Plan your Getaway

Step seven, when you’re divorcing a narcissistic or controlling husband, is to start thinking about where you can go and how you can fund your “getaway”.

If finances allow, and that’s “the big if”, it’s best to get out of the house when you are filing for divorce. Because, when you’re around somebody like your husband, if he’s a controlling person, his natural tendency will be to try to manipulate you and do things that make it very, very difficult for you to have the fortitude to get through the divorce and get the settlement that you should have under the law (and need for your future).

If you are in the same house with your husband during the divorce he is going to have a much easier time filling your head with the types of threats and other nonsense that my clients come to my office crying about and can oftentimes tempt even strong women to “take a bad deal” in the divorce just so it is over.

If finances allow it, and that’s the big if, I’d prefer that my clients be out of the house living somewhere else or with relatives. Maybe if there’s a second home, stay in the second home.

Just get into a place where you don’t have to listen to your husband every night as the divorce is carrying out.

You’re also going to need to think of ways you can get the money you need, in the short term, to pay for those living expenses and your legal expenses. And this might mean securing commitments for help from others in your family or identifying assets that you have that you can strategically transfer into your control so that you can pay for your short term living expenses and to hire a lawyer.

Many of the good lawyers will, ultimately, look to your husband to get paid, but they’re going to be requiring you to pay money up front to them to get started to cover the first several months of work that it can take to depose your husband and get into court if a case is not settled. Usually it can take $15,000-25,000 to do what is necessary to depose your husband and do everything that is necessary to get the type of court hearing needed to make him pay your lawyer for continued litigation.

The exact cost of the lawyer will vary (and you usually get what you pay for) but the one thing that is constant is you are going to need to think about now is how you might go about getting the money you need to live independently for the short term and pay your lawyer to get started.

It may be the case that that money is just not there. And if that is the case, “it is what it is” and it will just have to be dealt with and that’s one of the things you’re going to want to talk to a lawyer about.

Ultimately, your lawyer will help you come up with the best strategy tailored to your specific situation. There is no “cookie cutter” divorce from a difficult and controlling husband.

That said, generally, I’ll tell you that when my clients come to me and they have the ability to find financial resources that allow them to get away from their husband, at least for the short term, right as the divorce is being filed until things settle down, I usually have them do it.