hello everyone stacy here and welcome to today's episode um if you are looking at the video the background is going to look a little bit different I'm actually up at the gold coast this week and I have been struggling to find somewhere decent to film this with decent lighting so um if I open up the blinds it's very glary on the gold coast today so hopefully um the editing for this video if you're watching it on youtube isn't too bad So I'm just going to do a quick episode today in relation to just touching on narcissistic slash toxic relationships because that, I'll start again because I don't know whether that was working. Hello everyone, Stacey here. Welcome to today's episode. Hopefully the lighting is okay if you are watching this on YouTube. I'm up at the Gold Coast for a conference and I've struggled to find somewhere to film this. So apologies if the lighting's a little bit dodged in this one and the background isn't too exciting either. So apologies for that. I've opened up the blind but it's very overcast and If I did that, you probably wouldn't be able to see me at all. So today's episode is just quite quick and it's touching on a topic that we've spoken about before, which is narcissistic relationships. So I think the word narcissist is overused. I tend to use the word toxic more. Narcissistic is like a... a diagnosis, you can actually be diagnosed as being a narcissist. Chances are of that occurring are probably slim because a narcissist isn't probably going to want to go to a doctor to get that diagnosis. So narcissist slash toxic is what I'm after. There's really specific requirements with being a narcissist. And it's just such a... an easy word to say, I suppose, and accuse somebody of being a narcissist when they could not quite meet the criteria of being a narcissist, but they might just be like a really toxic, horrible person. So that's effectively what today's podcast is about. And I have had emails and DMs and stuff saying, hey, can we please do more on this? So I'll do a little bit more today. And it's just really the top three warning signs I see most with people going through a separation. and how to protect yourself as best as you can so there's obviously heaps more than the three that I'm about to say but it's these are the ones I probably see the most it's either way it's probably going to be really hard to go through a separation with somebody who is a narcissist toxic person and that is difficult again if you or your ex has a lawyer with those traits as well because that happens and what I want to do more education on is basically you can't control that So you could be banging your head up a wall about it. That's out of your control. The only thing that you can control is yourself and how you react to that, the type of lawyer that you choose, if you need additional support. So like a divorce coach, which is something also that I offer, that is the only thing that you can control. You can't control yourself. So please, please know that part. I'm not saying that's going to make it easy, but just know that you can't control that. So that is out of your control. If you try and control it, it will probably make them worse, but you can't control it. The only thing that you can control is how you react to it and how you carry on in accordance with your values. So the first thing is financial manipulation. So that happens... It's pretty common. It can be done by either partner. So historically, when you hear that, you will think that it is a male manipulating a female traditionally. We are getting a lot more the other way where it's a female manipulating a male. And you obviously have same-sex relationships that have those issues as well but when you hear that you probably went straight to a male manipulating a female but definitely with the matters that we're getting in the office it's other way around it's a female manipulating the male and that's resulting in a lot of mental health issues as well. So dealing with mental health is probably a whole other episode I need to do, but know that financial mutilation can happen with anybody. Okay. So, and any, any sex, any relationship, any duration of relationship, anything. Now it's not uncommon for somebody in a relationship to probably have control of the finances. So they're the ones that checks the bank accounts to make sure that the funds are still there and nothing's being hacked. They pay the bills. They, do whatever. That's not financial manipulation. Financial manipulation, that's really hard to say, is more they're refusing to show you what the bank accounts are. or you, despite earning a couple of grand a week or something, you get an allowance. It's things like that. So if you were to have control of your finances and your partner went, hey, can I have a quick look or whatever? Yep, cool. Yep, sure. Like here it is. Like that's not manipulation. It's when you're hiding things, where you're giving allowances, like say pocket money out when you're the one that earns the money. It's things like that. So some of the tactics could be they're delaying financial disclosure so disclosure is a legal requirement when you go through a separation and in my program like we go through all of that and what documents you need and how long and whatever so delaying financial disclosure is one if you've never had access to your financials you probably have absolutely no idea where things are sometimes you might not even know where you bank like you might have a separate bank account with somebody and then all the other bank accounts are with somebody else or there are bank accounts that everywhere you know there can be overseas bank accounts that you might not be aware of just depending on you know um depending what your ex is like you know if they're a businessman and they do a lot of uh travel overseas it could be bank accounts overseas if they're really trying to hide things from you they're going to go out of their way to make sure that you don't find them so if there are circumstances where you think that there are more funds out there there is a forensic accountant. They are not cheap, but they serve their purpose in that they will find basically money that your ex is trying to hide. So that is an option as well. But yeah, so delaying financial disclosure. So there may just be really, really slack in Doing it, they might be, in this case, they're probably doing it to be difficult more than, you know, possibly not coping with a relationship breakdown. So, because that's different, again, if they're delaying something, it might be because they're struggling to process the separation because you might be here in a separation and they might be here type thing. So this is more that they're deliberately delaying things or they might be providing things but they might not be providing everything. They might be, you know, blanking things out, or they might be only giving a month's work instead of three years worth, whatever it is. So if there could be a delay with the financial disclosure, they may all of a sudden start to palm things off. So that is something that people do when they're looking at going to bankruptcy, all of a sudden try and palm things off. So Doesn't necessarily work because sometimes, you know, people can work out why you're doing that and it can backfire on you. They might want to run their business at a loss. So there's some creative accounting done in there. So that's something else. Moving money in between bank accounts. So, you know, there might be a bank account that you... know about or you become known uh that there is one there and then you know there's a sum of money that gets transferred to somebody else but it might have a different reference it might be um business loan or it might be you know something and all they're doing is just meeting that money to the other to another bank account and it doesn't even have to be recent like usually ask for a couple of years worth of bank statements they could have been planning this for like twelve months prior so it could have been a sum of money that was moved twelve months before separation happened. So that's some accounts. Making really large purchases before a separation as well so that money is no longer there. So car, business, again, expense, trip, something. So that's something else as well. It looks like that they have less money in their accounts. Whatever you have access to, and my caveat with this is always a DB. If you're in a DB relationship, your priority is safety. It's not trying to go back find out where all these bank accounts are it it's safety okay so um that is that is what you need to be concentrating on if there is no dv involved try and screenshot or take photos or try and see what you can find around the house chances are everything's probably electronic or it's locked up in a filing cabinet that you don't have access to, or, you know, mail gets sent to the office, not at home, something like that. So where you can note down, screenshot bank accounts, where things are at as best as you can. If it's not perfect, it's okay. It's something that's what, you know, that's what lawyers are involved for if, you know, your ex is trying to hide some things. Save all communication as much as you can. So sometimes when you have a loan that's into people's names or bank account, the bank statement can go either to both of you or to one of you. So you might want to change that perhaps. And so then you get the bank statement as well as your ex. Concern with that is that if they found out that you do that, they may know that you're onto them. So there's kind of things that you can do, but there are consequences of those things that you can do as well. But again, if you can't find anything, do not panic. Like there are ways around things, but if there are things that you can screenshot, take a photo of, write down in a financial sense, then that will be of assistance. But again, don't panic if that can't happen. The second thing we see is using children as pawns. So in family law, it's meant to be in the best interest of the children. Sometimes that happens. Sometimes that does not. And if you have children, they can be used as pawns, which is, I find it's really gross. I'm just, I'm not a fan of anything that's, you know, breaking against morals or anything like that. But especially when you're trying to use your kids as pawns, we see that a lot and it, yeah, it's, it's just, it's not right. So, so with the kids, so it might be they're making plans and then they cancel. They may be really late. They may be discussing personal life in front of the kids. They might be introducing all these new partners in front of the children. They might be making promises that they can't keep. Yep, I'll be at that game. Don't show up. That happens repeatedly. Or it might be that, yep, I'll take you to the game. And then your child might ask, hey, where's mom, where's dad? Oh, they didn't want to come today. So hear me when I'm making snarky comments like that. Bad mouthing you to the kids as well. So similar to what I just said, look, You know, your mum's a horrible person. Your dad's a horrible person. They're making me do this. They've taken all this money from me. They don't want to attend your sporting game today because they're too busy with their new boyfriend, girlfriend. Like it's things like that. So kids don't need to hear that. And most of the time it's made up. So you're putting them in a situation where that's going to start affecting them for life. So, again, the people that do that, it wouldn't matter what I say on here. they would probably still do that because that would be that narcissistic toxic trait that they have. If you are on the receiving end for that, again, you can't control what they do. You might be able to go down a horrible court process where they have no access to the kids or supervised visit or something like that for that. But that's really icky as well. So I'm not saying you don't have control of it, but you're not going to have control of that person saying something or texting something or emailing something. That's just them. You don't want to waste your energy on them. The best that you can do is... be yourself so don't reciprocate so if they're talking poorly of you don't do the same like too poorly you know conversations to your kids to do not make a right type thing so don't be that person depending on how other kids are the kids might realize that you know their parent is full of too so But yeah, so, you know, that can cause anxiety and confusion in kids. They're going to feel like they have to be loyal to somebody, like they've got to like a parent more. There could be issues with school. There could be issues with relationships in the long term. There's a whole pile of things associated with that too. And again, with everything I'm saying today, it probably really needs to be its own episode, which I will do at some point. But just wanted to give you a little bit of a taste of the top three that we see. So yeah, the co-parenting aspect of that could be really difficult if you are coming up against that. communicate that with your lawyer. It's probably not going to be enough for them to not have access to their, just seeing their kids, which is really difficult as well. you can raise it and then let the response from that might be you're full of crap. Like, again, it's, I know that can get really, really gross. I'm not condoning anything and I'm not saying that, you know, it is how it is and you just have to put up with it. There are certain things that we can do and I don't have time to go into what those specific things are right now. But, you know, if that is occurring in your relationship, then these are things that can have happened with your children. So, yeah. If you're listening to this, I'm probably assuming you're not going to be the person that's going to be badmouthing your ex to your children. But just really be mindful because... And if that is happening, make sure you have to take notes of that as well. So if your child is coming home and saying, hey, dad or mum said this and this and this and it's obviously wrong, you need to diarise all of that because that will probably come in handy in your separation. But, yeah, just remember that you can't control what they say. The best that you can do is just continue being that parent. You know, don't... try and contribute to the nastiness, I suppose, of the other parent. I know, you know, you'll have the saying that, you know, try and be the bigger and better person. And a lot of people keep the point. I'm like, I'm done. I'm done being that person. It will honestly play out better for you than if you were not that person. But I will make sure that I do more specific episodes on what I'm discussing today. But that's something else. The other thing that we see a lot of is the good old social media smear campaigns. And I saw it yesterday, actually. I'm just like, yeah, right. So it's damaging you or the other person on social media. So it's badmouthing them. for attention for whoever you have on facebook so uh johnny's dad didn't show up to just board again today johnny's dad did this johnny's dad did that or johnny's mom did this johnny's mom did that whatever it might be that is not going to serve you well those things will be screenshot and they will be used against you if you are doing that so um you know you might be contacting so you might have mutual friends so it's not uncommon for that and you know, the stories that are going to that mutual friend from yourself and your ex are probably going to be different. So don't be surprised if something happens within your friend dynamic as well. And if it does, if they believe your ex, then they're probably not the people that you need to be around anyway. So don't be surprised if that mutual friend dynamic changes. But, you know, workplace sabotage attempts as well is another one. So making phone calls to where you work or Some of that saying, hey, just letting you know, like I dropped the kids off last night and, you know, all I could smell or pick the kids up. Sorry, maybe go that way, not drop the kids off. You know, and all I could do, like I could just smell alcohol. It was disgusting. I saw like white baggies everywhere. Like, you know, you're going to have that stuff as well. So that can happen both within your friend group and within workplace as well. So hopefully your friends in your workplace know that that is probably false. But again, yeah. If they're that manipulative person, then it may very well be that they believe them. So just anything at all that they do for that, please write it down because it will highly likely be used in your separation if we need to. And you don't want to rely on your memory because there's so many things going on. I know my memory isn't good at the best of times because there's so much happening up here. So you need to write things down, dates, times, people who were there, what was said, what effect that had on the kids, all of that. So make sure you keep a diary or something that you can produce if you need to use that in your separation. But obviously things like that can affect your business, your career, if you own the business and that can cause issues with turnover and getting clients in or whatever it might be. There can be legal implications of that as well. Defamation is incredibly difficult to prove. So you might not get down to that aspect, but it might very well mean loss in business if there are rumours going around. town, especially if you're in a small town. Everybody knows everybody. I call them little Avon ladies. I've always done that before. You go to a hairdressing salon and you find out everything. And if you're in a small town, that is just going to escalate. It's going to happen. So just document everything, screenshot everything that you can, take photos of it, really resist the urge to probably reply. to it or retaliate in the same manner that they're coming at you. because chances are that will be used against you so the they will amp you up and they will use your reaction to them amping you up against you so that happens and depending on type of lawyer that they have and depending on type of lawyer that you have I know that when we get things in that are going to move the needle I will either ignore it in the letter or I will specifically say look I don't know what you were trying to achieve with that we're not responding it is irrelevant we don't agree we're not discussing this again and most of the time it stops if you're coming up a lawyer that's that's going to hit them up again I mean you kind of know you usually start dealing with the same lawyers so um but that is how I I won't entertain it I just I don't see the point it's literally not going to help this matter so why would I retaliate type thing and I'll tell my clients that I said look this is coming I'm not even going to respond and then some clients might want to respond to a comment in there I'm like okay so do you want to pay me how much money it is to to respond to that do you want to pay to stay in pain because if I respond to that the way that you want me to respond to that That's going to come back and it's going to hurt you all over again. So if I just don't address it, chances are it won't come back to me. So I don't need to keep firing shots in letters. It doesn't move the needle. It's not worth the money. You don't want to have to pay to stay in pain. But again, not everybody is like that. So yeah, just make sure you have that support network to deal with all of this. And again, that's something I discussed in the program, making sure that you have the right support network as well, because I did say that sometimes friends will start to pick sides or they'll believe somebody over somebody else. Sometimes that happens with family as well. So you just need to make sure that you have that support network to lean on, but you have to make sure that you have that right support network to lean on as well. So that was probably really all I wanted to discuss today. As I said, what I discussed today, I will probably just break it out into two separate things. episodes to really go in in more depth as what to happen and what tactics you might be able to use as well um but um yeah hopefully that gives you a little bit of um guidance if you are dealing with someone that's a narcissist slash toxic person or you're having issues with disclosure or you're having issues with them you know speaking badly upon you within your friends and family and and business and things like that so look it sucks that it happens it doesn't happen in every situation thankfully but it does happen and how you respond to that is going to be your choice but if you respond the same way that they're communicating that is going to cost you so much more in a separation so financially mentally as well you're going to be just having such an aggressive separation that that is going to be an emotionally taxing spiritual thing for you so you have to work out whether that's the way that you want to. So if it's not what you want, then really, really consider as to how you respond to that. And that also comes down to the type of lawyer that you pick as well. So there's certain criteria that I go through in the program as to what you should be looking for in a lawyer. as well and one of the things I say and that is if you are looking at making your separation really difficult and if you are wanting to use your children as pawns and you probably need to stop listening to this podcast you probably need to stop following me we are not your people like I'm not interested in that I don't care how horrible your your situation is or your ex it is still not the right way to go about that there are other things that can happen. But again, that is your choice. If that's the way you want to react, go for it. Nothing I'm going to say in my podcast will probably be of assistance to you because it's going to be all the opposite. But hopefully, you don't choose that path. If you do, wish you well. I'm not the person for that. But I just don't see the point in paying to stay in pain. It's it's going to hurt you financially, mentally, spiritually, and then you have to try and recover from that at the end of your separation. So that's probably not the way forward in my opinion, but, again, that's completely up to you. But hopefully that's helped you with a couple of tips today if you are dealing with those in your separation. So stay tuned. I will do more in-depth information. episodes based on each of those topics as well. I had another two or three sitting there as well. So I will do that as well. As always, if there's anything in particular that you want me to address, please do reach out and I'd be more than happy to do an episode on that. I do have a pile of conversations and questions that have come in. So I definitely have not forgot about those. I'm trying to prioritize as people are coming to me with with wanting to hear about things. But I definitely have not forgotten them. I need to get a bit more better at batching. Otherwise, I wouldn't be having to do this from my hotel room while I'm at my conference. But yeah, so I will probably do a whole batch of podcasting, especially because Nina, my PA is about to go have a baby as well. So I'll be a little bit more organized hopefully, but yeah, please do reach out if there's anything in particular that you want me to address. Otherwise, hopefully you have enjoyed today's episode. Please share it with somebody who you might think can benefit from this episode. And as always, I hope you have a lovely day and reach out if there's anything in particular that I can address. Catch you next time.
