Psychology Today states, “Narcissists and those with the same toxic traits are naturally attracted to empathetic people with low or no boundaries. These nontoxic individuals are the same ones that rely on internal motivators to reach their goals. Money may be important to them, but it is not the end-all. These people place emphasis on personal fulfillment, family, honesty, and fairness… and unfortunately find themselves in relationships with narcissists.”  To a narcissist, an empath is a gift from God.

The Narcissist’s Mindset

Narcissists are not motivated by intrinsic factors. They do not believe in accomplishing through their own hard work and merit; they believe in acquiring through the hard work and merit of others. Narcissists will obsess about wealth and possessions, they will affiliate themselves to persons who are of “substance” to conceal their own lack thereof. They are parasites who leech off the value others find in personal endeavor and hoodwink people into believing they are successful because of their association with successful or wealthy people. They want to get rich quick through foul means (more often than fair). People they profess to love are often nothing more than dollar signs to them. In a divorce situation, they are known for hiding money, bank statements, bank accounts, safe deposit boxes etc. to avoid paying child support or alimony. Their own children are nothing more than a financial liability to them; they would rather leave them and their mother in the poor house than provide for them as a father should. Narcissists have zero qualms about stealing from others – their spouse, their in-laws, their friends, the IRS, the fancy hotels they live in, anything and anyone they can get away with stealing from. Their goal is twofold: increase their net worth/possessions and enjoy the thrill of getting away with it legally. These are very empowering experiences to him.

Women’s Aid defines coercive control as an act or a pattern of acts of assault, threats, humiliation and intimidation or other abuse that is used to harm, punish, or frighten their victim. Narcissists will isolate their victims and deprive them of independence (making them accountable for even getting a shower without first seeking permission). They will start to regulate your behavior. First, they will insist that you are not spending enough money on things they think you should be spending on (like gifts for them). They may even insist that you are not spending enough money on yourself on things that they want you to wear or do, but they will refuse you some of your very simple and basic needs or requests. Narcissists feel entitled to everything that is theirs and everything that is yours. They will gladly relieve you of ALL your financial assets and wealth and then declare you to be a scrounging, impoverished person with a poverty mentality who now expects to be supported by them.

A narcissist will try to interfere with your job, if you are a working woman. He will demand to meet with your employers or clients supposedly to discuss your terms of employment or contracts. He may contact your employers and discredit you as an employee or demand that you quit your job and stay at home. While engaging in all of this behavior to repudiate your value in the professional world, he will chastise you for being a financial burden on him. Yet, he will claim to be the man of the house who takes his responsibility as head-of-household seriously. Go figure! At any point in time you will be trying to make sense of the behavior currently manifesting itself before you…but then you have to try to make sense of all the contradictory and conflicting behaviors and attitudes you live with on a daily basis.

For Married Women with Children

If you are a woman who is married and raising young children with a narcissist – be assured he is hiding money from you. He more than likely has a private stash of money while he will deny you the simple necessities of life. He may put on a show of lavishing you with gifts, or taking you out shopping or dining – all of this is to camouflage what he is really doing behind the scenes. He wants to create a public perception of a loving and generous husband/father so that nobody will believe you if you ever complain about his financial control in the home. He will rack up debt on his own personal fancies, take out a second mortgage on the home, cancel life insurance, purchase assets in his name only, and live beyond his means. In short, he will destroy your credit and financial future.

For Divorced Women

If you are a divorced woman who has remarried a narcissist, he will swindle you out of any divorce settlement you may have received. If you have minor children who are receiving child support he will demand to take that away from you. He will find a way to spend any money you have or put it into home upgrades so that you do not have the financial resources to be independent from his control, and if you leave him, you will never be able to recover that money. Most importantly, he has found a way to increase his net worth with your hard-earned money (or even the money of your ex-husband). There is no shame or dignity in a narcissist. His strong sense of entitlement lets him believe he has a right to everything that is yours.

For Widows

If you are a widow, the stakes just got even higher; he knows there is more than likely a fair amount of equity in the home you owned with your deceased spouse. He is also well aware that you will have some life insurance funds. When he professes love for you, he is really professing his profound love for all that you represent – wealth and social status. He will pretend like he truly cares about your well-being; once he gets all your wealth and assets he will sing a new song. He will pretend like your children mean something to him; once he gets all your wealth and assets he will not hesitate to tell you he wants to see your children on the street. He is shameless enough to declare that your wealth is God’s way of restoring to him all that he may have lost through his own prior poor financial decisions and habits. His sense of entitlement allows him to see you (and your children) as nothing more than a means to an end.  

Legal Loopholes

In all the above-mentioned situations, remember that the narcissist exercises a great amount of savvy in manipulating even the law to suit his purposes; he finds loopholes to get around every obstacle to his financially fraudulent behavior.  No matter how morally reprehensible his acts may be, he can go on with his life without any qualms because he has no moral compass and he is the god of his own universe. A narcissist will open up joint accounts and require that all your money be deposited in these joint accounts – once that happens every penny in that account is now legally considered equally shared with him. He will prefer to have credit cards in your name so he can rack up debt and leave you holding the bag on unpaid credit cards. Sometimes, he will deny you any credit cards so that you will not have the freedom to spend or the ability to support yourself (albeit on credit), if you ever have the guts to leave them.

He will falsify information on his taxes and require you to sign off on these joint taxes putting you in jeopardy as a co-conspirator in his fraud. NOTE: should you ever find yourself in such a situation (and only after you have physically gotten away from your abuser) you should file a complaint with the IRS as an injured spouse. This will compel him to pay unpaid taxes that he will try to leave you responsible for if you do not cooperate with him.  Believe it or not, the IRS gets one thing right: their definition of an abused spouse does not require signs of physical injury; it is sufficient for them to know that you have had to live in fear of your spouse and therefore were in a coercive relationship with an abuser.

Getting Out & What to Expect

What happens when you leave this narcissistic abusive relationship? More financial abuse. Lucky you!! You will be told that you will not survive or be able to lead a decent life without your abuser (partly true since he would have already stolen all your assets or ensured you do not have access to marital assets). He will rack up your lawyer bills with frivolous requests and questions which now will cost you a few hundreds per hour to respond to through your lawyer. He will claim to have spent a lot of money on you during the marriage all while blatantly ignoring the fact that what he was busy spending was your money – either money you earned, money you received in a divorce settlement, or money that you had worked for/received during the life/death of your previous spouse. Duplicity is not a problem for the narcissistic financial abuser. In fact, it is his first name. It is something in which he takes pride. He sees it as a sign of his superiority over all the stupid, law-abiding, people who hang on to their moral compass.

Know this – if you can leave, you must. You stand to lose so much more if you stay. Your children will not be better off for having a father (given that he is such a poor excuse of a father). Your financial situation will only worsen while you will be required to work harder and harder to bring in more money so he can spend it. If he ever talks about how much richer he would be when you die, take it seriously. Do not underestimate the power of his greed. His arrogance will allow him to believe that he can even get away with that. If you think such stuff only happens on shows like 20/20 and Dateline, remember this – those are reality shows. They are true stories. Those were real people who almost got away with it because they are such convincing actors.

Don’t Lose Hope

Finally, no matter what the narcissist has stolen from you – do not be fooled. You are a much richer person than he was or ever will be. Hang on to your morals, hang onto your character and your identity. Resist the urge to see him as a winner and yourself as a loser. The narcissist has had many opportunities to do the “right thing” but he repeatedly chooses greed over integrity. No matter how much you have to go without due to his financially defrauding you, you should be proud of yourself for choosing to do life WITHOUT HIM. (1 Timothy 5:8 Anyone who does not provide for their relatives, and especially for their own household, has denied the faith and is worse than an unbeliever). Make no mistake of who or what he really is, even if he walks around with a Bible tucked under his arm.

I know this beyond a shadow of a doubt – “My God shall supply ALL your needs according to His riches in glory in Christ Jesus” (Phil 4:19); He will restore to you the years the locust has stolen. He will restore to you what you need to live a full and rich life. A life much fuller and richer than you had or would have if you were to remain with the narcissistic predator and parasite. Separate yourself from the spawn of Satan and cleave unto the Rock who is able to make all grace abound unto you. Choose to live an unselfish life. The narcissistic thief came into your life to steal, kill, and destroy but God will bless you with a full and abundant life.

My life has been full of twists and turns; many times I have questioned God’s watchful eye over me. I have wondered if He truly has a plan to bless me and prosper me. I assure you He does. Daily my life unfolds yet another chapter of His unfailing grace. There are days that the future seems bleak.  There are days when I begin to think those who choose greed end up winning. Yet – I know this. No matter what happens to me, where my life takes me, or what challenges I face – I would rather live under the favor of God than partake of ill-gotten gains and live under His wrath. Trust His plan. I do!

I was young and now I am old, yet I have never seen the righteous forsaken or their children begging bread.

Psalm 37:25