Soulful Survivor, you are of course right that these people can snow everyone, but only for a time.

Mine was so full of himself that when in court, my attorneys (YES, I had 2 of them in Court, that should give you an idea of the battle that I went through that lasted for 2 full weeks in Court) were able to get him talking and talking and just let him go on and on. The more he talked, the more he lied, and they got him to trip himself up on his lies and show his true character.

At one point he lied, then later contradicted the lie. They pointed this out to him and he flatly denied having said what he said. They had the transcriber read back his testimony and his response was, "she should have writen what I meant, not what I said." And, he wasn't being funny.

Once my attorney said, "Why do you give your kids Vit C?" and he proceeded into a lecture on how Vit C metabolizes in the body that went on for 10 minutes. It was so totally not about the kids that it became very very funny. Everyone in the Court was having a very hard time not laughing, including the judge. In fact, the judge had to excuse herself and call a recess. We all saw her get up from the bench, go through the doorway behind her, and then we all heard her laughing hysterically behind the door. Two weeks of this kind of stuff revealed his true character.

My attorneys continually goaded him in Court. They called him "Mr. Jekell" instead of Dr. Jekell. They just tried to piss him off and it worked like a charm. He started off sounding reasonable and intelligent, but they broke him down. God bless them. It was a circus. By the time we ended weeks later, all kinds of people were coming to Court to watch this circus, including other Judges and attorneys. It was humiliating for me to have this happen, but I got over it. By the time we ended, everyone was on my side. My attorney had prepared me very well. It was like being a boxer in a ring and having my support group coaching me everytime to bell rang. They would take me out to lunch and I would cry and cry through it. But I did it, and I did everything they said. I stayed calm always. I was on the stand for two solid days under cross-examination by his attorneys. Two solid days! His attorney did everything he could to provoke me and I knew what he was doing and stayed so calm, that his attorney actually lost it himself! He got so angry at me that the Judge had to call a recess. In fact, the attorney got cited for contempt of court and at one point my attorney called his attorney to the stand. Seems that my NPD tried to buy off his own attorney with a porche! We caught them red-handed.

I guess that one very important thing one must do is to have the very best attorney represent you that can you afford, one that knows how these NDP's are. In my case, my NPD had about 5 attorneys after us, so I had to get the best I could. My attorney bills were about $100,000, which I never could have paid. I had to have faith that he would be ordered to pay attorney fees. And this did happen. His attorney fees were half a million. He declared bankruptcy after that, but he didn't get away with that either. He committed bankruptcy fraud and we caught him at it. If it hadn't been for me, he would have gone to prison over this, but I bailed him out by settling on the bankruptcy. If I hadn't, I would have been stuck with no money and having to pay part of his bills.

Each of our cases are different, but the important thing to keep in mind is to plan and be prepared. I was able to make copies of financial documents because I knew he would lie about this. It really paid off.

I taped every telephone conversation I had with him and with his secretary after I left him and until we got to court. This really paid off bigtime. They both tried to lie about so many things and these tapes saved me and showed the court what he was up to. In fact, we didn't even have to play these tapes in Court. Once he knew I had made him, it took away a lot of his power.

It's important to stay one step ahead of them as much as possible. He had prepared his little support group to tesify against me, but we were able to show the Court that he had paid these people money in one form or another and so none of their lies stuck.

One very important thing my attorney told me was this..."If you were drowning, he wouldn't throw you a lifeline, don't throw one to him." They had to tell me this because I tend to be such a nice person and was trained to be his helper to get him out of jams. I had to stop doing that and had to grit my teeth and not be nice. My kids lives were at stake so I had to do this. It was very hard to do, but it was survival.

We all had to go to shrinks during the Court process. He insisted on having his own, so I went to his. I had my own, and he refused to go to mine. Not only did this not go well for him in Court, but his attorney's decided that they would not call his shrink into Court. One day his shrink called my attorneys and told them to please, please, please, call him into Court! He wanted to tell the Court how sick this guy is.

I could go on for hours about this divorce along these lines. I should have kept notes on it and writen a book, cause it was something else. 20 years later and people in my town still talk about it. My attorneys wanted to make up T-Shirt's that said, "I survived the Jekell Divorce". And I am a quiet and private person.

I had an advantage with my NPD in that he was so extreme that he couldn't cover up his character very well anymore. He's a doctor who thinks he is God. He is so full of himself that eventually everyone can see it once they get over thinking that he is God. As time has gone on, the entire medical community here cannot stand him. At the hospital, the nurses have to have special classes on "how to deal with Dr. Jekell". Doctors won't refer to him. I went to see my own MD recently and he asked me, "what the hell is wrong with Dr. Jekell anyway." That said tons.

Plan, prepare, do whatever you have to do. Put aside your grief until the divorce is over, then grieve all you want. You have to use your head and not your heart until the divorce is over. It took me years to get over this, no doubt about that, but I forced myself to use a cool head when it mattered.

May God grant all of you going through this the same.