Splitting: Protecting Yourself While Divorcing Someone with Borderline or Narcissistic Personality Disorder

Divorcing a high-conflict spouse? Protect yourself, your children, and your future. 

This highly anticipated second edition of Splitting offers essential legal and psychological guidance for navigating a high-conflict divorce involving borderline personality disorder (BPD), narcissistic personality disorder (NPD), or antisocial personality disorder (ASPD).

Are you divorcing someone who’s making the process as difficult as possible? Are they sending nasty emails, distorting the truth, putting your children in the middle, making false allegations, or abusing you―or the legal system? Are they a “persuasive blamer,” manipulating or convincing court personnel to take their side? If so, you need this book.

For more than a decade, Splitting has served as an essential guide for people divorcing a high-conflict person, including a spouse with borderline, narcissistic, or antisocial personality traits. It has helped readers navigate child custody disputes, prepare for divorce court, communicate strategically, manage conflict, and protect themselves and their children throughout an extraordinarily difficult legal and emotional process.

Written by a family law attorney and therapist, and coauthored by the author of Stop Walking on Eggshells, Splitting combines practical legal strategies with psychological insight into high-conflict personalities. This fully revised second edition includes new chapters on abuse, alienation, and false allegations; expanded information on the four types of domestic violence, child abuse, and antisocial personalities; guidance for approaching protective orders and child custody disputes; and a new chapter on successfully presenting your case to judges, evaluators, and other decision makers.

Turn to this essential guide to help you:

• Anticipate high-conflict behavior and predict what your spouse may do or say in court
• Take control of your divorce case with assertiveness, preparation, and strategic thinking
• Navigate child custody disputes, alienation, and false allegations
• Understand domestic violence and abuse and when protective orders may be necessary
• Choose a lawyer who understands high-conflict divorce and personality disorders
• Communicate strategically and understand how emails, texts, and social media can be used against you
• Present your case effectively to judges, evaluators, attorneys, and other decision makers

If you’re trying to figure out how to divorce a narcissistic, borderline, manipulative, or otherwise high-conflict spouse, you don’t have to navigate the process unprepared. Splitting gives you the legal and psychological tools you need to protect what matters most, make informed decisions, and move through a high-conflict divorce with greater confidence, clarity, and control.

Bill Eddy, LCSW, JD, is a family lawyer, therapist, and mediator in San Diego, CA. He is cofounder and chief innovation officer at High Conflict Institute, and trains lawyers, judges, mediators, and counselors worldwide in respectfully managing high-conflict disputes and personalities. He is author of sixteen books, developer of the New Ways for Families® method for separation and divorce, and blogger for Psychology Today with more than five million views. His website is www.highconflictinstitute.com.

Randi Kreger is author of three books about borderline personality disorder (BPD), including Stop Walking on Eggshells. She is creator of www.StopWalkingOnEggshells.com; and runs the online support group, Moving Forward. She publishes specialized CDs and other materials about BPD, which are available on her website.