Reddit mentions of MAGIC Words: How To Get What You Want From a Narcissist

There are absolutely “good ways” and ”bad ways“ to deliver any piece of news, so yes, I think it can work. Like you say, your nex is completely unaccountable anyway. He is literally incapable of hearing you if you tell him you’re divorcing him because of his own bad behavior, so why bother telling him the truth? You’ll only feel worse when he dismisses your feelings and uses them against you.

I just clicked through a link in another comment thread to a book called MAGIC WORDS: How To Get What You Want From A Narcissist.The author is divorced from her nex, and since they were coparents, she couldn’t go No Contact. She learned how to use her background as a marketing and advertising executive to communicate with her nex. It’s a workbook that treats communications with your narc as an ad campaign, which it more or less is, because all “communication” with a narc is transactional.

My narc and I have been legally separated for 3.5 years. I approached him about finalizing the divorce more than two years ago, and since then, he’s dragged his feet about the paperwork, and then gaslit me about it. I finally got some movement out of him by stroking his ego: “Let’s have a lawyer draw up that paperwork for us, since you Work So Hard and Such An Important Job that it’s beneath you to find the time for such trivialities!”

Yeah, I threw up in my mouth a little, writing that email. But it worked. The paperwork that had taken two years for him to deal with was finished by the end of the weekend. If I’d said “I’m sick of waiting on this, and I’m sick of hearing your excuses for why it hasn’t happened yet”, I’d have gotten sucked into a drama in which he made it my fault that he hasn’t done it yet, and I’d still be waiting.

I agree with other posters, he will try to make this about you, to blame you, and then he’ll walk off like there’s nothing wrong. Make sure you’re covered especially with the kids.

When he realized he’s not getting his regular supply from you he’ll move to use the kids against you. Mine did and I never thought he would, ever.

Pay attention to which of your kids is the scapegoat (that will be the one most like him) and which is the golden child. Love them
Both unconditionally and be prepared for him to attempt to alienate the golden child from you. Mine did in retaliation because he an the SG are always at each other’s throats (because I’m not there to help them communicate - which is very codependent behavior but not the point here - their relationship has significantly deteriorated).

There’s a great book called MAGIC Word: How to Get What You Want From a Narcissist and it walks you through how to figure out what narcs value. It was extremely helpful for me - my nex values being a family man and a good father, so anything I did to threaten that image caused him to freak out. Anything my kids do to threaten that image causes him to lash out as well (even when they’re acting like normal kids). I always took care of the majority of parenting and now he has to do half of it and it’s been an adjustment. He thought the 10% he did before he would extrapolate to 100% of his parenting and that’s just not how it works.

Figure out what makes your nex tick. It’s a very powerful weapon.