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The Narcissist Abuse Recovery Channel is a transformative and supportive Podcast, dedicated to helping those who are, or have been, abused by narcissists to heal from the ravages of narcissistic abuse. Our show is a lifeline for those who are looking for next steps in their emotional and psychological healing, offering expert guidance and practical solutions for those who are in narcissistic relationships or are rebuilding their lives after narcissistic abuse. The hosts are Attorney Padideh Jafari and Jon McKenney who have helped hundreds of people in their narcissistic abuse recovery and know the journey personally in their own lives.
I'll go so far as to say this. If you haven't been to therapy with your spouse, haven't tried it, you're not ready to get divorced. You've not even tried. If your spouse over time says, look. I'm just not willing to go.
Jon McKenney:I'm not willing to do this. I'm not willing to go do that. Okay, that's a different story.
Voiceover Artist:In a world of hurt and pain, we find a way to break the chain. A caring heart, a guiding light, lead us through the darkest night. With preservation in our soul, We'll rescue those who've lost control. Escape the grip of a narcissist on our journey to recovery bliss. Welcome to the Narcissist Abuse Recovery Channel with John McKinney and Padida Jafari.
Jon McKenney:Padida, how are you?
Padideh Jafari:I'm doing well. How are you?
Jon McKenney:Good. It's so good to see you again. Last time, we recorded, you were pretty sick.
Padideh Jafari:Yes. I know. That was like a two to three week stint. So I'm doing much better, and I feel very strong, and I'm ready to record today.
Jon McKenney:Good. Full disclosure, we actually recorded this before and hated it because I was the only one doing the talking.
Padideh Jafari:Yes. I actually liked it, but I think you didn't like it. So we scrapped it.
Jon McKenney:Maybe it's it's kinda like listening to your own voice. You know? It's like, I just I just talk too much.
Padideh Jafari:Yeah. But that's why we have this podcast. Right? So we can talk.
Jon McKenney:True. This is true. So how so how are things in California?
Padideh Jafari:Things are good. The firm is super busy. You know, I'm really excited, though, because it's October, and it's, like, my husband's birthday this month, and he's My like
Jon McKenney:birthday this month. Don't forget.
Padideh Jafari:Your birthday this Take
Jon McKenney:out a mortgage to get me a gift.
Padideh Jafari:I know. I know. And so I'm just excited. I love this fall weather even though I'm in California now and not New York, but I'm just really excited. I'm excited for the next three months to, you know, celebrate the holidays.
Jon McKenney:It's gonna be great. This is season four. Can you believe that?
Padideh Jafari:No. I can't, actually. But we actually have an amazing guest that's gonna join us this season. So we could talk about her a little bit later, but we have some great things planned for this season.
Jon McKenney:We really do, and we're really excited about it. And today today is is an interesting conversation, I think. So there are many people out there who wrestle with this whole idea of divorce, and the truth is you and I you and I both divorced. We've we've figured a way to go do that, and, you know, I wanted to call this podcast, can I live with myself if I divorce? Because it really is a very, very difficult process to go do that, and we both seem to find our way to it even through our faith journeys, which would kind of negate that in some respects.
Jon McKenney:I I wanna talk a little bit about that today and the whole divorce process. How how long has it been since you've been divorced now?
Padideh Jafari:Gosh. It's been about thirteen years. It took our divorce was actually quite simple in in many respects because we didn't have a child. And Yeah. It gets very sort of messy and complicated and with scheduling and, you know, the best interest of the child.
Padideh Jafari:So we didn't have a child. He had a child from a previous marriage. But, you know, obviously my my stepdaughter who I I still love and adore. So ours was fairly simple. We went to a after I got the restraining order, that's the way I escaped him.
Padideh Jafari:He realized
Jon McKenney:Those words always precede a divorce usually. I got the restraining order
Padideh Jafari:definitely in narcissistic abusive cases, we see we tend to see more domestic violence in those cases. Yeah. And so when I was able to escape and got the restraining order, he came to his senses and had a Jesus moment that I should probably not be going against my wife who is a divorce attorney. And so
Jon McKenney:Yeah. That's that's the that's the voice of God telling telling you what to do.
Padideh Jafari:And when we went to get the restraining order, he actually didn't fight it. At the time, there was a judge in Van Nuys. Her name was Susan Weiss. And I had been in her court courthouse, like, multiple times in her courtroom. And so she knew me Yeah.
Padideh Jafari:As kind of a practitioner. Right? And so she looked at him and she said to me she's called me up and she said, are you sure you want me to sign this domestic violence? Are are you sure about that? And I said, your honor, everything in this document is a 100% correct.
Padideh Jafari:I also had an emergency protective order in there. And I said, I know he looks good, but please sign it. And she was like, she looked over at him and he was not disputing it.
Jon McKenney:So
Padideh Jafari:she quickly signed it. So it was at that moment, I think that he realized, okay. I better, you know, I better treat this girl better in the divorce than I did in the marriage. And so, yeah, he was there. I gave him the papers, and I said, you have to go get get it from the sheriff as well because you can't serve your own documents.
Jon McKenney:Right.
Padideh Jafari:And then we went to mediation with a mediator friend of mine who's actually a judge now in LA County.
Jon McKenney:And so I went judges.
Padideh Jafari:I know. I know. It's it's a blessing. It's actually a blessing. And so but at the time, she was just a mediator.
Padideh Jafari:And her name is Diane Goodman, and she did such a great job with us because she sat us down and was like, okay. Ask me first what I wanted. And I said, want my dog, Zoe Princess. She was a black Pomeranian. And I said, I want my ring.
Padideh Jafari:And that was it. And she literally said, you don't want because he had music royalties and he had some other things. And, obviously, we had, we had we're we were living in a rental, so we didn't have to divvy up the house.
Jon McKenney:Yeah.
Padideh Jafari:And I said, everything in the house, everything, he can take. I just want my dog and my ring. And, he was trying to be funny as sometimes narcissists, you know, they're very charming. And he said, well, I want visitation with Zoe. And I said, okay.
Padideh Jafari:Well, I'm gonna go live with my mom for a while. So if you if you wanna come knock on my mom's door after everything you've done, I said, go ahead, but that's where Zoe and I will be. And so he kind we kind of all chuckled. And I'll never forget this. We walked out, and I felt like I had lost a limb.
Padideh Jafari:Okay? Like, we walked out of there. And even though everything was signed and it was an easy divorce because we went to this mediator, I just didn't know how to live without him.
Jon McKenney:I get it.
Padideh Jafari:And I felt like I left my heart at that mediation office. Yeah. And he walked me to my car, and I'll never forget forget, he gave me a big hug, and I just was, like, dumbfounded. Like, I still didn't believe that this was happening. And believe it or not, it took two years because after we, you know, sort of negotiated things you know my story.
Padideh Jafari:I moved to New York with a suitcase. Yeah. But I didn't want to finalize the divorce, John. I thought somehow, someway, you know, God was gonna intervene, and this issue was gonna be fixed. I didn't know it was narcissism at the time.
Padideh Jafari:And we were gonna get back together. Like, this is my person.
Jon McKenney:You're holding out for for happily ever after.
Padideh Jafari:And so around two and a half years, he said my girlfriend that his girlfriend at the time, who I do believe he was dating while he while we were while we were married.
Jon McKenney:Of course.
Padideh Jafari:He said, she wants me to finalize it. So get Diane to you know, let's sign the documents. And then that's when we went and we've, you know, signed everything and he walked me to the my car and that was it. And I was holding on for hope for many years. Even though I lived in New York City, at the time, I was like, God is going to come through for me.
Jon McKenney:But he And you you knew he cheated on you as well. So you there was that too. So you were willing to kind of move beyond that, which is big of you.
Padideh Jafari:Well, cheated on me not only with women, but also with men.
Jon McKenney:There you go.
Padideh Jafari:Right? So it wasn't just that he I mean, it's bad enough when they cheat with the opposite sex. Mhmm. It's another thing when they're interested in, you know, just Anyone. You know, exploring.
Padideh Jafari:Right? Exploring. And so all that to say that it's hard, and we didn't have a child. But my stepdaughter was like a child to me because we Yeah. I helped raise her for seven years.
Padideh Jafari:So it's not a decision that knee that can be decided on a whim.
Jon McKenney:Oh, no question. I I don't think divorce is meant to be easy in any way, shape, or form. You know, those people who really don't think through it, I I think are doing themselves a disservice and probably replicating the the problems they have in the prior marriage again in the next one. So I I think it's you know, it it should it should be difficult, and it should be something that takes time. I mean, you know, it took me a legit twenty five years to get to the point where I felt like I could divorce her.
Jon McKenney:So I'd I'd I've said it before on the podcast. I'll say it again. I don't believe in divorce. I didn't believe in divorce. Even though I'm divorced, I don't believe in it.
Jon McKenney:I understand that it it has to happen, and in my particular case, it it had to happen for my own life protection because I think I was in such a bad place from living with her and all the gaslighting and everything that I was probably more a danger to myself at the time. I was making decisions about those kinds of things and my kids having a divorced father or a dead one. But it took me twenty five years to get to that place. And I you know, going I like you, I think I held out hope, and I'd hoped for happily ever after. I'd wanted happily ever after.
Jon McKenney:I worked for happily ever after, but there was a point in time where I just couldn't go on any further. I didn't have another step to take, and I still to this day sometimes have a hard time wrapping my mind around the fact that I'm a divorced guy and that I actually took this path. Once I told her I was divorcing, had about nine months. I moved to the I told her we were gonna separate, and then I moved to the basement and lived in the basement. I had a little camp stove down there really for my RV, and I put it down there and I would cook food.
Jon McKenney:And I had a mini fridge down there, and I'd stock my mini fridge and go to the grocery store. And I was only in the rest of the house under coercion for the most part or to to take a shower. But it really took me a long time to get to that place and to even trust the fact that it was gonna be okay on the other side. Because it's kinda like buying swampland. You know something else is gonna happen, but you don't know what it's gonna look like on the other side.
Jon McKenney:Will I have money? Will I have a car? What will I have on the other side of this? Or will I be left with absolutely nothing? In large part, it's starting your life over again anyway, and then maybe with nothing on top of that.
Jon McKenney:So it can be a very difficult process, plus the faith stuff. We made no bones about the fact both you and I are people of faith. We're Christian people, and Christianity frowns on divorce. So that didn't make it any easier, and having come out of a background where I actually worked in the church for so many years made it even more difficult. So my belief system was already such where I did not believe in it.
Jon McKenney:So it took a legit twenty five years to get me to the place where I could even assent to it. A lot of that happened through a therapist that I'd I'd talked to about my ex. She kinda specialized in in narcissistic therapy, and I'd really wanted to get my my ex in there to see her. She was my wife at the time. And she after telling her what was going on, I I I said, so what do you think?
Jon McKenney:And she goes, yeah. I don't wanna see her. I said, What do you mean you don't want to see her? And she says, I don't want to see her. She said, Your wife minimizes everything.
Jon McKenney:If 10% of what you tell me is true, your wife minimizes everything, she doesn't want help. And I'm old enough now at this point in my life to go invest myself in people who want help. Those people who want help get it, and those people who don't want help don't ever get it no matter what I say. So I'm going to invest myself in people who want help and your wife doesn't want help. And I said, Well, what do I do?
Jon McKenney:And she said, Leave her. And I was like, Oh my gosh. And she said, I've lived long enough to understand that God makes space for these kinds of things and that grace is real and that you're gonna be okay. And that that kind of was the first first opening of my mind to even considering it. I mean, I was already heading down a bad emotional path anyway.
Jon McKenney:So it was a way out when I really didn't see a good one anyhow. I to tell God, used to pray, okay, Lord, till death do us part, I volunteer, and I was in that space. So to even consider and entertain this might have been just a little bit of relief for me, to be completely honest with you. So it was it was hard to get to that place, though.
Padideh Jafari:Yeah. It's not I mean, I was a divorce attorney too. Right? And I would see divorces around me, but I just didn't want it for myself.
Jon McKenney:Right. I don't I like I don't want that. I literally told a prior therapist, I do not want that. And and in fact, left a therapist for that reason. He said, you got three choices.
Jon McKenney:You're gonna divorce her now. You're gonna divorce her later. Or you're gonna find separate rooms of the house to go live in. And I was like, I don't want any of those things. I'm here for happily ever after.
Jon McKenney:He just said, I just can't give that to you. And ten years later, he was absolutely right. I wound up divorcing. And it was okay on the other side, but the process was really difficult getting there.
Padideh Jafari:Yeah. I mean, I definitely I definitely sympathize and empathize with my clients because some of them come in like you said before, they're just so broken and
Jon McKenney:So shattered.
Padideh Jafari:So shattered, don't some of them don't know about narcissism. And it's like, gotta break the bad news to them and say, have you considered this? Have you do they have other cluster b personality, issues and disorders. And so we do get to talk about that, which I don't think a lot of divorce attorneys talk about the psychological impact. And then Right.
Padideh Jafari:What I do is I tell them to get a psychotherapist to go to, like, you know, group meetings, like, whatever it is, read books, YouTubes. Like, I give them all the resources, and I wish that I knew that myself, you know, thirteen years ago. I just didn't. We, you know
Jon McKenney:Well, narcissism wasn't kind of a thing. I I mean, it was a thing. It was diagnosed by then, but people weren't talking about it.
Padideh Jafari:Right. And mental health wasn't really a thing either, by the way.
Jon McKenney:Not not the same kind
Padideh Jafari:of way it is today. Yeah. I was having dinner with a friend of mine who's not a judge, but she's a lawyer, John, last night, and she was we were talking about mental health because she works with children that have been sexually molested or raped. And so we were talking about mental health and she said, you know, I said, the good thing about millennials, like I know we like our generation say, oh, millennials are bad or they're or whatever. I don't think any of that's true, by the way.
Padideh Jafari:But millennials, the good thing about them is they talk about mental health.
Jon McKenney:They do.
Padideh Jafari:Where my generation did not talk about mental health, and she actually agreed with me. And we were talking about how difficult our our careers are. I mean, she's dealing with children that have been sexually molested and raped. Yeah. And and like in schools or like churches and all the things.
Padideh Jafari:And then I deal with like, you know, high conflict narcissist abuse, divorces. And so we were just saying, like, how both of us, are picky about the cases that we accept because any clients that we accept is going to be difficult, but, there are just some clients that are even more difficult than others, and they make it difficult. Like, they don't wanna really learn about what we're talking about. And so I'm like, this is not a simple divorce. You know, sometimes they'll come to me and be like, this this is a very simple divorce.
Padideh Jafari:And I'm going, what are you talking about? This is gonna take, you know, at least a year and a half, two years. It's gonna cost x amount. So all that to say is that, yeah, I would say that 99.9% of the people don't want the divorce. It's it's that really small percentage of people that are have already moved on, that are like, I wanna get this done because I wanna get remarried.
Padideh Jafari:Or they'll bring their significant other into court with them, and I'm like, who's this person? And they're like, oh, well, you know, I'm dating. I'm like, no. This person has to sit outside in the waiting room in the hallway.
Jon McKenney:Those people in the podcast who are listening to it can't see me shaking my head, but I'm shaking my head going, oh, man.
Padideh Jafari:Yeah. But then but those people just so you know, like in California, it's sixty two percent divorce rate in LA and Orange County where I practice. The second marriage, there's a seventy two percent divorce rate. And the third marriage, there's an eighty percent divorce rate. So you can see why though with when what I'm talking about.
Padideh Jafari:Like, they'll bring their significant other, and I'm like, who is this person that wants to come with you? Oh, well, they're either for emotional support. Why do you need emotional support and from the opposite sex so early on? You know? Like, bring
Jon McKenney:your Sounds like it's time to move to Iowa.
Padideh Jafari:Yeah. Bring your buddy or bring your girlfriend or bring your neighbor. You know? That's but, like, let's not put more fire in this fuel of divorce court. Right?
Padideh Jafari:So so it is really difficult, and so that's why, there are resources, obviously, like books, YouTubes. Now now we have these, podcasts and things like that that people can educate themselves, but it's not an easy process. And I wanna say in California, it takes at least six months, so there is a waiting period of six months. In, I believe, North Carolina, it's a year, and in some states, it's a year before you can
Jon McKenney:even move course. I was Yeah. Maryland. I was fortunate. You really I think you had to be separated for six months in some way, shape, or form, and you could be in the same house living differently.
Jon McKenney:So from the time I was again, I was fortunate. By the time I filed from the time I actually filed we separated nine months earlier, but from the day we filed to the time I was actually divorced was only forty days. And I never had to sit in front of a judge. I had a conversation with her upfront. I said, We've got not a whole lot of money, and we're gonna make a choice.
Jon McKenney:We're either gonna give what we have to attorneys, or we're gonna figure out how to go do this ourselves and come up with financial arrangements together. And it took me nine months to do that with her, but we managed to resolve it. I went the extra mile. I came up with a budget for her as well as for me to show that there was a way for both of us to go live within our means, or let me rephrase that, get by within our means. Because I did care about her and the kids and all of that.
Jon McKenney:So I did that, and I I I went the extra mile there, but still getting to the place where I was actually going to go do this was ridiculously difficult.
Padideh Jafari:Yeah. I mean, I know I do want you to share, though, you know, the dream that you had very early on because I think that there are signs. Right? I mean, we're talking about the end of our divorce, but there are signs. And I feel like God gives us signs that this is not gonna work ultimately.
Padideh Jafari:And I know I had quite a bit of signs that like, red flags that I was absolutely ignoring, shoving under the rug. But you had a really interesting dream that I'd like you to share
Jon McKenney:I did. With others. I probably had this dream about three months into marriage. And it may I gotta say this. One, I remember it like it was yesterday, and I don't remember dreams.
Jon McKenney:But this one, I remember like it was yesterday. And two, it made absolutely no sense to me when I first had it. And ultimately, it wound up being what I would call prophetic in the sense that it's kind of exactly where my marriage went. So in the dream, the dream began at my wedding ceremony, and my ex and I were both clothed in something like a toga, you know, not not much. And there were maybe 50 or 70 participants in the audience, and some of them were humans, and some of them were half animals, half people.
Jon McKenney:Kind of half top top half person, bottom half animal, or the reverse. So it was very chronicles of Narnia like, and the officiant was, if I'm not mistaken, a rabbit on the top half and and a human on the bottom. So the ceremony progressed very, very quickly, and he pronounced us man and wife. We were in this very wooded area, but this small clearing inside the woods. And just after he pronounced us man and wife, we wandered off through the woods together.
Jon McKenney:I grabbed her hand, and she followed through the woods. And we walked maybe five or ten minutes, not far. And I can remember the edge of the woods, and the only way I know to describe it is one of the most beautiful things I've ever seen. It was this lush green valley that you could walk down into the valley. It was kind of an easy walk down in, green grass, well manicured, and it was just one of them.
Jon McKenney:I remember standing at the edge of this clearing where the valley was, and it stretched on for miles and miles and miles. One of the most beautiful things, we had to stop there and just look and just looking at the Grand Canyon. Was just amazing. And in that moment, I knew that we had this new marriage started, and we were starting with a fresh and clean slate, and that this lush environment was ours to enjoy and to build a life in. So I was very excited to get down there as was she.
Jon McKenney:So I grabbed her hand and we started running down into the valley, and I got maybe three quarters the way down. And even holding her hand, she just vanished, gone, like into thin air. I turned I I stopped immediately in my tracks. I'm, like, panicked and looking around and where did she go and screaming her name, and, you know, it was was I I was, like, insane this moment with panic. Just Where is she?
Jon McKenney:Where is she? Where is she? I couldn't find her anywhere. As hard as I searched and looked around, I could see for miles and miles around me. She just literally vanished into thin air.
Jon McKenney:I don't know how I knew to do this, but I went down to the bottom of the valley, and in my dream, I started digging. And in the dream, I dug not for days, but for literal years. I dug and dug and dug maybe this four foot by four foot hole straight into the ground, and and kept digging and digging and digging, and my clothes were torn and mud soaked, and and my hands were bloody from from the digging. And after years and years of digging, I hit this box. It's like I couldn't tell what it was, but it felt like a metal box.
Jon McKenney:So I remember brushing it off, and it was a metal box and it had these chains around it on each side and the chains joined in the center where it formed an X. So I'm like, All right. Instinctively, I grab the chains in the center and I start dragging the box to the top and it's heavy. And as much as as much as I remember it taking me years to get down there, it took me years to get the box up the hole as I climbed this hole up. I can remember just barely seeing daylight at the top of the hole and climbing for years and years and years and years.
Jon McKenney:And I can remember pulling the box out and looking at it, and it hadn't occurred to me about the chains. So when I could see the sides of the box now because I was holding it by the top in the center where the chains met, It had these chains, by the way, were like to give you a visual image, it was like something you could see you'd see around a pirate's chest, these old hard cast iron chains from something in the seventeen hundreds. On the front of the box, which I again neglected to see because I was pulling it up and it was on the side, was this padlock. Again, pirate's chest padlock construction and indestructible. So I went and got some sticks, I tried to pry the chains off, I tried to pry the lock, and I pulled at it all.
Jon McKenney:I pulled the chains, tried to pull them around, and I could not I spent forever trying to to remove the chains from the box because I knew that she was inside, and I wanted to rescue her. And then, finally, after so many so much time trying to get the chains, I can remember get the chains off. I can remember just sitting down and my back against the box and just weeping because I couldn't get her out. And the only image I know to give you, if you guys are Star Trek fans and you saw Star Trek two where where Spock dies and he's leaning against this plexiglass wall and Kirk leans up against it on the other side, he's just broken and shattered, and that was who I was in the dream. Then I had one more thought, and the thought was the key's inside, and then I woke up.
Jon McKenney:And it made no sense to me at the time, but what I realized now is that that dream really became true, that I'd married somebody who vanished, discarded me very early on in the marriage and did not want to go on this marital journey. And I didn't know where she went. Ultimately, I started digging for her and chased her and chased her and chased her, trying to find her for years and even decades. And then figured out what was going on with her in my later years of marriage and dragged all this stuff. The image of bringing it to the surface is a big deal.
Jon McKenney:Right? So I brought this to the surface. I brought it to light. I brought it to therapists, and then only to realize that she has the key and that I didn't have a marriage without her. And I realize now that she felt safer in there and that it was a very comfortable space for her because she wasn't acquainted with reality, I think, so much.
Jon McKenney:And that she's chosen to live the rest of her life in there, but that doesn't mean I have a marriage on the other side, and I don't and didn't. And that was it made sense to me as I started divorce. I was like, oh, wow. This this tracks.
Padideh Jafari:Yeah. I mean, that dream, like you said, is so prophetic in a sense that that was your marriage because that three months is when she told, I think, your pastor that she stopped loving you.
Jon McKenney:Yeah. It was a therapist. Didn't tell me till twenty she didn't tell me till about twenty two years in, but she had made a decision, intentional decision, to abandon our relationship emotionally at three months into the marriage, like right after we got married. And that tracks along with the dream too. You know, we had we just got started, and she was just gone.
Padideh Jafari:Yeah. And you know what I realized? They don't want to change. It's us that wants to see the best in them. It's us that says like, don't you want to get healed?
Padideh Jafari:Don't you wanna go to therapy? Don't I mean, my my ex husband had a sex addiction. And I would take him to therapy, and I'd be like, don't you wanna be this, like, good, like, guy that, you know, isn't being secretive and isn't doing this and and you know what, John? I realized kind of like your dream, he didn't want to be healed. He didn't want to be found.
Padideh Jafari:He didn't want to be made well. Exactly. And so it was me. It was me seeing the best in him, but it wasn't him wanting that for himself. And so it's I think that is sort of like the empath.
Padideh Jafari:Right? The empath is always like, I wanna see the best in people. And here we made vows to these people. We were not gonna just let it go, you and I. No.
Padideh Jafari:We're not those kinds of people.
Jon McKenney:And people of faith too on that as well, which mattered and matters to us. Keeping your When we said, We made these vows before God.
Padideh Jafari:Correct.
Jon McKenney:We took that ridiculously seriously, and that's what for me made it most difficult to pull the plug on it.
Padideh Jafari:Right. And and you know what? I did wanna say, you know, your thank you for sharing your dream because I know it's such a personal dream, but, you know, I feel like our listeners need to hear that. And and as they look back on their journey, right, with their spouse or their significant other, you know, what signs did they miss? What could they have done differently?
Padideh Jafari:Because it's very easy to blame the narcissist and the cluster B personality disorder and to say, okay, I'm just gonna blame them for everything, but what part did you have in this? And we know that they didn't take their vows seriously. We know that. We get that. Okay?
Jon McKenney:They don't they don't love.
Padideh Jafari:So They don't love, and they don't know how to be faithful, and they are out for themselves. I mean, love you know, when you when you say your vows, you're supposed to be sacrificial for your spouse. And it's not hard to be sacrificial for your spouse when your spouse is also being sacrificial for you.
Jon McKenney:Well, it's not hard also when you really love somebody. Sacrifice comes far easier when you genuinely love. You're willing to set yourself aside for somebody else. Truthfully, some people I had this conversation on Instagram yesterday with somebody. Some people set themselves aside for their kids and don't divorce because I had kids and that And I stayed until the kids were all off to college and out of the house.
Jon McKenney:That was an intentional move on my part because I wanted them to have at least one healthy parent. Now, they may not think I'm the healthy parent because they've been gaslit by my ex and smear campaign by her and all of that, but I know. I know what I brought to the table. I know what I did, and God knows what I did even more than that. So sacrifice is far easier when you love the person you're with.
Padideh Jafari:Right. And so but don't forget also the vows that you took, like, they don't they just it's words to them. It's not actions because you could say a lot of different things. And, like, the vows, if you've heard the vows are so beautiful usually. I mean, I'm always listening to the vows and seeing how the couple, you know, standing there with their pastor or rabbi, you know, like when they say the vows, it's like they're crying and it's just like such a sweet moment.
Padideh Jafari:But that's just a day. That's just one day. It's what you do with the rest of it. Right? And with the narcissist, unfortunately, you're doing your part and you're going above and beyond actually your part, and they are trying to sabotage Absolutely.
Padideh Jafari:And they're not honest. They're not faithful. You know, they're gambling, cheating. I mean, all the things. Right?
Padideh Jafari:And lying, manipulating, gaslighting, projecting, all the things. And so when you're thinking about getting a divorce, think about those vows too. And think about what vows have they broken or are they breaking? Because that's something that definitely helps me. Even though I had biblically I could divorce because of the cheating, I still was holding on to hope because I was like, I meant these vows that I said, but he does not mean any of these vows.
Padideh Jafari:And I just remember, John, that life was difficult with him. Like everything was difficult. It was like God wasn't blessing our marriage. Things were always happening that were bad. I mean, I was always like, what's the next thing, the next news I'm gonna get that's bad news?
Padideh Jafari:And I'd lived it this way for four and a half years. Currently, with my spouse now, I don't have those fears. I can lay my head on the on the pillow and sleep really well. You know I wake up at, like, five in the morning because Yeah.
Jon McKenney:You do.
Padideh Jafari:Texting at that time. But these are on different time zones. But I don't have that fear, like, you know, the bottom's gonna fall out. Or what credit card did I not know about? Or what charge did I not know about that all of a sudden I have to come up with some money to pay?
Padideh Jafari:What accident did he have that he didn't tell me about that I don't worry about that. Like, I have so much peace in my house. If there's disagreements with my husband, we sit down and we talk about it. There's no, like, huffing, puffing, slamming doors, driving off, cursing. There's none of that.
Padideh Jafari:And so Yeah. It took me, though, eight years to date my husband. It took a long time to get healed, but there is hope. And I I just want you to know if you're listening because you will feel like you're hopeless in the middle. The the beginning, middle, and end of the divorce, that there is hope, and I'm a testament to that.
Jon McKenney:Yeah. You know, there were a couple things that I think helped me out. One one was and I don't think I realized this till after I separated. One was thinking through what marriage really is. If I said this on the podcast before somewhere, I'm going to say it again because I think it matters.
Jon McKenney:There are lots of people who enter into legal agreements and they're not married. There are people who share rings and they are not married. There are people who have kids together and they are not married. There are people who buy houses together and they are not married. There are people who have sex together and they are not married.
Jon McKenney:And those things don't make a marriage. A marriage is a qualitative relationship between two people. The rest of that, wedding marriage licenses and houses and kids and cars and all of that other stuff is icing on the cake. It's not the cake. What I realized was that I got divorced first.
Jon McKenney:When my ex decided she was out emotionally in the relationship and wasn't coming back, that is where I got divorced. And that was what we call the discard. Right? Narcissists discard their spouses or whoever it might be, their relational other, and that discard is a divorce. When you say when you decide, I don't want an emotional qualitative relationship with this person, that is a divorce.
Jon McKenney:That is the marriage. And all the other stuff, again, icing on the cake, not the cake. So what helped me is an understanding that I was and the and the the mental image is this. She wrote the check. I cashed it.
Jon McKenney:And and after twenty seven years of of trying to get her to come back, which, digging and digging and digging, and it didn't work. I could never be accused of not turning over every stone that I tried to get her help. That's again, I've said that before. That's a lot of peace to me. But ultimately, I realized that she wrote the check for divorce, and I just cashed it legally and made it happen.
Jon McKenney:So I got rid of the icing and said, okay. You don't want a relationship? Let's end this because this is not a marriage. And that was one of the things that helped me, realizing what a marriage really was at its core. It's none of the stuff The license is inconsequential.
Jon McKenney:The license is supposed to be representative of the relationship, not the reverse. That was something that helped me get there. And there are days, quite honestly, I don't feel like I was married, relationally, I was not married. In love, I was not married. I loved, she did not.
Jon McKenney:So those kinds of things were fact. The other thing I wanted to share with you was something that and this addresses more the spiritual end for me. In most religious traditions, marriage is kind of frowned on. Like Padeeta said earlier, it shouldn't be easy. And in situations where somebody is cheated and you have evidence of those kinds of things, most religious institutions or backgrounds make room for divorce in those kinds of situations.
Jon McKenney:Christianity as well, and I'm a believer in Jesus Christ. The Bible says clearly, don't divorce, and I had a really hard time getting around that, to be honest with you. That was why it took me twenty five years. I just didn't believe in it. And then I came across this guy, Wayne Grundam, and I want to actually read a passage of scripture out of one Corinthians seven where Paul is talking.
Jon McKenney:He's giving advice to people who are married. He's giving advice to people who are unmarried, and he gets down to the married section, and this is one Corinthians seven ten, and he says this, But for those who are married, I have a command that comes not from me but from the Lord. A man must not A wife must not leave her husband, but if she does leave him, let her remain single or else be reconciled to him, and the husband must not leave his wife. Now I will speak to the rest of you, though I do not have a direct command from the Lord. If a fellow believer has a wife who is not a believer and she is willing to continue living with him, he must not leave her.
Jon McKenney:And if the believing woman has a husband who is not a believer and he is willing to continue living with her, she must not leave him. So he's talking there about different religious traditions. So somebody's not in the faith and they take off, you kind of have no bound there. He says this then, For the believing wife brings holiness to her marriage and the believing husband brings holiness to his marriage. Otherwise, your children would not be holy, but now they're holy.
Jon McKenney:And he says, but if a husband or wife who isn't a believer insists on leaving, let them go. And then it says this, in such cases, The believing husband or wife is no longer bound to the other. So he's talking about some kind of abandonment right there. He's talking about marriage abandonment, and I think there are different kinds of marriage abandonment. And and most people translate, okay, if they they they're not a believer and they're, you know, different religious tradition, right, than you are, and they leave you in such cases, therefore, you're not bound anymore, which means you can you can walk away and divorce cleanly.
Jon McKenney:So there's a guy. His name is Wayne Grudem. You can look him up, waynegrudem.com, who basically sat down and by the way, I it should I should say this first. Wayne Grudem, for many years, was of the opinion that cheating was the only reason, legit reason from a Christian perspective to divorce, and he's changed his position, and he's changed his position based on three words in in such cases. So he did a study on those three three words.
Jon McKenney:Most people translate it as therefore. So if this is going on and this is going on, therefore, you're not bound anymore and you can divorce. So he went back and could not find that anybody in all of time had done any research on those three words. And what he discovered and you can look this up. Again, waynegrudem.com.
Jon McKenney:He's got a position paper on this that I encourage you to read because it's fantastic. What he found is saying in such cases is means this. It means if you got this going on and then there are other kinds of things with that weight to it, then you are no longer bound, which is a broader interpretation for divorce. It's not just cheating. It's not just marriage abandonment, and I could certainly argue that my ex abandoned the marriage in every reasonable way except for physically, which sounds like a lot, but it's not.
Jon McKenney:I trust you. Trust me. He's like, so it makes room for things like abuse, for narcissistic abuse, for a wife pushing their spouse to the very edge of life. And for me, as I understood that, that there were other kinds of things that elevated themselves to a level of, Yeah, divorce is okay. It actually helped me to go make the decision to divorce.
Jon McKenney:I go, And you know what? I've said it before and I'll say it again to this day. I'm happy. I believe we'll all answer to God one day, right? And I'm content to stand before him and say, I did absolutely everything I could to go save this marriage, to make it better, and I tried absolutely everything you put in front of me to go fix it.
Jon McKenney:When I could no longer walk and take another step forward and was ready to take my own life, this was my only option, and it really was. It was my was my in such cases moment. And I had you know, between kind of an understanding what marriage is and an understanding of these kinds of things, people say, well, God doesn't believe in divorce. You know, God hates divorce, what he says. Yes, but the Bible also teaches it in other ways too.
Jon McKenney:God is very clear about who gets into heaven and who doesn't and is making decisions about those kinds of things too. So this being that says this is We call it the great divorce sometimes where he's making decisions about these things, and they're painful to him. There's scripture about that too that talks about these things, but the Bible does teach divorce, and the basis for divorce is love. You know, God doesn't want people who don't love him in his presence. That's what the Bible teaches.
Jon McKenney:And if you don't love him, you get the benefit of heaven and there's a divorce. And I think the same is true of marriage. If you don't love and no love is there, in such cases, when it elevates itself to abuse, when it elevates itself to domestic violence, when it elevates itself to these kinds of things. I believe the Bible speaks to these things indirectly and says, you know what? It's time to go.
Jon McKenney:And in those situations, you are no longer bound to that person. And that was peace to me. And and it was ultimately how I kind of resolved this stuff in my head and could take a path of of divorce where prior again, twenty five years prior, there's just absolutely no way for me to go do it.
Padideh Jafari:Yeah. You're absolutely right. I mean and everybody has to make that decision for themselves. You know, a lot of times people will say, well, you know, we get we get a lot of punches as divorce attorneys. Oh, you guys cause a divorce.
Padideh Jafari:You guys want divorce. You guys benefit from the divorce. It's like, I wasn't even in the picture, right, when this Yeah. When this you know? Yeah.
Padideh Jafari:And so, everybody has to, like you said, make an account themselves. And I was actually
Jon McKenney:talking We can't make that decision for you.
Padideh Jafari:Correct. Everybody has to make it for themselves.
Jon McKenney:We're not here to sway you one way or the other because you have to live with that decision. Right. We're here to tell you how we got there.
Padideh Jafari:Yeah. And I wanna just say one thing. I was actually talking to a really good girlfriend of mine. She's going through a divorce. I'm not her divorce attorney because I actually love her and and her husband, and her husband's friends with my husband.
Padideh Jafari:And so I was talking to her today for, like, thirty minutes, and I said to her I said, because she doesn't want the divorce, and he does, and he's the one that filed, and they've been together thirty two years.
Jon McKenney:Wow. Long time.
Padideh Jafari:And so she you know, we we've talked. We've talked, and we've prayed, and we've cried together, and all the things. And and I and my my main thing to her today was make sure that you every single rock that you find that you turn it over and because I know that you don't want this. And take accountability for the things that you've done wrong in the marriage.
Jon McKenney:Right.
Padideh Jafari:Which is exactly what you're saying. Like, you took account of everything you were doing. You, you know, you did you did all the things. You went to therapy. You gave it time.
Padideh Jafari:You even lived in the basement for a while. You're like, look. If if if this can be fixed, I'm here to fix it. And and I said one of the other things I said to her was stop talking to other people and asking for their opinion. Yeah.
Padideh Jafari:Because everybody has their own agenda. And the reality is, John, like, some people are happy when others, like, don't have a good marriage because marriage is hard. Right?
Jon McKenney:It is hard. Marriage is
Padideh Jafari:and so they're like I'm like, you don't know what the motive of somebody is. And so and so all that to say that I want people to know that I'm for good marriages, healthy marriages. I'm very much protective of my own marriage. Yeah. But you gotta make an account yourself and see, is it the right time?
Padideh Jafari:Have I turned over every leaf, every rock? Have I done everything possible
Jon McKenney:to make this happen?
Padideh Jafari:Absolutely. Gonna make, like John said, an account to god and god of your understanding, whoever that is, or if it's a he, she, tree, whatever, you're gonna have to make an account for that. So
Jon McKenney:And to and to the people around you as well. You know? That they're they're they're a great company of people, friends, and family that you have to have conversations with as well. You don't do this in a vacuum. I mean, I'll go so far as to say this.
Jon McKenney:If you haven't been to therapy with your spouse, haven't tried it, you're not ready to get divorced. Not even tried. Now if your spouse over time says, look, I'm just not willing to go. I'm not willing to do this. I'm not willing to go do that.
Jon McKenney:Okay. That's a different story. But if you've you've not not been or you've not made that effort, if you've not tried to save it, you're not ready for this because it should not be convenient and it should not be easy. It's not meant to be It's meant to be a tie that binds. It's not to be meant to be a tie that's easily broken.
Jon McKenney:So give it every shot you've absolutely got. I was fortunate enough to have people around me, even my therapist, she really helped me. And one thing that she did that was really beautiful was she never told me what to go do. In fact, my closest friends didn't tell me what to go do either until the very end. I had some pastor friends that I was talking with, they're like, You got no other choice.
Jon McKenney:This is your only option that was left. But my therapist said this to me. She goes, You know, I asked her if I should divorce, and she goes, I don't think we're there yet. She goes, I think it'll become obvious, and we need to do what's best for your soul. And ultimately, we needed time to go discover that.
Jon McKenney:It was probably almost two years of therapy before I really kind of That conclusion became very clear to me, and I was appreciative of the fact that she didn't just tell me what to go do. Because you don't need to listen to what other people tell you to go do. You need to listen to your own heart and to figure that out for yourself because guess what? You got to live with it for the rest of your days one way or the other. Ultimately, that's where your peace is in the long run, is making that decision wisely or not.
Jon McKenney:You don't want to look back and go, Yeah, I just kind of threw that thing away and I shouldn't have done that. You know, Vicki Gunvalson, who was in one of our earlier podcasts, said something like that. She was talking about, I think it was her first husband, and they were She was so honest. It was such a beautiful moment. She was kind of looking back on her life and she and her first husband, I think, were in a bad way.
Jon McKenney:And she said, You know, if I'd had it to do over again, she said, He was a good man.
Padideh Jafari:And I should have done that. Yeah. She said that about Dawn, who was actually on The Real Housewives of Orange County when she started on that show, like, you know, I think, like, fifteen years ago or fourteen years ago. And people still and, you know, the Bravo fans are really critical, by the way. And and they still say, we love Dawn.
Padideh Jafari:So that was not the father of her two children, but I think it was her second marriage. And she's like, I should have tried harder. And she said, if I was living in Chicago, I don't think I would be divorced from him. Remember she said that?
Jon McKenney:Absolutely. She did. It was a strong moment because it speaks of regret. If you do this, you want to do it in such a way that you have absolutely no regret. And I can tell you right now, beyond the shadow of a doubt, I have not regretted my decision a single day, a single moment since I left.
Jon McKenney:Just telling somebody earlier today, what do you have now? I've got peace.
Padideh Jafari:Yes. Oh my gosh. Yes.
Jon McKenney:I have peace.
Padideh Jafari:100%. Yes. 100%. I mean, peace even if you sit home by yourself and do nothing else and you have that peace and you can sleep at night knowing that you've got that peace, that's I mean, and that's really expensive, that peace. Right?
Jon McKenney:It is. So Because and it's important because you have to live with yourself on the other side of this. So if you hear anything from the both of us today, hear this. You heard two people that took their time to go figure this out. What Padita said it took from the time she kind of separated to the time she divorced, like two and a half years.
Jon McKenney:Yep. I had twenty five years to get to the place where I felt like I could divorce. It was another two years where I kind of pondered the divorce before I separated, and then another nine months beyond that before I actually divorced. So these things were not done flippantly. They were not done without thought.
Jon McKenney:They were not done without therapists. They were not done without wise counsel. They were not done without work on our parts to try and make it right. Paditas talked about in other podcasts about having sought out the counsel of her pastors and things like that. I sought out therapists.
Jon McKenney:I can't tell you how many because I can't count them all. And I sought out wise counsel from other pastors I knew and people who I respected who had wisdom, and these were our decisions. And at the same time, we're very comfortable living with them, and we have peace over those. So live in such a way that you're gonna have peace on the other side. Padilla, you got any other thoughts?
Padideh Jafari:No. That's about it for today.
Jon McKenney:Yeah. Yeah. And our hope and prayer for you is that you would take the time to go resolve these things, that your decision would not be flippant and would not be quick, and that you do and you live in such a way that you have absolutely no regrets on the other side of it and that you have peace. Padida, great conversation today. Thank you so much again.
Jon McKenney:It's always so good to see you. Breath of fresh air. I'm glad you're well. And again, you can find us on the Narcissist Abuse Recovery channel on Instagram or Padita's handle on Instagram is Jafarilegal. Mine is Male Victims of Female Narcissists.
Jon McKenney:And Padita's on TikTok too, and we're actually both doing coaching as well. So you can reach out to us at any of those places. You also find me at malevictimsoffemalenarcissists.com, and and there's a sign up form if you're interested in coaching there. So thank you again for your time and for your attention, and we hope and pray that you live narcissist free.
Padideh Jafari:Bye bye.
Voiceover Artist:The Narcissist Abuse Recovery Channel discusses very emotional situations, including suicide. If you are in that situation, we recommend that you immediately seek out professional help because you are important and your life is worth preserving. Please take this seriously and tell someone your situation. To reach the National Suicide Hotline, call or text 988 from any phone. Thank you for listening to the Narcissist Abuse Recovery Channel.
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