Episode 72: Narcissists Play In The Gray

s Sara 00:04

Eempowered people make informed decisions that lead to living a life without regret. This is Sara khaki and Shawna woods from Atlanta divorce law group, and this is the happily ever after divorce podcast. Welcome to the happily ever after divorce podcast I’m attorney Sarah kaki
with Atlanta divorce law group, and I’m joined by our very own managing partner. Shawna woods. Shawna, today we are going to talk about narcissist playing in the gray. So what do we mean by that? Well, one thing we know about narcissist is there is never really any clear direct communication or direction sometimes of where your relationships leading with them where the conversation leads with them, or any clarity on what are they really after. And a lot of our clients who are struggling emotionally with a spouse, that is a narcissist seem to feel that nothing’s ever been clear enough for them in the black or in the white to know, was this exactly
how I’m describing it? Or is it how it was in my head? Is this really what the narcissist said? Is this really what the narcissist spouse meant? What did I say what I do, everything just constantly feels like it’s blurry. It’s in the gray, nothing’s really clear. And neither you or I are a psychologist or therapist, but having worked more of these cases, there is definitely a pattern, we’ve noticed that narcissists like to keep things in a gray area, where it’s hard to ever pinpoint anything to say, objectively, this was right, this was wrong. You violated this rule, you have upheld this rule. They’re just pushing boundaries and making more gray space.

s Shawna 01:56

Yes, absolutely. And I do want to point out that when we talk about narcissists, right, like you just said, we are not psychologists, we’ve just had a lot of experience with people who are experiencing narcissistic behavior from their spouse. That doesn’t mean that we have the ability to diagnose anybody, but the truth of the matter is you can really take these and kind of apply them to any kind of manipulative personality,

s Sara 02:21

or high conflict personality,

s Shawna 02:23

high conflict, personality. And when we talked about, you know, talking about people who have these issues about playing in the gray, one of the things that really came to my mind is a phrase that I would hear sometimes from a person in particular would say, What do you think?

I’m trying to nail them down on? Yes or no on this? Do you feel this way? Do you feel this way? You acted this way. And this is what you know, what I’m feeling. And instead of saying, Here’s what that meant, or here’s how I feel, they will take it and say what do you think, so that they can turn that right? And whatever you’re thinking, manipulate those thoughts or manipulate their actions to fit what you’re quote, unquote, thinking. The other thing you said was really important, is pushing boundaries. Right? When we have the law, which is what we do, right, our actual area of expertise is the law. And one of the reasons I love the law so much is there are rules, you have a set of rules that says, Alright, here’s how you act in court, here’s what happens, you know, with certain things. Now, certain rules that we have legal rules can be open to interpretation. And that’s one of the reasons that narcissists love to play in those areas, to try to get their version and their interpretation to be the way the law looks at it. Right? If you don’t have really strong this is you can do X, but you cannot do Y, they’re gonna blow past x, right? And then start questioning why you can’t do Y. Right. So when we say start playing in the gray in our world, it’s they’re trying to manipulate the legal system to their best advantage.

Now, part of me and my my litigation brain says, That’s not completely wrong. Right, right, because I’m trying to tell a story and not necessarily manipulate but I’m trying to influence right the factfinder or the facts to a particular thing into the situation that I want to be to advocate for our clients. So what is the difference there? What is the difference between what I’m doing advocating and when a narcissist is doing?

s Sara 04:54

I think the narcissist is pushing enough of the boundary to their advantage, where they are recreating a whole different reality. Whereas you’re advocating for the best if it’s a child custody situation, you’re advocating for the priorities of the client. And if that’s the interest, the best interest of the children, that’s what you’re pushing for. You’re looking at the whole picture and seeing how will everybody come out on top from this and then advising the client, narcissist is only advocating a narrative, that is a false sense of reality, and pushing the boundaries as far as they can and enrolling as many people into that narrative as they can. And when we say they play in the gray is nothing’s ever clear when somebody’s advocating for you as an attorney. And they’re trying to find the loopholes, or they’re trying to find in the law or trying to find more ways to create advantageous position for their client. At the end of the day, when it’s all said and done. We haven’t done our job right if we haven’t brought clarity to the situation, but client should know where they stand. The other side should know where they stand, parties should know where the rights are, where the opportunities lie, what you know where the boundaries are. But a narcissist will perpetually keep everything in the gray, and nothing will ever be clear.

And if we just let’s take divorce law out of it for a second, just think about it through relationships. If you’ve ever been in a relationship with a narcissist, if you have
a family member, that’s a narcissist a friend, that’s a narcissist. It’s that person in your life where you don’t really ever know where you stand. And you don’t ever really know, did I do  something wrong? Did that person do something wrong when things get fuzzy, because communication is so unclear. And usually it’s manipulative. So you feel a certain way about it, you can leave a conversation with a narcissist feeling heavy feeling, you might have gotten, you know, dumped on emotionally. But you’re not even sure because the communication was never clear.

And there’s never anything direct being said everything is beating around the bushes with passive aggressive communication or, you know, saying, indirectly trying to give you feedback on something you might have done wrong, or putting you down in an indirect way, right, or putting making you feel bad about yourself by putting themselves down and everything is beating around the bushes. And you never really know where the relationship stands or where you stand if you’ve done something wrong, or they have done something wrong.

And it becomes a crazy maker. Because this is what we see in our clients. They tell us the struggles they’re going through. And at the end of the day, they say I’m I’m not sure if I’m going crazy or if this is really happened they you’re what you know, you’ve been with a narcissist for a very long time. And you’ve been playing in in their gray space for a long time, when you don’t feel like you even know what’s real anymore. Because when you know your attorney, your advocate is asking you questions you actually don’t know if you’re just making this up, or if it really happened because the narcissist will definitely make you question reality. You know, if you step on my toe, you stepped on my toe, ouch and hurt Shawna, don’t do that.

But if you’re constantly, you know, sidestepping around me making me feel like you’re about to step on my toe, but you never really step on my toe, and I’m constantly in a state of tension of is my foot gonna get hurt? I can’t really call you out on having done anything wrong. But in my head, I’m either saying Shawna is trying to provoke me or I’m really sensitive, which is it? I don’t know. And that’s, I think how the narcissist plays in the gray like you don’t really, you know, you’re never really clear. Am I being too sensitive? And is something wrong with me? Or is this person trying to provoke something out of me by just being in the gray and never just really putting their foot down on my toe?

s Shawna 09:15

And just never just saying, my intention is to put my foot down on your toe? Right? That is my intention. I’m going to make you crazy, because I’m going to just close enough that you think well, was that an accident? No, that was on purpose. Right? You’re you’re talking about that crazy making that when you’re involved in somebody with an extremely manipulative personality that way does often happen. And you’ve said something a minute ago, and I wrote it down because it was so poignant, it says involving people in their narrative, right. Right. Not just your I know there’s a saying that goes around. I think it’s very true that you are entitled to
your own opinion. You are not entitled to your own facts. And facts are very you know, like this Paper is yellow. Yeah, that is a fact. Right? This paper is pretty is my opinion. So knowing the difference one is key because I’m not really sure narcissists know the difference between their facts or just objective facts and their opinion. Right, right. And so when they involve people in their narrative, they don’t say, Oh, well, Shana was placing her foot weird. And Sarah is getting a little nervous. And there’s some interaction between the two of them know, if they were on my side, they would say, look how completely sensitive Sara is. Yeah, this is what’s going on.

And one of the books that I’m engaging in right now about Narcissist calls these people that they’re engaging Flying Monkeys hmm. And it’s basically when we think about, you know, Wizard of Oz in the in the Wicked Witch, she had people to go out and do her bidding for, right. And these people aren’t really involved in the narrative other than they may have this may be their friend, their family member, somebody they they truly care about. They’re buying into the negatives. They’re buying into that narcissists narratives, and they’re being weaponized against you. Right, right. So now not only am I creating this situation, now I’ve involved Tara Nicole, everybody else. And so now everybody’s walking on eggshells around you. And you’re thinking was this mean? Right? And it was and and that often happens in relationships, because they cannot wait to tell their version of the story. So that your version of the story does not get told.

s Sara 11:44

And they’re pretty quick and fast about absolutely, yeah, there while you’re sitting there thinking through, am I right? Am I wrong? Because any I think any healthy functioning adaptive adults take some minute at any moment moment of conflict and thinks, what what’s my responsibility? This? How did I show up? a narcissist doesn’t have the capability to do that. So the first thing they’re doing is quickly validating themselves through enrolling as many people as they can, and, and then leaving you very isolated.

s Shawna 12:17

Exactly. Now, some of these books also talked about the fact that we all have some narcissistic tendencies, we I 100%. Agree, we we all have them come with birth, it’s at what emotional age do we grow out of those tendencies? And what emotional age do these narcissists become stunted in them? And anybody who’s worked in any kind of office space, or even just spaces where they have to work with others will often see these in workplaces too, right? Just not in relationships. But all of a sudden, there’s this little clique over here who hates this little clique over there. It’s generally associated around some narcissist, right?

s Sara 13:00

You know, you nailed it. Because just, you know, you and I managing a law firm, I can tell you that the hardest team member decisions that have had we’ve ever had to make is when somebody is not breaking a policy or a rule that is in the standard employee handbook. But and so there’s nothing objective, right? They haven’t lied, they haven’t stolen they haven’t cheated. But you can see them going around in a team or in our in an organization can’t just playing in the gray causing the proc causing problems stirring up things, but nothing is that black or white. Everything is just enough to for you to say like, okay, am I you have to you just start
questioning this person’s behavior and then wondering like, Okay, well, do we need to give them more support? Do we need to give them more feedback was there somebody else in the office, it creates an entire cancer throughout an organization when you have this in a team.

And obviously, it’s just, it’s just as bad inside of a family can break a whole family apart because they’ll do the same thing. And they create sides in the organization that creates sides and a family that can basically polarize an entire to a family into two. But I think as growing leaders, they are probably one of the hardest ones to really identify. Because they come in hot and strong and in love with everything in an organization loving everybody charming everybody to death. And once they feel a certain way, feel something’s a threat to them. They start turning and you just start seeing that they’re not doing anything enough for you to say, hey, this was a violation of your job description or this was a violation of the employee handbook, but you start seeing a threat to the culture. And just as much as this is important in personal life, I’m kind of using business as a metaphor to prove family or personal life, you have to be a leader and be comfortable enough to step up and put boundaries in place and give this person very clear direct communication that I don’t care that you have in black and white broken a rule. But this behavior overall has is insidious.

And it has bad consequences to the culture of this organization. And it has to stop. And I think that’s where brave and courageous leaders come up, because the easy thing to do is to wait for a high conflict personality to cross over the line and say, gotcha, finally, I can like cut you out on my life, or I can cut you out of the organization or I can finally divorce you, right. But a narcissist typically will never give you that because they have been inching inching and inching away at this
boundary. And to the point where people around don’t even know where that line ever was anymore.

s Shawna 16:04

Exactly. And you mentioned the handbook, because we have been through some, you know, some situations over the years. And I think at one point, we thought, okay, how can we rewrite our handbook? You can’t? I mean, you can,

s Sara 16:16

can you a narcissist proof employee handbook.

s Shawna 16:19

It’s not any more than you can write a narcissist proof marriage. Right. Right. That’s the whole point is because they’re going to take these and you have to write handbooks in marriage relationships. I mean, you can’t have black and white rules for that, right? You have to have some give and take. So what does that mean? That means they’re always going to be on the take. And I think that’s one of the reasons that I am such a strong especially when you have a manipulative person or a narcissist on the other side, that I am such a strong proponent of not going in a collaborative route. And the reason is the collaborative is just so

s Sara 16:59

you mean the collaborative route for divorce?

s Shawna 17:01

Yes, for a divorce with a narcissist was a narcissist or even kind of this. Alright, we’re going to try the super amicably, and we’re all going to agree not to go to court. The problem with that is those are boundaries, right? They those kind of situations exist with boundaries, because they’re meant to have a given take. Right, right. That was the whole purpose of what how they were built. The problem is, when you have somebody who plays in that give and take who breathes and breaths their narcissist in those give and takes, and they have nothing to hold them accountable. Nothing that says, you know, what we see you, regardless of whether you’ve broken any laws, or you’ve broken any rules, this isn’t working, and we’re out right for us. And that that’s pulling the trigger and saying, you know, what, we’re gonna have just go ahead and have the court decide this for us.

s Sara 17:57

I mean, it is standard, what you’re describing Shauna game theory, right? Like game theory is when you have two opposing parties with two different conflict of interest, trying to negotiate a deal, they can come together and do it collaboratively or amicably, or in healthy negotiation process through mediation, whatever it is, if one thing is true, both parties value their self interest. If narcissists self interest can’t be trusted, because sometimes a narcissist is willing to shoot themselves in the foot to take you down with them. Absolutely. So if it means draining all the family resources, including their own resources, in order to prove a point to you, in order to be a victim in order to get their narrative across, they’re willing to do so actually just had a conversation with a former client today. That said to me, you know, what, when I went through this divorce process with a minor with my ex spouse, which was a narcissist, by, you know, her experience with him, the court forced us to go to mediation, but it was the biggest waste of time, I wish from day one, we could have gone straight to court. And obviously, we are all for the cases where both parties have a healthy level of self interest. And what does that mean? Meaning that I am not going to shoot myself in the foot or you’re shooting you in the foot because it’s going to hurt both of us, right? It’s sort of like that, if you go down I’m gonna go down to so we can trust that foundation in negotiations. But when you don’t have that, it is a complete waste of attorneys time and attorneys money, which means a client’s waste of time and money to go through mediation and negotiations with somebody who’s willing to do go through the entire conflict and spend all the time and money on legal fees and resources to keep this drama going.

s Shawna 19:57

When they have children that are co parenting together. I think one of the worst things I’ve seen is willing to mentally verbally, sometimes physically abused the children during the process in order to hurt the other person. Right, right. And playing in the gray not being able to get into court to make that kind of stuff stop. Really does have an affect on the children, you know, you’re thinking about the younger they are, the bigger the impact because the shorter their life and their experiences are bigger. Right? And I think that is it. For me, one of the biggest things that I look at is is your partner, no, I wouldn’t take a client who would do this, but is your partner, that type of person who is willing to literally burn down the house with these children, right? Right to take them down in order to hurt you. And every time you compromise,myou give them a little bit of an inch to turn that around and have a nice back at you. And those are the ones I get very passionate about. Those are the ones I become very animated about and saying no, you let me be the bad guy. You let me take this to court, you let me tell the story. Because you still get to save some face as a co parent, right? Where I get to be that, quote, unquote, I’m not gonna say the word like attorney of yours that you used to have. And so for me, I think that’s why I think playing in the gray, especially when you have children just has to be a no starter.

s Sara 21:30

I mean, the children part is so important, because again, it goes back to this foundational piece of healthy self interest. And if both parties don’t have a healthy self interest of, we’re not going to drain resources just to get at each other. And we’re not going to hurt the children just to get out each other.

There is no negotiation to be had. Right, a right. We joked about having a narcissists proof employee handbook, and relating it to what you’re saying, Can you have a
narcissist proof parenting plan, obviously, because this is this is where the playing in the gray really comes down to is the narcissist, post divorce co parenting with that person. Yes. And they are always doing things like dropping off the kid just a little bit late, picking up the kids just a little bit late, not fully exercising all other available parenting time, but being there enough paying child support, maybe $50 short here and there, just enough for you to say okay, you know what, like, I don’t want to have to go to court, but this person, oh my God, I don’t want to deal with this person. And that’s a very rational thinking to say, I do not want to have to deal with this person legally. I’m gonna let it go. And the narcissist is counting on that. That’s why they’re playing in the gray like I’m doing just enough to like, let you know I still control you is because you know, control is a big thing for them. And it’s just the small, little passive aggressive, meaningless things they do that causes enough headache for you. But possibly does it build a case? You don’t know? And you don’t know? Is it me? Is this common? Is this what’s supposed to happen post divorce? Am I crazy? Or am I you know, is this person trying to make me crazy? Because they haven’t had enough with the drama.

s Shawna 23:21

Yeah, and I do think that people should consult with an attorney at that point. Usually about a year after a divorce is what I call the settle down phase right? You’re no longer trying to antagonize the the emotions are not as high in most people. But if you have somebody who truly has a narcissistic personality tendencies, they are going to try to control you with these little things. And it’s going to continue and you have to make that decision, right? Is it so little,
that it’s petty? And it’s silly, and I look at them and kind of laugh anymore? Like you silly little person, like, I’m sorry, you never grew up? Or is it to the point where it is negatively impacting not only your well being your children’s well being or your pocketbook? Right? And those are the type of things where you have to say, Alright, do I want to do battle and it is battle? Okay, when you’re up against a narcissist in a court system, I always considered it a battle right, and we always have to gear up for it. When you have somebody who is negatively affecting, like I said, your well being your children’s well being or financially, you know, decapitating, basically.

Then I like to go for what I call the Pavlov’s dog effect. So this is a study in psychology were very simple. Everybody knows it everybody who has a pet knows this. Go shake your treats. The dogs are going to come right Why don’t the dogs gonna come running? Because they know they’re about to get a treat. So there’s a psychologist who did this and said yes, when I ring the bell, these dogs come running because they know something good happens afterwards. And you can do it in the reverse and this is is what we’re talking about. So every single time you are late on a payment, boom, you’re right there with a letter from your lawyer. Every single time you are in, I’m not talking about emergencies. Guys, I’m not talking about this little oh, gosh, we ran into traffic. Right? We are talking about these systematic things that happens. And you all know what it is. And you do it so that every single time there is a reaction, right? And then you do have enough to build up and do something about it. The question I always ask our clients, what’s your remedy? What are you looking for? Right, and you have to have something
concrete that you don’t know, maybe what you’re looking for, until you talk to an attorney and see what your options are? What are the menu items that are available to me. And it may be with the financials, we get an income protection order, right? It may be with dropping off late and early, there’s some repercussions for them, right? There are some built in repercussions to the parenting plan. So that you don’t have to be wherever you’re sitting, right, you maybe you’re meeting out in public, maybe we change the meeting place to your house, so that they’re late picking up and dropping off, you’re still at least at your house and ready to go
right? So there are small things that we can do. And that can turn into a lot bigger things right? To make your life easier. But again, you really have to look at this and say, Am I ready to do battle with this person? And is what I’m going to do battle for going to bring me the peace of mind to rather than having to, you know, not do anything at all and put up with it? Right? That’s a that’s a cost benefit analysis. Very personal and only you know it, you know, what you can put up with, right? But I do think therapy coming out of it before you get back into litigation, absolutely. Deep therapy to understand not only how you get I hate this word, you know,
triggered your ex spouse or your whoever else. But also to figure out can I stop being triggered? And that stopped being one of the buttons because they installed it and I want to have them not be able to push it. So I’m not somebody who jumps into litigation immediately. I’m like, did you do all these other things? Is it worth it to you? But that’s what we’re here for is one of those times it’s like, yeah, we have to stop this. That’s what we’re here for.

s Sara 27:25

I mean, I’ve we’ve definitely I’ve seen cases, we have one now where our client divorced her spouse when their son was two son is 18 now, and we’re talking about bleeped school, 16 years of under paying child support, and she just did not want to have that. And she waited till he was out in college. And she’s like, You know what, like, I’m gonna go after it now. Because I did not sit being a single parent, and having to work and take care of him and my child, and making him not feel like he had a bad dad that wasn’t taking care of him. I didn’t want him to have that. But she definitely she knows she enabled a behavior now for many, many years. And
that’s definitely a this I think if you make that decision, all we want for you is to be empowered decision, right? If you make the decision of, you know what, I’m just gonna let it be. That is definitely a valid decision. But you need to make it from a place of empowerment versus man, like this person is doing this to me again. Yeah, that’s from a victim mentality. You know, I’ll, I’ll end it with this. When we’re talking about playing in the gray. My mindset coach, David Nagel, who I’ve mentioned a few times, always said, the truth is always simple. If it takes a lot of explaining, it can’t be the truth, you should be able to gain the truth and just a few words. And I
think for those out there who are listening to this and question Am I crazy? Is this person crazy?

Or am I being too sensitive? I don’t know like what what was said what was understood all that the just the lack of clarity alone should let you should be a warning signs should be an alarm that somebody hear whether it’s you or the other person because also fair that you’re not showing up being a beam completely in direct communication. But if you show up having direct communication, and as being as honest as possible and stop playing along with the, you know, with the narcissist language of tiptoeing around, and you’re not getting that back in return, that should be your answer.

Yeah, the truth is simple. Thank you, Shawna. Thank you.

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