Interview with CiCi Van Tine – Is My Valentine a Narcissist?

Sydney Mitchell:

Hi. My name is Sydney Mitchell.

Matthew Brickman:

Hi, I’m Matthew Brickman, Florida Supreme court mediator. Welcome to the Mediate This! Podcast where we discuss everything mediation and conflict resolution.

 

Matthew Brickman (00:00:10):
All right. Good morning, everybody. Or I guess good afternoon. Uh, today’s topic, uh, that we’re going to explore is, is your Valentine a narcissist? So we’ve got a family law attorney, uh, that’s gonna weigh in and give us some really great information on how to know if you’re married to a narcissist, and what to do to legally get out, if that is your choice to get out and away from a narcissist. So, I am joined here by CC Van Tine. So CC, tell us all about yourself, your legal practice. Go for it,

CC Van Tine (00:00:47):
All that jazz. So, as you said, my name is Cece Van Ty. I’m an attorney in Boston. I practice at the law firm of Davis Malman Dine, right in downtown Boston. I’ve been an attorney for gasp almost 30 years. I have like a few months shy I think of it, which is horrifying to me, but great for my clients, I guess. But not so much for me in the mirror. Um, and I have been a divorce attorney for almost all of my practice. There was a period of time when I was young, when I was an assistant district attorney, but since then, I’ve practiced in the divorce, probate, and family court, um, almost exclusively. So, um, yeah, that’s it. I’m a divorce lawyer for a really long time. So,

Matthew Brickman (00:01:32):
So it was interesting. Um, I mean, I’ve, I’ve know a lot of divorce attorneys that start in the same, the same area that you did, um, and then move into family. What got you into family?

CC Van Tine (00:01:45):
So, my mother is a divorce attorney. Okay. And, um, so that’s, that’s what got me into family law. In fact, I worked, I worked for my mom in high school and in college, and then clerked for two divorce judges through law school based on her connections and swore I would never be a divorce attorney. Absolutely not, not going to do it. Um, loved litigating, loved being an assistant da, but at least in Massachusetts, there comes a time when you need to make a living, and that is not typically as an assistant da. So, um, I thought, well, I’ll try what my mom’s doing. And I actually found that I really like it, that it is also litigation. It is also you’re, it’s one of the other few practices that you’re in court all of the time and you’re really, you know, impacting people in a, in a positive way, at a point that is very dark for many of ’em. And similar to, um, the criminal justice system.

Matthew Brickman (00:02:38):
Yeah. Yeah. And I mean, you know, being a family law mediator, um, you know, I, I always refer to myself as I sit in the friction of life. Um, and sometimes we are the on, you know, as, as a, as an attorney, as a mediator in family, we may be the only light that they experience on what is otherwise their darkest day. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative>. Um, it’s very rewarding. That’s very, very, it’s not like, it’s not like we’re working for the man, not really making an impact. Like we’re impacting not just the people that we’re with, but even future generations and, you know, um, so I, I love family law.

CC Van Tine (00:03:15):
Yeah, I know. And it’s absolutely, you’re absolutely correct on a day-to-day, almost minute to minute basis, you’re impacting multiple different, um, people, personalities, lives, um, hopefully for the better, but at least you’re trying. And I think that, um, I think my clients and most attorneys clients know that they are really there to help. Yeah. Which is, which is pretty, as you say, it’s very rewarding.

Matthew Brickman (00:03:39):
Yeah. So, um, so let’s get into our topic. I’ve, I, I think, I think probably the best place to start is defining, I, you know, we’re gonna talk about, you know, as you’re valentine a narcissist, but I guess first we gotta define like, what is a narcissist?

CC Van Tine (00:03:57):
So obviously that’s the question of the hour. And it’s a great question. And it’s interesting because it’s a, it’s, uh, a question that’s defined by, um, by psychology, not by law. Right. Um, I think when I first learned about narcissism, I think I learned, I knew it as what we all kind of know, oh, that person’s a narcissist, kind of the throwaway term that for someone who’s self-involved or seems really into themselves arrogant, and it can be all those things, but it’s actually in our line of work, yours and mine, it is actually the mental health disorder that we’re talking about, which is narcissistic personality disorder. It’s one of the personality disorders. And if I’m not mistaken, having 30 years of dealing with the therapeutic component with, um, therapists as experts, as people who are assisting my clients, it’s probably the most difficult to treat.

CC Van Tine (00:04:51):
And it’s one of the more difficult to be married to and to engage in a divorce from, um, because of, at, at its very core, who the people are who are narcissistic, um, personality disordered. Um, and so it’s funny because I knew we were talking about this today, and I’ve written about it before and spoken about it before, but I went and I pulled the, um, DSM definition of the narcissistic personality disorder because I thought that would be a great place to start. And I didn’t wanna misquote it. Okay. But I also found the Mayo Clinic had a definition as well, and I just thought that the two in conjunction, um, for folks who are listening, um, are gonna be really illuminating. Because I think, you know, at the beginning when, when, when we’re troubled by our relationship, we start to think, well, I must be, they’re a narcissist.

CC Van Tine (00:05:44):
Right? Maybe you check one or two boxes, but as you go on, it really is a subset. And, and most people are not married to a narcissist, aren’t engaged in a relationship with a narcissist, but they are, are definitely things to look out for. And so the Mayo Clinic describes narcissistic personality disorder as a mental condition in which people have an inflated sense of their own importance, a deep need for excessive attention and admiration, troubled relationships, and a lack of empathy for others. And it goes on from there. But, and, and similarly, the DSM lists a group of, uh, criteria that you need five of in order to be diagnosed as, um, having narcissistic personality disorder. Okay. Including, as previously stated, a grandiose sense of self-importance, preoccupation with fantasies of unlimited success, power, brilliance, whatever, um, beauty or ideal love.

Matthew Brickman (00:06:43):
So that would, would that fall under like delusions of grandeur?

CC Van Tine (00:06:47):
Delusions of grandeur? Exactly. Exactly. That’s, that’s, that’s the best way to put it. A belief that they’re special and unique and can only be understood by similarly special and unique people of high status, a need for excessive admiration, a sense of entitlement. Here’s an important one, I think for, for our work, interpersonally exploitive behavior, a lack of empathy, envy of others, or a belief that others are envious of that person, and arrogant and haughty behaviors or attitudes. And so that seems like a lot, but it really does kind of come under that umbrella, as you say, of delusions, of grandeur, grand, an expectation that everybody else sees you as you see yourself. And, um, and then that sort of lack of empathy, which creates problems within the relationship.

Matthew Brickman (00:07:40):
Sure, sure. I had looked, um, I, I, I had looked this up and, and I had gotten the same. I, it was funny. I I went to the same place, the Mayo Clinic definition. Oh, yeah. Gonna go back to that. So, so, so, no, I mean, I had, you know, ’cause I was like, okay, you know, narcissism, it’s like, and especially as a mediator, I mean, it, it’s almost thrown around like, like the word love. Like, I love the dog, I love my lamp, I love you, I love the world. I, and it’s like, okay, love, like whatever you don’t really love, but the narcissist, I hear that all the time. It’s like, oh, Matthew, have you ever dealt with a narcissistic personality? I’m like, yes. Like, but, and so sometimes it seems like it’s just like, like you said, it’s like a throwaway word. You just, we just use it too often. Just check that box. One of the things that I had looked up, they, they talked about five things that a narcissist hates. One of those is narcissists hate boundaries.

Matthew Brickman (00:08:41):
Interesting. Yeah. And they said, narcissists hate being questioned about being wrong. They, they, they have to be Right. And narcissists, um, they, they are very, very, um, hyper aware of losing control. They’re, they’re power freaks. They’re manipulators because they have to keep control and they hate being ignored. Like, all the attention has to be about them. So, you know, you know, the things that you’re talking about, the, like, whenever I hear the word narcissist and, and may, maybe it’s just the world we’re currently living in, like post iPhone, but basically anybody with a social media account that thinks they’re an influencer, whether TikTok, Instagram, YouTube, like, look at me like I’m trying on all these clothes in a dressing room, and look at me and look, I’m going narcissist <laugh>. Like, you know, and, and I don’t know if social media has fed into this.

Matthew Brickman (00:09:43):
And, and, and, and I thought it was interesting. I did not know this until I looked at the Mayo Clinic definition. And then you hit on it right from the, from the start. It’s a, it’s actually labeled a mental health condition. Yep. It’s not just a label. Like, it’s actually, like, you’ve got mental health issues and we know there’s so many mental health issues these days. Um, so how, all right. So, so I think we sort of, kind of talked about like the, the check boxes of like, how do you know if your partner is narcissist? Um, are there any, like, I mean, in, in your experience, any, any one that, like, it’s always there. Like, I mean, it seems like there’s a number of ones, and maybe they’ve got like maybe three out of five, two out of four, like whatever. Is there any one that’s just like screaming, like, oh, yeah.

CC Van Tine (00:10:40):
You know, it’s funny that you say that because I would’ve said, ordinarily I’m the classic lawyer. Well, it depends on the situation, right? Right. I’ve got a couple here, a couple there with a narcissist. The word that just flashes in my head, and maybe it’s not fair, but it’s gaslighting. And I think that whenever anybody says, um, I’m married to a narcissist like you, I, I treat it at least initially with a grain of salt. Not judgmental, but, alright, let’s,

Matthew Brickman (00:11:09):
Let’s explore it.

CC Van Tine (00:11:10):
Let’s explore. Yeah. Because, um, like you, I really believe in a mediated divorce agreement being the absolute avenue to the best result emotionally, financially, for your kids. But there are some situations, balance of power situations, other situations where it is unlikely to be effective. And one of those is in a narcissistic personality disorder situation. And so when somebody says, oh, they’re so narcissistic, I’m gonna wanna drill down, not because I’m trying to check their work, but because I wanna know candidly, okay, well how much is this gonna really cost you? Right. Is it gonna be 2,500 because it’s a mediated settlement, or is it gonna be significantly more? We can never give like exact numbers. Sure. But people always wanna know, can you ballpark it? And so when I say, well, you’re telling me they’re a narcissist, tell me why. Or if just in conversations with people, or if it comes up the name or the word that consistently comes up in all of the situations is gaslighting gaslight. And I’m sure there’s umpteen reasons that people feel gaslighted or that people gaslight. But in a narcissistic personality disorder, I find that that is sort of the, the truism that that runs through all of the cases. Yeah. People are being gaslit to meet the needs of the narcissist. Yeah.

Matthew Brickman (00:12:28):
One of the things that I, that that they, they had told us, and I, and I, and I’m going, I’ve been mediating almost 17 years, so going way back to our, to my initial training. But then I’ve, I’ve learned through the years with continual education and, and, and, and whatnot is in a me, you know, in a mediation, how not. And, and this is, this is how I’ve been able to, you know, like when I’m dealing with narcissism, um, and still being able to, you know, ’cause sometimes yes, a judge has to come in and break that power, um, because no, if, if we go back to, you know, they’re never wrong. They’ve gotta be in power, don’t ignore. Okay, fine. A judge is gonna have to do that. But one of the things that that, that I had learned that they had taught me, and I just keep dealing with, you know, with these types of behaviors, is, um, they say, you know, when, when you’re helping someone negotiate, allow them to retain their belief system, but have them look at it from a different perspective and alter their behavior while still holding onto their belief system.

Matthew Brickman (00:13:29):
Because if you try to alter their belief system, you won’t get anywhere. And so when dealing with someone that’s narcissistic, it’s okay, well make it all seem as though it’s their idea. Make them feel as though in control, make them feel like they had the last word. Make them feel like they totally beat the other person up for the settlement, and we can get a settlement. But it’s knowing, but, and, and like, like you said, it’s, it’s knowing like, okay, are you really dealing with a narcissist or is it just a term that’s just being thrown around? And gaslighting, gaslighting is, to me, is a fairly new term that I have only heard about maybe seven years ago. Maybe it was the first time I think I ever heard of it. And at the time, I’m like, I never heard of that. I don’t even know what it is. But that’s something else that now you hear a lot in the media, you hear, uh, just everywhere where they talk about gaslighting, that seems to be a newer term, just like narcissism. And I think it’s interesting how both of those terms sort of arose to the forefront at the same time. And you’re saying that gaslighting is like one of the main elements that le that you know, you can identify a narcissist with?

CC Van Tine (00:14:41):
Well, I think that, you know, the first element is somebody says, um, I’m married to a narcissist <laugh>. But subsequent to that, um, secondarily, I, I think if somebody says, and they may not even use the word gaslit, right? But frequently they do. Especially now, I do think with social media, people are a little bit more, um, savvy with the terminology. Yeah. But they’ll say that, um, you know, the person has, you know, some of the classic examples where they have one persona for the world and another within the home. And, but like, anytime you question or say, well, how come you’re so charming out in the world and you’re so negative at home? They’ll say, well, that’s in your imagination. Yeah. And there’s that, that, that gaslighting, right? It’s always, you’re wrong. But they don’t just flat out they’re, they’re tricky with it. And so, um, anything, any of the indicia that you question that, that, what are you talking about? Like, you just, you have a bad memory. That’s not how it happened at all. I don’t understand why you’re putting this on me. You’re so forgetful. All of those things, um, is sort of when the people, the sort of the non disordered spouse starts to question or see issues, the pushback in my mind I’m sort of referring to as gaslighting. Yeah. So

Matthew Brickman (00:15:59):
<crosstalk>, so those are the warning signs. Some, some of those phrases that you just brought up, some of those are like the warning signs that then, like you said, the, the, the other spouse, you know, it’s like, okay, we got little red flags going off here. ’cause they’re, you know, I’m questioning this. They’re freaking out. Then they’re blaming, but not blaming. And Well, and one of the things that I, that I commonly hear too, is the, the, the non narcissistic spouse comes in sort of questioning their own sanity.

CC Van Tine (00:16:31):
Oh, sure. Right.

Matthew Brickman (00:16:33):
They’re like, they’re like, they’re, yeah. I mean, they, they’re almost like, well, you know, I might have, you know, triggered them and, you know, I might have said something that then, you know, caused this. And

CC Van Tine (00:16:46):
Well, there’s that defiance, right? Because they’ve been living in a foxhole and taking enemy fire from the person who’s supposed to be in that foxhole with them. Um, for, for in many cases for so long that, um, they really do question themselves. It’s, you find the, you find the non disordered spouse in many situations is so brittle and doesn’t trust their own voice, doesn’t trust themselves, and for a long time, perhaps trusted the disordered voice over their own. And so imagine that dynamic when you’re, um, contemplating, you know, standing on your own feet Sure. Away from that source of support. That really wasn’t a support at all. So it’s kind terrifying.

Matthew Brickman (00:17:31):
So do you find that, and, and, and maybe I, I don’t know if it’s a general, general like most of the time, all of the time, some of the time, but in your experience dealing with a, you know, with the narcissistic personality disorder, do you find that at some point maybe there’s also isolation from family isolation from friends? Like maybe they move away and now there’s no support unit, you know, ’cause like, you know, with what we do in, in, in a divorce, it’s like, okay, well now we’re gonna have two homes and we’re gonna have the, the parenting plan and stuff. And then one’s spouse, usually the, you know, the, the non narcissistic spouse is isolated and they don’t have a support unit, and maybe the other one does. And maybe that’s fed their narcissism. I don’t know.

CC Van Tine (00:18:18):
So I don’t know that, so I know that when, when people are subject to abuse, and I think that some of the behaviors in a narcissistic personality disordered individual are abusive. Yeah. Um, one of the ways that abusers are successful is, um, isolating the victim. Um, in this instance with narcissism, I don’t know frankly how much is by design. I wanna isolate them so I can control them as, as much as it is perhaps being sort of wrapped up in that sort of delusions of grandeur. But that whoever it is that the non disordered spouse, um, has as friends, family, if they’re not good enough, um, they’re not gonna wanna hang out with them. Right. They’re not gonna wanna be with ’em. They, they’re, they’re not as well educated. They’re not as smart, they’re not as wealthy, they’re not as successful. They can’t do anything for me.

CC Van Tine (00:19:11):
And over time, and I did read some articles where they talked about, and it resonated with me for my own practice, they talked about people being embarrassed just about their disordered spouse because they could at least see enough that, you know, it was awkward having your family with, with your spouse when your spouse was, you know, carrying on. Like they were the greatest thing. And, and telling tall tales about themselves that everybody knew were not accurate. And so perhaps there was a little self isolation. Self isolation. It’s easier said than said, um, going on as well, because it’s just embarrassing to have your spouse out there telling everyone how awesome they are. Um, but yes, I do think that one of the things that people who are considering divorcing or in process of divorcing a, um, narcissist should do if they don’t already have that support network, is to begin to reorganize a support network, which would include from my vantage point, obviously a lawyer. Yeah. But in addition to a lawyer, a a strong therapist Yeah. Therapeutic care friends, family, um, and start figuring out how do I unwire, um, my at least short term belief system that I am not bright, don’t know what I’m talking about, don’t remember things accurately. Right. And so whether, I don’t know, I know that was sort of like, I kind of took a hard left and maybe didn’t exactly answer your question. No, you did.

Matthew Brickman (00:20:38):
No, no, no. You did. You did.

CC Van Tine (00:20:40):
I do find it. I just don’t know how much of isolation is as a result of the abusive component of narcissistic personality disorder or just of abusive relationships in general. But I do find that people who are in troubled relationships are frequently isolated. Yeah.

Matthew Brickman (00:20:57):
So, so the, you know, we had talked about some of the wor the, the warning signs and some of the phrases and stuff that, that people use. Um, do those signs are, are they different? Like when people are dating versus when they’re married?

CC Van Tine (00:21:13):
I think so. Um, I, again, it’s all apocryphal for me. It’s people recounting when it, you know, that they didn’t see it. Um, I’m not, I don’t know these folks at the time that they’re dating. Um, and while I do prenuptial agreements, people aren’t telling me that I, I want my prenup ’cause my spouse to be as a narcissist. So I, I’m having it from an apocryphal vantage point. But I do think based upon my communications with clients and, and, um, therapists and, and what I read that part of the, the charge or, or, or what a narcissist gets out of life is getting people to buy into how great they are. Yeah. That’s why they’re so charming. And they, they want you to believe these, these great stories about them. And so people that they don’t know, um, they’re, they’re selling whatever it is that they’re selling to them.

CC Van Tine (00:22:09):
And that would include, I would imagine the person that they’re dating. And so while we could all joke around and, and, and a lot of my clients have, once they’re sort of threw it, have a good sense of humor about the red flags that, that were being run through the room that they ignored. And, and the typically, I don’t think that the red flags are that big because I think that the narcissist just doing a really good job of selling themselves as empathetic. You know, I read an article not too long ago because it was talking about this lack of empathy with narcissists, but that they will perceive as, can be perceived as being the most sympathetic person you’ve ever met. They, they just, they go over the top. So you would not think that they lacked empathy. They, you’d think they were the most empathetic. You wouldn’t think that they weren’t caring. They’re the most caring and so Correct. Like, I don’t think people start to see, um, there’s, as my mother used to say, their slip doesn’t start showing until farther into the relationship. Right. A baby arrives or a job is lost. So there’s something that they can’t handle. Yeah. And then the process moves on from there.

Matthew Brickman (00:23:16):
Well, and it’s, yeah. And, and, and going back to like, you know, I, I had mentioned some of the five things narcissist hates, you know, losing control or power. Well, you know, just like you said, like a baby, uh, you know, if if there’s a life event that they don’t have any control over, then yeah. That can create a speed bump. And then your slip is showing Exactly. <laugh>, it’s like, oh. Um, so is it typical for someone to know if their partner is narcissistic narcissist before marriage? I mean, it seems like, well, lemme act actually, you know what, let me ask you this. Um, I, I had a, I had an attorney on the show not too long ago. We were talking about how the millennial generation’s not getting married. Um, you know, they’re getting married much later or they’re just living together. So, you know, I guess it depends.

Matthew Brickman (00:24:11):
And, well, and the other thing too is they’re, they’re, some of them are dating and getting married very fast. You know, you know, they’re dating and they’re getting married. There’s not even time to actually really get to know someone. Go through maybe a life event where then the slip is showing. Um, you know, like my daughter dated her husband I think for three years. Well, in three years they went through a couple of different things. ’cause you know, they, they went through college and then they, you know, were dating and then they had, you know, some family medical issues on both sides. And like, you know, her husband lost a dog. You know, things like that. Life happens. But, you know, I mean, warning signs are, are they, are they more or less before or after marriage?

CC Van Tine (00:24:57):
I think they’re probably less before marriage Again, to your point, I think it depends to a degree on the length of the relationship before the marriage. And, um, if you have a small delta between date one and I do, you’re not gonna be able to, the person will still be so new, they’ll still be getting sold to. And as you said with the, your daughter and son-in-law, there won’t have been any of the life events, the life intervenes the bumps that, that where you can see how the other person handles Yeah. Life’s events. Um, so I would say that most of the time, unless it’s a long-term dating relationship, I don’t think people are aware that the other person is a narcissist. I would imagine, again, based, um, on my experience that people, many folks later on, you know, when they’re getting divorced, when I’m talking to ’em, they’ll say, I knew I shouldn’t have married them

Matthew Brickman (00:25:55):
In hindsight,

CC Van Tine (00:25:56):
We had the wedding date. But they wouldn’t necessarily be able to articulate why that there’s, there’s something, if it’s that sixth sense, if it’s, you know, your friend being like, don’t marry that guy, whatever it is, there’s plenty of people who say, you know, I thought about it and I, I, I thought I perhaps I shouldn’t be marrying this person and I did it anyway. Yeah. And, and which is interesting ’cause usually then it’s like 18 years later, <laugh>. Yeah. And you’re like, well, okay, but what happened for 18 years? But then Yeah, then there’s the whole pattern with the narcissist sort of working on you. Well,

Matthew Brickman (00:26:29):
And if, and, and I think if people actually took the premarital counseling or premarital classes, um, I know in Florida we’ve got, there, there, there’s something by the court that you have to do. It’s either a class or something or, or the priest has to do whatever. I think if people actually took that more seriously, or if that was a little bit more rigorous, like put ’em through a Myers-Briggs personality assessment, <laugh>, like you might say, you might find that out in the premarital stage before you actually say I do. Um, you know, because, you know, I, I mean ’cause Yeah, I mean, rose colored glasses, oh yeah, they’re wonderful. Life is gonna be wonderful. We’ve got all these wonderful plans for our life, but you don’t know what the other ones got planned for you.

CC Van Tine (00:27:18):
Right, right. Um, but there’s, but I don’t know if that would, you know, think about when you’re young and it’s, you’re in love and, and it’s the, the most amazing thing in the world and you can solve anything. I imagine that some of those folks, if they were presented with the Rach test that said, this guy’s crazy, they would, they would likely come up with an excuse for why.

Matthew Brickman (00:27:44):
Well, and that was, look, I’ve known you for about 37 minutes, but I will tell you this, that I got married at 21, um, had my daughter at 21, had my son at 23. Everybody said, do not marry her. My father was a minister. And did, um, and then, and both, both my parents were, uh, marriage counselors. And so my father was like, well, look, you know, before I do your wedding, you need to go through my premarital counseling. I was like, sure, dad, why, why? Whatever. We didn’t get past the first session. And he’s like, you guys should not be getting married, <laugh>. And of course, at 21 did I want to hear that? No, I did not want to hear that. Now, when I got married, when, you know, when I got divorced, oh, everything they warned and told me about happened, I just wasn’t going to listen.

Matthew Brickman (00:28:40):
So before I got married for the second time, I went extremely slow eyes, wide open, um, paying attention because, you know, and, and my wife and I still joke to this day, we have this thing, you know, we, we go like this little red flag, little red flag, you know, with, with just things that we hear someone might say or we hear that someone might do, or like little red flag. Like those are flags. You know, just, just like you said, you know, it’s not the, it’s not the big checkered flag at the daytime. I just likes

CC Van Tine (00:29:11):
And you’re like, what was that?

Matthew Brickman (00:29:13):
No, no, no, no, no. Yeah. It’s just little ones, little bit

CC Van Tine (00:29:17):
Of red paper on it though. You’ll appreciate this. I don’t wanna go too farfield. I know you have a time budget, but my folks have been married, um, I don’t know. They got married in 65. Okay. And, um, which was at the end of my fa my father graduated college, uh, was sworn as, as an SEN in the Navy. ’cause he went, uh, Navy razi and got married to my mom all on the same weekend. And my mom was also at college. Same school or the sister school took a year off and then went back and finished and then became a divorce lawyer. Right. So, however long ago that is, 60 years, 55, long time at the wedding, my father’s father came up from Orlando, um, and, and brought him a, this beautiful red barracuda convertible something or other. And the day before playing told him the keys are in it.

CC Van Tine (00:30:04):
You could be halfway to Florida before they know that you’re gone. <laugh>. That is how much my father’s father thought my parents should be getting married. Wow. And, uh, all sorts of reasons. My dad’s family were Republican, my mom’s family were Democrat. Like the all you could go, you could run down the list. Irish, not Irish, like the whole thing. Um, and they’re too young and whatever, and they still laugh about it. Right. 60 odd years later. So, you know, but I’m sure they’d also tell Yeah. You know, there was probably some red flags, but they dealt with them. So, yeah.

Matthew Brickman (00:30:37):
You know,

CC Van Tine (00:30:37):
It’s hard to say, but certainly

Matthew Brickman (00:30:39):
<crosstalk>, but narcissist, not narcissists, not gas sliding. Nope.

CC Van Tine (00:30:43):
No. Not two hardworking goofballs.

Matthew Brickman (00:30:46):
Yeah. Still just trying to make it work back in the sixties. Back in the sixties. Yeah, exactly. Alright, so you alluded to something and, and, um, you had talked about a, a prenup, like, you know, usually narcissists don’t, uh, or, or the spouse not the narcissist, uh, does not know prior to getting married or like if they’re doing prenups and like, oh yeah, I need a prenup ’cause I’m being married, I’m gonna marry a narcissist. Right. At least

CC Van Tine (00:31:10):
That’s not what

Matthew Brickman (00:31:11):
I heard. But what are the legal c considerations that someone should make before marrying a narcissist? I guess if they know that they’re a narcissist <laugh>.

CC Van Tine (00:31:23):
So

Matthew Brickman (00:31:23):
It, or maybe it’s funny or maybe if they dunno,

CC Van Tine (00:31:26):
I saw that question as well and I thought, well, I can’t imagine why anyone would wanna marry a narcissist. So let’s put that out there. Like my, my initial reaction was, what you should do is not marry a narcissist like of any person. I, I believe that if, if somebody is bipolar, you should marry them. If somebody has is depressed, you should, like, I think any member of mental health disorders, the, if the person’s a great person, you should marry them. And we shouldn’t be ashamed of our mental health disorders. Sure. With the exception of narcissistic personality disorder. And that one, I’m gonna say, I would have a real strong suggestion that you may be rethink the marriage. Because I also had, I’ve read numerous places and spoken to people the most difficult to treat personality disorder. And I may have already said this is narcissistic personality disorder because they don’t think there’s anything wrong with ’em. Yeah. How do you treat someone who isn’t broken in their mind? Well, and who

Matthew Brickman (00:32:27):
Could aa step one is admitting that you have a problem.

CC Van Tine (00:32:30):
Right. And if you’re not willing or you, you could pair it, but if you can’t own that, you have something that needs fixing, how do you fix it? Yeah. That being said, if somebody were to say, well, what would you wanna see? I’d wanna see a prenuptial agreement. And the reason I would is, so the, is for the same reason I sort of touched on at the beginning that, um, that narcissists make mediation more difficult. And it’s simply because, not because they wanna necessarily grind the other person into the ground, although it could be, but because they have a, a, a way that they see that everything has to progress. And if they accept, you know, if they accept that there’s gonna be a divorce, maybe they can mediate so long as, as you say, you stated their needs can be met within the mediation.

CC Van Tine (00:33:18):
But knowing what that’s gonna be is it, uh, it would be a challenge. And often they wanna grind the acts because how dare you, I haven’t said that. You can leave. Um, and they will, they will believe in a empiric victory. That’s a win for them. They don’t care. They, they want to win. And winning is whatever it is, the definition in their head, which may result in extreme expense and chaos. If you have a prenuptial agreement, even if you don’t have a lot, like a lot of folks, like I know myself, I don’t have, I didn’t have a prenup ’cause neither of us had anything. And so we thought, well what’s the point of that? But nowadays, um, even if you don’t have a lot, if you want to make sure that if there is a, a terminus to the marriage, and that could be for death, right?

CC Van Tine (00:34:06):
Like, um, you can, you can decide what you’re gonna do with your estate in a prenup or, or a divorce. You can reduce the chaos or you can at least try. ’cause there’s plenty of people who fight the prenup. Sure. Um, but even that is a limited amount of chaos. You can reduce the chaos by coming up with an agreement of how everything’s gonna be resolved now. And frankly, if it turns into a battle negotiating a prenup, well maybe that’s enough of the giant checkered flag running in the room. That would help. So I would say a prenup is incredibly important. And I’ve read like you touched upon the fact that a, that a narcissist sort of rejects boundaries. And um, and I read again somewhere that an important thing, if you know that you’re in a relationship with a narcissist and candidly inexplicably wanna stay in the relationship with a narcissist before a marriage, or you have to after, right?

CC Van Tine (00:34:58):
You’ve got kids, there’s other con considerations. Establishing and, and fighting for those boundaries is, is mandatory. And so starting before the marriage prenup boundaries, acquisition and maintenance of documents and, and data because, um, if, uh, again, kind of hearkening to the gaslighting and not even gaslighting, but sort of the revisionist history that you find narcissists engage in because they want the world to perceive them in a particular way, they’re going to try to manipulate you. The courts, the legal system, their friends, having, um, a separately saved set of all of documentation, um, I think is in, is incredibly important. Having a therapist, um, and, and friends and, um, trusted advisors outside of the relationship that you can go, um, and sort of have sort of spot checks. Is it me? Am I crazy? Like this is what was said? No, you’re not crazy. You’ve Right. I, I think all of those are things it would really, it it’s gonna take a village <laugh>. Yeah. Like, I, I don’t know. It seems it almost insurmountable, but those would be the things that I would recommend.

Matthew Brickman (00:36:07):
Wow. Really good stuff. Really good stuff. I, alright, so I’ve got a few more questions. Um, and so, um, let’s keep going. Talking about, is your Valentine a narcissist? So, uh, next question for you. Is it common or true for narcissistic partners to wanna prenup before getting married? So I guess this is the, I don’t know. So, so the question, would a narcissist want a prenup? Would they be wanting to control the other person using you to create a document for their control? Like, like, ’cause I think we just talked about, okay, well alright, you, you know, the person who might be getting gaslit may want one. Right. But would a narcissist actually be wanting one to control things, you know, if they are control freaks?

CC Van Tine (00:37:03):
So wait, so, uh, I think I’ve already said it before. Um, classic lawyer answer. It depends.

Matthew Brickman (00:37:08):
It depends. Yeah. <laugh>, right? I really think,

CC Van Tine (00:37:10):
And, and my clients hate me for that one, but I always say I’m like classic lawyer answer coming up because it really does depend. I would imagine my initial reaction would be, well, I don’t know, but then I thought about it and I bet it really is, it depends on the facts. So if I’m a narcissist who has managed to pitch my wagon to a family of means, and, um, maybe, um, I want to, um, not have a prenup, right? I, I wanna make sure that there’s, but if I’m somebody, uh, there are, I’m sure are plenty of narcissists who are well to do and they would wanna make sure that this other person gets nothing of what they perceive of as theirs. And so I think it would have to be sort of fact specific. What is their end game? Yeah. Is their end game protecting, um, from their spouse? Or is it acquiring of their spouse? Yeah. And so I think that would be the question.

Matthew Brickman (00:38:07):
All right. So I’m gonna, I’m gonna ask you a question from an attorney point of view because I guess like if somebody comes and sees you and wants a prenup, you may not know if they’re the gas lighter <laugh> or the other one that’s la Yeah. So, so like, what would be the clues for you as an attorney that might be different from the actual person that they’re, that that is in it on a daily basis? Are there, is there something that maybe like sparks you going, wait a second, this seems like a narcissistic personality disorder of either the narcissist or the other party, you know, because, you know, I, ’cause if you’re the one drafting the right prenup and and meeting with them, talking with them, are there things that spark a little, little, little flags for you?

CC Van Tine (00:39:04):
Well, I don’t know that I would necessarily within the confines of drafting of the prenup, which again can take, I’ve had them where they’re done in a matter of weeks. I’ve had them where they’ve taken six months because there’s so much at stake. Or there’s a person who’s, there’s a lot of personality <laugh> behind the negotiations. Um, but with respect to whether or not someone is, is truly a narcissistic personality disorder as opposed to maybe just as you were talking about earlier, like with social media and like, there’s a lot more Id running around nowadays when I was young <laugh>. So, um, I don’t know that I would be able, I think I would be able to define that there are issues, um, but not necessarily that it would be a narcissist because again, I’m gonna be presented with the same, let’s assume that my client’s the narcissist, unless I have separate and independent information, that they’re not as great as they are telling me that they are, um, you know, perhaps opposing counsel.

CC Van Tine (00:40:10):
Like if we’re, yeah. You know, I will say one thing about me with negotiating the, uh, prenups. I’m as nervous as a cat in a room full of rocking chairs Yeah. With those, because I’m terrified I’m gonna blow up a wedding. Yeah. And I don’t wanna do that, but I need to protect them. Sure. And so if the opposing counsel says you’re, you know, gives me an insight, oh, your client, you know, carries on. Like, they’re so maybe, but I honestly don’t think that I’d be able to pick up whether or not someone is telling me, unless I suppose as I talk this through, if somebody is carrying on with grandiosity,

Matthew Brickman (00:40:44):
Right? Then

CC Van Tine (00:40:45):
They do their, um,

Matthew Brickman (00:40:45):
The delusions of grandeur,

CC Van Tine (00:40:47):
Right? And then they do their schedule, right. Each party in a prenup needs to schedule their assets and their liabilities, income, et cetera. And the assets, the liability, the, the liabilities exceed the assets, their income is de minimus. And yet they’re talking to me about how wonderful and amazing they are. Then. Yeah. I think in that instance I would think, okay, <laugh>, it’s very warm in this guy’s world. Um, probably a little bit, uh, in, in the narcissist spectrum, but alright,

Matthew Brickman (00:41:19):
So now, okay, so fine, you’ve done the prenup, you didn’t blow up the wedding, they got married. Uh oh, now they’re getting divorced. So what should the other person expect from their narcissistic partner when it comes to a legal battle? And what if the partner decides to drag out the divorce? Then what?

CC Van Tine (00:41:42):
So I think you, because

Matthew Brickman (00:41:43):
It’s power and control.

CC Van Tine (00:41:45):
It’s power and control and it’s winning. Yeah. And, and winning is really tough to do in a divorce because I remember when I was in law school and I was clerking for, um, this wonderful judge who has since passed away, justice Sheila McGovern. And she was wonderful, the most amazing judge. And she told me that if, and it sounds terrible, but she said, if both parties leave my courtroom unhappy, I’ve done my job. And I thought, well, I

Matthew Brickman (00:42:09):
Hear that all the time. I hear that all the time and

CC Van Tine (00:42:12):
Talk about it. Yep. Because what she was really saying is, if somebody’s celebrating and the other person’s deflated, that’s not equity.

Matthew Brickman (00:42:18):
Something went wrong. If

CC Van Tine (00:42:19):
You could find a way for equity to be net neutral, great. But, um, so a, a a well ordered divorce, there is no true, clear winner other than perhaps the kids win or the parties win because they’re able to move on. And that wouldn’t work for a narcissist. And that’s my concern when if somebody comes in and says, I have a narcissist first spouse, certainly we’ll hope for the best. We’ll hope that mediators such as yourself will step in and we’ll get the job done. But I would tell ’em to expect the worst and expecting the worst would be within the confines of the mass probate and family court system for how long a case could take, expect this case to take that long. Expect them to try to churn, you know, if they have control over some money that the, that my client doesn’t, to try to outpace them in terms of legal fees, expect them to make everything, uh, to do that they, and they would view the court system as, as yet another audience to their, to their greatness.

CC Van Tine (00:43:17):
Right. And so expect it to get at least short term uglier before it gets better. One way I think that you can off put somebody who’s a narcissist is if things don’t go that way, they plan early on in the process, and I don’t necessarily mean legally, but just nobody wants the lens held up to their, you know, to their true self in public. Sure. And if you are effective in that regard in early motions or you know, handedly threatening, look, you don’t wanna the court to hear about X, Y, and Z, let’s come to the table. Right. You really

Matthew Brickman (00:43:51):
Wanna, you really want to air your dirty laundry for Right. The public to find out. Yeah. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative>, I use that a lot as a mediator. I, I, I use that a lot as a mediator. I’m like, look, you know, just, just like you said, I said, look, you wanna go to court, nobody’s going to win. You’re both gonna be covered in mud. The judge is gonna hate everybody and you both are gonna walk out off. Like, that’s just how it is. I said, if somebody walks out going nailed it, okay, something went wrong. Um, right. But it’s the same thing even with mediation. But I say, look, you know, you know, as a mediator, the only agreement that I’ll let anybody sign is one that you can live with. You don’t ask yourself is is it good? Is it bad? Is it right, is it wrong?

Matthew Brickman (00:44:30):
Is it fair? Is it unfair? Can you live with the terms Mm-Hmm. <affirmative>. And so by presenting it as something you can live with, you take away the power of, okay, this is right, that is wrong, this is good, that is bad, that is fair, that is unfair. Which are all the power and control. And so as a mediator, I’m like, look, you, you create something that you can live with. But that’s when we can negotiate the power around and, you know, make one party feel as though maybe they totally beat them up. Um, you know, um, it’s just, you know, negotiation techniques where I’m like, look, you know, you know, figure this out. We can keep things private, you don’t have to air things out. But then I think, you know, sometimes in the judicial process, whether maybe it’s a deposition may help, you know, move the process along.

CC Van Tine (00:45:19):
Oh it’s, and that’s what I’m talking about. Like, if it’s deposition people become more motivated to go back to the mediator.

Matthew Brickman (00:45:26):
Yeah. So, so in Boston, um, where you are in Massachusetts, um, if you know, you said, okay, you know, expect the, if dealing with a narcissist expect the worst, it’s gonna take as long as possible. You know, it’s gonna take as long as it as as normal or whatnot. In your almost 30 years practicing history, what’s the average divorce take? No. So if it a negotiation without, without a narcissist, and then we’re gonna talk about, okay. Sometimes if you get a narcissist about this, so average,

CC Van Tine (00:45:53):
I would say your average divorce where somebody files, but then they ultimately work, the s work it out themselves. It’s about a year to a year and a half. Okay.

Matthew Brickman (00:46:02):
And then,

CC Van Tine (00:46:02):
And part of that isn’t the party’s problem, it’s because especially post pandemic, the court system is really backed up. Sure. And so getting in front of the judge is, is can be problematic depending upon the court and what it is that you’re hoping to do. So about it, I would say count on, I, I tell people if we can get stuff negotiated, you’ll be done in under a year if we need the court’s assistance to res to resolve the issues short of trial count on a year and a half. Um, and but if you are going to litigate again because of the court system and their count on two at least. Yeah.

Matthew Brickman (00:46:38):
Well, and a lot of people have an unrealistic expectation just watching TV of courts. They think that, you know, it’s, it’s Judge Judy, they’re gonna go and they’re gonna talk and they’re gonna rule from the bench. Right? Yeah. You know, um, and they think, okay, well okay, you know what Cece, I’m not agreeing Schedule a hearing. Okay, we’ll see, let’s see. It’s February. We’ll see the judge in November. What nove Like they think they’re, they’re gonna see ’em tomorrow. Um, and so some of that also I find helps people settle because you wanna sit in a holding pattern with that person.

CC Van Tine (00:47:14):
The judge will say, all right, we’ll give you your date and we’ll ask for the date. ’cause we don’t wanna lose our spot in line. Sure. And then we’ll say, all right, now let’s talk about arbitration, conciliation mediation. Sure. What in the neutral spectrum is gonna get the job done for these clients so that they’re done? Because the one thing with mass, and I’m sure it’s everywhere, but at least with Massachusetts, it, it say the court said, um, you know, we have some judges that are scheduling motions in 2024. Yeah. Not even like trials.

Matthew Brickman (00:47:42):
Yeah.

CC Van Tine (00:47:43):
And you can do emergencies, but in any event, if they say You’re not gonna get hurt on this matter till 2024, we’ll get our date and then we’ll try to negotiate the settlement. If we get the settlement done, we can set tell that same port we have a settlement and we’ll say, come on in. Like, they’re not gonna make you wait. Yeah. Yeah. Which is a great, um, value add for client who thinks I really psychologically need to be rid of this person <laugh>. Sure. So I’m willing and kind of to your point about, um, whether or not, you know, does it, can you live with it as opposed to is it a win Frequently? I will tell people if there’s amounts of money that the other side is looking for and that you don’t, you editorial don’t think are fair, but it’s going to cost more in litigation, I’m always like, take whatever you’d pay me.

Matthew Brickman (00:48:29):
Yeah. Cost, value analysis,

CC Van Tine (00:48:31):
Pay it to the other side because we buy things. At least I, and most of the clients that I’m telling this to, we pay money for things that make us happy. I could drive a Hugo, right. I could drive a bicycle to work. I don’t, I drive a nice car because it makes me happy. I sure I paid for it because I liked it. Get rid of this person. Yeah. Will make you happy. So, so do that thing. And most and many of the clients will, will do that. So Yeah. But yeah, it could be two years. It could be that long.

Matthew Brickman (00:48:58):
Well, and in Florida, the, as of last year, they said the average is 22 months average. Um, you know, with attorneys going through the process just because of, you know, the other thing that a lot of clients don’t understand is timelines. It’s like, okay, I’m gonna file this, then you have X amount of days to respond. Okay. Right. Exactly. And then, and then you file a response and they have X amount of days, so then respond to that. And it’s like playing leapfrog. And it is like, well that’s the process. And people get frustrated with us as practitioners going, why is this taking so long? It’s like, well, you are in charge. What do you wanna do with your life? And it is like, well then you don’t wanna settle then we’ve gotta go through this process. But how does, so, so we’ve talked about like how does the narcissistic personality affect the spouse in a divorce? How does that legal process and that narcissistic, uh, personality disorder affect the parenting plan or the children involved? Because like, it’s easy when husband and wife don’t have kids, you get a divorce, they never have to see each other again. But what if you’re still having to, to deal with that person because you have kids and you’re still having to do the exchange and co-parent and tell us about that. Talk to me about that. So,

CC Van Tine (00:50:14):
Um, I think that, um, and again, this is gonna be an expression that I probably is a bit overused and I’m sure you’ve heard, but I think the, the, the expression that comes to mind when dealing with a narcissistic personality disordered individual in parenting is parental alienation. And you’re going to find that there will be, um, and it could run one of two ways. They could perceive, they could be the person decrying perceptions of parental alienation. Because anything that doesn’t sort of match how they view people should be talking about them is, could be viewed as being, you know, punitive. Um, but more, I think because it’s all about winning, I imagine that they would be doing a fair job of trying to sort of win, um, with the children, um, which is pretty dangerous. Yeah. Um, for the children as pawns. Yeah. And, um, using them as PS and, and, um, I love you more and your mother doesn’t love you as much as I do. Or your father is never around and I’m the one who cared for you and he was never around and not saying because I prevented him from being around <laugh>. Right. Um, and sort of they, I imagine from my personal experience, I know that people who are narcissists make it very difficult to co-parent. Yeah. Um, because theirs is the only way and they need all of the, everybody viewing them through the lens that they’ve decided that they need to be viewed through.

Matthew Brickman (00:51:50):
One of the things that, um, and I, I don’t know about Massachusetts law. One of the things that Florida law did, I want to say 2019, I could be off by a year or so, 20 18, 20 19, they actually updated the statute, which has really, really helped dealing with exactly what you’re talking about, parental alienation, dealing with a narcissist that uses that is they added something to the statute. So in Florida, our family is a family laws in chapter 61. So in chapter 61, subsection 1 3 2 B three A, I’ve got it memorized. Um, actually

CC Van Tine (00:52:28):
I’ll take your word for that one.

Matthew Brickman (00:52:29):
Yeah. They actually, so, so what it says is un is, is if the parties have shared parental responsibility and decision making, and in the parenting plan, if we referenced chapter 61, subsection 1 3 2 B three A, then either parent can put the kids in therapy and with and without mutual consent. Well, if either parent can do that, that then gives the children the voice. Because you know, before it used to be, Hey look for, for therapy for the children, parents must mutually agree. Do you think that somebody with a narcissistic personality disorder is going to agree to let the kids go in and tell ’em what they’re doing? No. But now that Florida added that and said, look, you know what, either parent, as long as they’ve got shared parental and we referenced that statute in the parenting plan, either parent can unilaterally get the kids’ mental health treatment. Let’s really taken care of a lot of that parental alienation because there’s no more hiding. Um, which has been really good.

CC Van Tine (00:53:34):
That’s interesting. ’cause here it’s a little different, although, you know, here again because it’s a, the legal custodial designation mandates that both people need to be on board for things like therapeutic care. However, um, usually you can tell before the, the divorce that somebody’s gonna be a block to that and you can get the order to include that a therapist will be utilized if necessary. Sure. And the courts, um, I remember I went in because, uh, I was the one saying that I didn’t think that the child needed it because my client was saying that he didn’t think that the child needed it and just, and, and he felt like it should be a parental decision. It didn’t have to do with any Yeah. Any manipulation or anything like that. And the judge said it’s a divorce and if anybody says a child needs therapy, I’m gonna order it.

CC Van Tine (00:54:20):
And in fact, I think every child should have a therapist in a divorce. Yeah. I don’t disagree with ’em. I actually absolutely believe that everyone should have a therapist. Problem is nowadays here, I don’t know what it’s like in Florida, but there, um, therapists are not thick upon the ground, um, because of so much of the post pandemic fallout mental health wise. And so people aren’t taking new patients because they’re overwhelmed with patients. And so we have catalogs of kids waiting for therapists really. Um, but even when they get a therapist, and a lot of it is, you know, there’s concerns because there’s zoom therapy and the parent will be off camera Sure. Manipulating Sure. Um, or the parent will go, you know, one parent will manipulate the therapist. Like not all therapists are created equal. Sure. And some children will have, even if the child’s not necessarily aligned with a parent yet, the parent will create an alignment with a therapist who won’t realize the dynamic and will perhaps miss things. So I think it’s a great first step, and I think it’s a sit a situation that I don’t necessarily have the have the answer for, but it’s definitely still out there that how do you protect children, give children access to both parents, which they need Sure.

Matthew Brickman (00:55:38):
Whilst

CC Van Tine (00:55:39):
Protecting them from that access.

Matthew Brickman (00:55:42):
Yeah. Yeah. And that’s, yeah, that’s, I mean, so, so between that and then, um, under Florida’s mental health statute, um, then a child that is 13 Yeah. 13 years old, if, um, they can unilaterally obtain mental health eval and services without the consent of either parent So, um, which I think is very good because, you know, we’ve got a lot of kids, you know, with middle school and being bullied and social media and everything, and they just have nowhere to turn and don’t even want to tell their parents, um, or whatnot. But they can actually get their own under Florida’s mental health stature. So, you know, Florida sort of, I guess, you know, jumped ahead maybe and said, okay, look, you know what, we’re gonna make it where the children always have access in a divorce or a paternity action. Right. Because, you know, and, and that seems to keep everybody on guard at least to a, uh, I mean, through the years now, like when I started in oh seven, um, gosh, they were, I remember they were doing conferences on, uh, parental alienation and you’d go talk to an attorney that just went to a conference and every case was parental alienation.

Matthew Brickman (00:57:04):
Like they, they were throwing around parental alienation. Like we do narcissistic, like we do the word love. Right. Like, that’s why

CC Van Tine (00:57:10):
I was saying it’s not every case is

Matthew Brickman (00:57:12):
Alienation, and it’s not every case, but it does seem that the narcissistic personality is involved in those parental alienation cases. Um, um, so one more question. Um, as a divorce attorney, what advice or legal steps do you recommend to follow to someone going through a divorce with a narcissist? Or again, if dating one, you know, what would be the legal steps? I mean, and we’ve talked about like pre, you know what, lemme ask you this. Forget about getting married. What if they’re just dating? What do you do to protect yourself from, from that? Just dating,

CC Van Tine (00:57:51):
I guess from just dating. Um, same sort of things I touched on before about being really careful with boundaries. Making sure that your team is in place, that you have a, a therapist and friends and people to bounce things off of. I’d continue to acquire and store safely data. And by data, I mean, um, if you’re sharing, if you’re living together, um, because if you’re just dating, um, it’s the emotional impact that you would be protecting against. Yeah. But if you’re living together or if you’re going to be sharing assets living in the same house, you know, make sure that it’s papered that you’re protected so that if, you know, I had somebody come to me, and this wasn’t necess, I don’t think this necessarily had anything to do with narcissism, but this person came, they’d been living for, I don’t know, 5, 5, 6 years, maybe longer, with, um, a boyfriend in a condo owned by the boyfriend, and, um, had no assets in their own name.

CC Van Tine (00:58:53):
And so it was probably longer and no income of their own. They had quit their job to travel with their boyfriend, to live with their boyfriend live the highway. Right. And now they were getting, um, they were breaking up and, and what could they do? And really Massachusetts does not have alimony. There were no children. Um, the condo was exclusively owned by the boyfriend. The assets were in the boyfriend’s name. There was very little that could be done. Yeah. And so I would say that if you’re in a dating relationship with a narcissist, make sure that doesn’t happen. Yeah. <laugh>. Yeah. Keep your own assets. Keep your job. Don’t quit your job. Relying on somebody else to provide for you who may not, if you’re gonna buy an asset, make sure it’s in your name as well, that you are protected as though you were in a business relationship with someone. So that if the, that person up and leaves, um, or tries to kick you out, you can do a petition to partition and you can get your equity out of the assets. Yep.

Matthew Brickman (00:59:55):
Yeah. That’s, that’s all good. Because, you know, especially like, like we talked a little bit ago, you know, there’s so many people not getting married or getting married later. Right. And, you know, they, they may be with that narcissist and, you know, and, and having, having your own, I I, you know, I don’t know, for years I’ve, you know, do you know as a mediator doing divorce? You know, husband’s got his own accounts, wife’s got her own accounts, and then they may have a joint account. Yep. Like, okay, I’m, I’m, I’m contributing to the marital funds and we’re paying bills, but they still had their own. And when I have dealt with a narcissistic personality, there’s one, it’s in the husband’s name or you know what, and generally it’s the husband, it’s the narcissist, but the wife has none of her own. Nothing’s titled to her. Everything is his. And of course, for discovery, can’t get any discovery out of him whatsoever. No,

CC Van Tine (01:00:54):
Exactly.

Matthew Brickman (01:00:55):
Not getting, I mean, and, and, and, and filing motion after motion, which is attorney fee after attorney fee, just trying to get the discovery so we can do that. And it’s so frustrating. Whereas having their own, or at least having access where you can print out and digitally save each month’s bank statement or credit card statement so that, if that ever happens, I mean, no, I don’t, I don’t think anybody goes into a marriage going, well, I don’t plan on this working. Right. This will, this the last

CC Van Tine (01:01:25):
Six, seven years, but let’s see what happens.

Matthew Brickman (01:01:27):
But, but the, you know, statistics do tell us, and, and it, it, it’s funny ’cause I’ve had pe you know, even when my daughter was getting married, and I love my son-in-Law, love him. But even when she was getting married, I was like, okay, so you do understand that like one in two divorces, you know, one in two marriages ended divorce. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Ours is not going to. I’m like, I hope it’s not going to <laugh>. But, but just in case. But I said, I said, I said, you know, and so, you know, granted they were young, didn’t have anything. But in the back of my mind I’m thinking, okay, this is like prenups. Yes. Protect what you have. Sort of like a parachute. It’s like, okay, so if you went to Palm Beach International and you looked out on the tarmac and knew that one outta two planes was gonna fall out of the sky, do you want a parachute?

Matthew Brickman (01:02:10):
I would want a parachute. I would get on the plane or, or I’m not getting on the plane. Like, right. Like if you know that one outta two is gonna fall outta the sky, but people go into it going, going, no, no, no, everything’s wonderful. Everything’s wonderful. And then you find out, oh my gosh, I’ve got a hijacker, I’ve got a terrorist, I’ve got a narcissistic personality running the flying this plane. How do I get out of this? And having a prenup is like having a parachute. Like, okay, you know, protect, protect, protect. Whether you are married or just dating. Right.

CC Van Tine (01:02:44):
Definitely.

Matthew Brickman (01:02:45):
Any final words on, I think, I think I, I, I’m pretty sure our listeners have finally figured out whether or not, I think, I think the signs are there, the information’s there. Is your Valentine a narcissist or not? Uh, but any anything else you wanna add? Anything else we should know?

CC Van Tine (01:03:02):
You know, I don’t think that there’s anything else that I would add in terms of things that you should know, but I would say, and um, if I were a medical doctor, I would, I would say Don’t Google my, uh, I always joke around with my doctor. I’ll be like, you know, so Dr. Google told me that either I have, you know, a cold or I have three weeks left to live. And he’ll be like, I keep telling you not to Google. You can’t help yourself. You’re not supposed to. But in this instance, there is so much inter information available online that if you are wondering that there’s a problem in your relationship, you know, and it’s funny, one of the first books I ever got on personality disorder was an Idiot’s Guide or a Dummies Guide. It was the yellow one, whichever one that is. It’s The Dummies maybe. Yeah. Idiot. Idiots and Idiots Guide to Personality Disorders. And I bought it, um, years ago because I was dealing with a boss who was a problem, and I wanted to identify what personality disorder it was. And, um, and it had narcissistic personality disorder in there. Um, now people don’t go to Borders anymore ’cause it doesn’t exist. I,

Matthew Brickman (01:04:06):
They don’t, I remember go online.

CC Van Tine (01:04:07):
And I think in this instance, it’s a fair suggestion if you’ve got questions about patterns of behavior and you don’t trust your own voice or your own experience because you are in it. Yeah. I think, and you, and you haven’t gotten to the therapist yet, sign up for therapist, but maybe it’s gonna take you a little while to get there. I think that there’s so much information, so many checklists, so many articles, um, scientific articles. It doesn’t need to be, you know, like HuffPost or something about not that, that’s not a great resource about narcissism and, and how to handle it. Um, I think that, that listening to this podcast and then going and doing a little noodling around the net, um, isn’t a bad, uh, isn’t a bad thing. And then take that information to a therapist, to trusted revised advisor to your friends and say, listen, I’m in this situation.

CC Van Tine (01:05:03):
I’m thinking maybe it’s not a healthy place for me to be. I’m gonna be thinking about getting out of it. What do you recommend that I do? And from my vantage point, and I’m about to cough and I apologize from my vantage point, I recommend you get that therapist. You get a good, good lawyer, good mediator, good friends. Um, and you make sure that all of your ducks are in a row before you ever let on to that, uh, narcissist that you’re headed out with the exception that if you have safety as an issue. Right. Yeah. We haven’t kind of talked about that. Um, it, I don’t think the two necessarily go hand in hand, but frequently they may. And so if you have issues of your own safety or the safety of your children, you act on their in, on their or your own ba be behalf. In the first instance, you get out, you get a restraining order, you go to the police, whatever you need to do. If that isn’t in fact the problem, my recommendation is you make sure that all your ducks are in a row and then that so that you’re emotionally ready to get out and then you get out. Yeah.

Matthew Brickman (01:06:01):
Well, Cici, I greatly appreciate you coming on to podcast. This is great information. Feel free

CC Van Tine (01:06:08):
To have me again. This was a lot of fun.

Matthew Brickman (01:06:10):
Yeah. So, so I’ll just

CC Van Tine (01:06:12):
Invite myself back.

Matthew Brickman (01:06:13):
Yeah. No, no, no. You’re welcome back. So, question are are actually actually forward for the listeners, if they want to find you, find out more about you, hire you, contact you, um, how can they do so?

CC Van Tine (01:06:26):
They can go to my law firm’s website, which is davis malm.com, which is D-A-V-I-S-V as in Victor, I-S-M-A-L m.com. Or they can just Google Carolyn Van Ty or CC vany.

Matthew Brickman (01:06:41):
Okay. Um, and then do, do you practice outside of Massachusetts or just,

CC Van Tine (01:06:47):
I’m just in Massachusetts. We do have practitioners, um, who, um, practice in New Hampshire.

Matthew Brickman (01:06:54):
Okay.

CC Van Tine (01:06:54):
But my practice is Massachusetts.

Matthew Brickman (01:06:56):
Okay. Great. Well, I appreciate you coming on. Thank you so much.

CC Van Tine (01:07:01):
Thank you very much. You have a great day.

 

Matthew Brickman:
Occasionally Sydney and I will be releasing Q&A bonus episodes where we’ll answer your questions and give you a personal shoutout.

Sydney Mitchell:
If you have a comment or question regarding anything that we discuss, email us at info@ichatmediation.com that’s info@ichatmediation.com and stay tuned to hear your shout out and have your question answered here on the show.

Matthew Brickman:

For more information about my services or to schedule your mediation with me, either in person or using my iChatMediation Virtual Platform built by Cisco Communications. Visit me online at www.iMediateInc.com. Call me at 561-262-9121, Toll-Free at 877-822-1479 or email me at MBrickman@iChatMediation.com.