My name is Sam Vaknin, and I am the author of Malignant Self-Love: Narcissism Revisited.
Having chosen your team of consultants and experts, and having, of course, hired their services, relegate any inevitable contact with your abusive ex when and where possible to professionals, so your lawyer, your accountant. Work with these qualified third parties to extricate yourself and your loved ones from the quagmire of an abusive relationship.
Be sure to maintain as much contact with your abuser as the courts, counselors, mediators, guardians, or law enforcement officials mandate.
Do not contravene the decisions of the system.
Work from the inside to change judgements, evaluations, and rulings, but never rebel against such institutions. Never ignore them. You will only turn the system against you and your interests.
But with the exception of the minimum mandated by the courts, decline any and all gratuitous contact with the narcissist. Remember that many interactions are initiated by your abusive ex in order to trap or intimidate you.
Keep referring him to your lawyer regarding legal issues, to your accountant or financial advisor concerning money matters. And to therapists, psychologists, and counselors with regards to everything else, yourself, your common children.
Abuses react badly to such treatment. Yours will try to manipulate you into unintended contact.
Do not respond to his pleading, romantic, nostalgic, flattering, or threatening email and snail mail messages. Keep records of such correspondence and make it immediately available to the courts, to law enforcement agencies, court-mandated evaluators, guardians at Lytton, therapists, marital counselors, child psychologists, and to your good friends.
Keep him away by obtaining restraining orders and injunctions aplenty.
Abuses crave secrecy. Expose their needs. Deter abuse by being open about your predicament. Share with like-minded others online and offline. It will ease your burden and keep him at bay, at least for a while.
Your abusive ex-partner will try to dazzle you with attention. Return all gifts that he sends you, unopened and unacknowledged. Keep your communications with him to the bare cold minimum. Do not be impolite. Do not be abusive. Do not be abrasive.
It is precisely how he wants you to behave. It may be used against you in a court of law.
Keep your cool but be firm, especially about your boundaries. Do not let him re-enter your life surreptitiously. Stealth and ambient abuse are powerful tools.
Refuse him entry to your premises. Do not even respond to the intercom. Do not talk to him on the phone. Hang up the minute you hear your voice while making clear to him in a single, pithy, polite, but unambiguous sentence that you are determined not to talk to him, that it is over and for good.
Do not succumb to your weakness. It is tough living alone. You are bound to miss him horribly at times, selectively recalling only the good moments and the affection in your doomed relationship.
Do not dip into the poisonous offerings of your abuser. Do not relapse. Be strong.
Fill your life with new hobbies, new interests, new friends, new loves and lovers, and a new purpose.
Do not visit your abuser on special occasions. Do not call upon him in emergencies. Do not let him convince you to celebrate an anniversary, a birthday, a successful business transaction, a personal achievement or a triumph. Do not let him turn your own memories against you. Do not visit him in the hospital, in jail, a rehab center. Do not join him in a memorial service. He does not exist for you any longer. Do not ask him for anything, even if you are in dire straits and dire need.
When you are forced to meet him, do not discuss your personal affairs or his personal affairs.
Your abuser’s friendship is fake, his life with you, a confabulation, a sham, his intentions dishonest and dishonorable.
He is the enemy. Remember that.
Abuse by proxy continues long after the relationship is officially over.
Do not respond to questions, requests or pleas forwarded to you via third parties.
Disconnect from third parties whom you know are spying on you at his behest and on his behalf.
Do not discuss with him your children. Do not gossip about him.
The majority of abusers finally, after a protracted period admittedly, get the message.
Others, more vindictive and obsessed, continue to hold their quarry for years to come.
These are the stalkers.
There are several videos on this channel which deal with stalkers. Be sure to watch them.
