't want it to be. If have anattorney that does not
understand narcissism, then as aman, yes, it's going to be a lot
harder for you. Because alreadyI think that the courts, it is

(35:37):
2025, but I do think that therestill is that bias against men
and having primary custody orequal timeshare with your child,
which is the fiftyfifty, whichcourts don't like to say
numbers, so we like to saytimeshare. So, or parenting

(35:59):
time, you know, courts like tosay parenting time now. They
used to call it visitation, butthen somebody came up with, you
know, you're not visiting yourchild, so okay, parenting time.
But we all know what we'retalking about here. So yes, it
is difficult if you don't havean attorney that understands
narcissism. Not that we go intocourt and ever mention the word

(36:21):
narcissism, but we can show thatwhat the other side is saying is
just not true. As you know haveclients that are divorcing
narcissists who are men and weask them to do that
documentation and they're likewell I don't know how to journal
and I'm like well then that'sfine then take you know on a

(36:43):
Word document or on your noteson your iPhone, just write down
like when you picked up thechild. If you had to take the
child to the pediatrician, didyou go?
Why didn't you go? You know? Soall these things. And so if you
don't have the right child, ifyou don't have the right
attorney and you're divorcing anarcissist, whether you're male

(37:05):
or female, God help Because it'sgoing to take that five to seven
years we talked about earlier.

Yeah. Or worse maybe if that's the case too. I
can't imagine the people havingto go through this. And again,
the end result is whether or notyou get to spend time with your
kid. Correct.
And it's a ridiculous process.It's a hard process. The

(37:34):
narcissist makes it incrediblydifficult on top of it, and and
you can still really lose timewith your kid. And it and just
because the courts say, okay,this is this is how much time
you get with your kid, doesn'tmean that the narcissist is even
gonna follow that on the otherside of it, which which is more

(37:56):
difficult. So then again, youhave to get into legal action
and more money and moreconsequences, and it becomes
kind of a nightmare.
And that's why we, you know, wereally do say that the
narcissist with respect toparenting is is like the anti
parent. Yes. It's it's what whatwas it you said? It's like it's
like fighting with the devil.

Yeah. It's like parent no. I said it was like
parenting with the devil. Here,you're trying to get away from,
you know, this abusiverelationship and marriage that
you've been in. Correct?
And now the court

And you're at at your lowest. At your At that
point in time. Especially ifyou've been married to a
narcissist. If if this is yourhighest, lowest is at the floor
because you you you you'veyou've been gaslighted and
you're emotionally in a badplace anyways. It's somebody
that, generally speaking, thethe the the victim loved or

(38:50):
loves and and yet at the sametime can't live with this
person, so it becomes anexcruciating process.
And you catch the victim attheir lowest. They're starting
this process at at theiremotional lowest, And then to
have to fight for their childrenon top of it and figure out
finances and child custody andchild support and all of that

(39:11):
together is nightmarish.

It is. And we do have a lot of empathy for our
clients that are going throughthis really difficult process of
divorce but divorcing anarcissist. That's why if you go
on our website there's so muchinformation like free
information about it. Know Iknow you and I started our

(39:34):
Instagrams to help the communityunderstand what this is. We
offer a lot of legal, you knowfree legal advice on our social
media even though, you know, theCalifornia State Bar doesn't
like that.
Even though we're notrepresenting you, we'd like you
to, you know, give yousuggestions of what you can do.

(39:55):
And obviously this podcast thatwe started, you know, last year
was free for the community tolisten to. And even if you get
one nugget and learn one thing,that you can use in your custody
battle, because it is a battle,John, it's not like no one is
breezing through this with anarcissist. Even if the

(40:18):
narcissist doesn't want toparent their child they will
fight you tooth and nail. Soit's not, you know, and I have a
lot of clients that say thatlike if they wanted a parent, if
my, soon to be ex spouse wanteda parent, I'd have no problem
with it.
But here I'm getting out of atoxic abusive relationship and

(40:38):
now my child has to go with thatparent. And so it becomes very,
very difficult. And again, ifthey don't listen to the advice
of counsel, it's going to bemuch more difficult for them. If
they listen to the advice ofcounsel, at least we can try to

(41:00):
plug the holes, right, andexplain to our client this is
why they're doing this. Likethey're making another false and
phony motion and this is thereason why.
And so it does take I would saythat in Southern California
where we practice law, it takesusually a normal divorce, a

(41:22):
regular divorce should take ayear. In a narcissistic divorce,
it can take anywhere, I wouldsay, from three to seven years.
So to your point, you're payingattorney's fees, you're
splitting your assets, yourdebts. Sometimes you don't know
what debts your spouse has. Havea lot of times where

Yeah, was surprised. And I came out easy.
There's an extra $20,000 on acredit card I didn't know about.
And there are people who are fardeeper in than me. I consider
myself lucky.
It was only $20.

I have a client recently, she came in and she
said, I've never signed a taxreturn. I've never signed one.
We are $80,000 we owe the IRSbut I've never signed a tax
return when we were jointlymarried, you know, we were
married and I said, Well, whatdo you mean? Didn't you file

(42:23):
jointly? She said, Yes.
And I said, Well, didn't youlook at it when you signed it?
She goes, I'm telling you, Inever signed it. He forged my
signature on this document. Andso now that we're getting
divorced, I'm $80,000 in debt tothe IRS. Forget the other debts
that she had no idea about, butyou don't want to mess with the
government's money, So I'mtelling you, it is really,

(42:49):
really tragic.
And going through this with theclient, obviously being an
empathetic attorney that I am,it's really difficult, John. I
mean, there's only so muchbandwidth that I have. So I have
to be careful, the types ofclients that I select for the

(43:09):
law firm and then obviouslyadvocating for them. And a lot
of times you'll tell me like,you look tired or have you lost
weight? This is why because it'svery stressful when you are sort
of championing for the underdogand half the time they don't
even know what's going onthemselves.
So you're educating them andyou're fighting a battle with

(43:32):
the narcissistic attorneybecause to your point, the
narcissist will find anarcissistic attorney. And so
it's constant. And thensometimes your own client will
turn against you and say, Youknow, you should be doing more.
You should be, you know, makingsome of these motions. And
you're going, No.

(43:52):
That's just going to prolong theprocess. If we lose on emotion,
you might have to pay theirattorney's fees, the other
side's attorney's fees. So, youknow, it's really a battle and
it never ends. I will say thatthe good part about this is that

(44:15):
only

There's a good part.

Yeah. Only ninety five percent of cases in
California, they settle beforegoing to trial. So at some
point, you want to the fifthstrategy is file for a trial
date. And that way, you'llcontinue to work towards that
trial date and try to settle.And as you know once you make

(44:38):
any proposal to the narcissistthey won't take it so we always
say give us your settlement, letus look at it.
Most times our client is likewe'll settle for anything to get
rid of this person, right? Andthen they'll come back and say,
oh no, we want actually more orwhatever because they always
change the settlement.

Right. So And they're all about money. That,
you know, there's that.

Yeah. Money, control, all the things, all the
things, you know? And so thatway you'll have a trial date
even if that trial date getscontinued, let's say, by
sometimes the court willcontinue it or if you're not
ready for a trial, you can askfor a continuance. At least you
have that end date. Right.

(45:21):
And so once you have that, thenyou work towards the settlement.
But I will say all this is allgood and dandy, but then you
have the post separation abuse,which we talk a lot about. I'm
glad we'll

have to save that for another time. Yeah. It's
probably a podcast in and ofitself and talking about child
support and who pays and whodoesn't and perhaps the inequity
in that. Yes. So there's anawful lot to discuss with
respect to that.

Well also, know, the abuse that happens post
divorce, that's a whole anothersubject because now you're sort
of out of the court system butyou could still be battling and
you will, I mean not could, I'msorry, you will be battling with
the narcissist post divorce andsometimes they'll bring you back

(46:17):
to court like I've had clientscall me years later like I'm
back in court I need you torepresent me. I'm like why? We
settled everything. Well youknow the narcissists you told me
about them you know we were backin court And, so if they don't
win at the time of settlement ortrial, then later on they'll ask
maybe for more child custody ormore money or an omitted asset.

(46:44):
You're like, that wasn't anasset while you were married.
That person got that asset afterseparation and now you're asking
for it. It is a battle. I'm notsaying that you can't win the
battle. I'm just saying you haveto realize that winning means
getting your freedom and yourpeace. Winning does not mean

(47:08):
dollar for dollar you're gonnaget exactly what they get.
That's not what winning againsta narcissist is.

Well, the sadder part of it, and you kind of
alluded to this, is you canfight for your kid. You can win
shared custody of your child,and the kid may still hate you
on the other end because thenarcissist has been talking in
their ear all the time becausethey'll they'll smear campaign

(47:38):
the kid talk so badly about thegood parent and reframe what
good parenting is so that thiskid that you've spent so much
time trying to win time for justhates you. And it really is a
problematic process postdivorce. It's difficult.

Yeah, that's where you get into real parental
alienation. I know that thatword is very triggering for some
people. But where you get yourchild doesn't even want to spend
time with you, to your point andthat's a discussion for another
time obviously. But, yes, I dobelieve though my experience is

(48:24):
that the child at some point,usually when the child's late in
their teens or 20s or evensometimes when the child gets
married themselves and has akid, they realize wow, like I
was on the wrong side here.Know, I was siding with the

(48:45):
narcissist.

Yeah.

But it's when, it only happens when the
narcissistic parent turns on thechild and it's a repeated thing
where the child is seeing it forthemselves because you're out of
the picture, right? You'redivorced from that person. Yep.
But that is a discussion, awhole discussion, for another
time. But, you know, thank youfor letting me share today

(49:07):
because I Sure.
I do feel like I know we kind ofcame up with this topic
yesterday because I was in courtfor seven hours and I was like,
you know, we really need to talkabout how to win, child custody
from a narcissist, but it's notthe way that, you know, we think
of winning. It's just to winyour freedom and sort of guide

(49:29):
your child through the processas best as you can while you're
still co parenting with thedevil.

Yep. Now keep in mind if you're out there and
you're listening to Badita andyou go, yeah, I want to talk to
her. Remember that attorneysonly can work in their state for
the most part. Padilla is prettywell confined to California, so
she's not able to go help you inTexas or Maryland or Georgia or
wherever you might benecessarily. But you do want to
go find somebody who understandsthe mindset of a narcissist and

(50:01):
can help you through that.
And, and if you are if youhappen to be in California, in
fact, Padilla's website wouldstill be a great resource for
you. It's jafarilegal.com. Ifyou want to look her up there
and you can, there's informationon there. You can check her out
on TikTok and also on Instagramas well. Jafarilegal in both of
those platforms too.

(50:22):
And we're going to continue tohave conversations here at the
Narcissist Abuse RecoveryChannel about these kinds of
things to help you win andimprove your life and hopefully
win your kids through some ofthis stuff as well. It made
sense today, Padita, to go havea conversation with you because
this is your expertise. So I'mreally glad we did that today

(50:42):
and it was good conversation. Sothank you very much for your
insight and your wisdom.

Thank you.

The Narcissist Abuse Recovery Channel, I'm John
McKenney. If you're looking forus online, you can find us at
narc.podcast and Padida again isat Jafarilegal on Instagram and
TikTok. You can find me on atMaleVictimsofFemaleNarcissists
orMaleVictimsofFemaleNarcissist.com.
And, our podcast also has awebsite. It's,

(51:13):
We'd love to have you come visitand check out some of our other
episodes. We're on Spotify andalso on Apple Music right now.
You're soon to come. And, we'relooking forward to seeing you
and helping you. If you needcoaching, you can reach out to
me.
I also do coaching particularlyfor men, but also coach some
women through the process too.Again, John McKenney and Padida
Jaffari. Have a wonderful day.

Voiceover (51:36):
Thank you for listening to the Narcissist
Abuse Recovery Channel. Be sureto follow and subscribe wherever
you get your podcasts. To hearother episodes or read the
associated blogs, be sure tofollow us on Instagram with the
handle NARC. Podcast. The guestviews, thoughts and opinions
expressed are their own.
The information presented is forgeneral information purposes

(51:58):
only and is not intended to belegal advice. The co hosts are
not licensed therapists. Seekprofessional help as information
is often state specific.

How to Win a Custody Battle - Episode 203

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