Mobbing in High-Conflict Divorce and Custody Disputes

Understanding Mobbing

Mobbing in high-conflict divorce and custody disputes is something many of my clients are unprepared for when they enter the adversarial arena of Family court. If you are divorcing a narcissist, borderline, histrionic or other toxic personality, it is important that you are not caught unawares. Basically, mobbing is when an individual is bullied or attacked by a group.

The mobbing group works together to demean, discredit, humiliate, undermine, exclude, alienate, and isolate the target. This is often achieved via smear campaigns, harassment, DARVO, bureaucratic hassles and manipulating law enforcement and/or the courts (i.e., abuse of process) to attack the target. Of course, mobbing can occur in various settings such as schools, churches, at work, on social media, and within families.

Examples of Mobbing

Family Conflicts: A sister is offended by her brother’s opinion that she shouldn’t interfere with her ex’s custody time. In retaliation, she trash-talks him, calling him a “traitor,” and pressures their family to side with her. This leads to the brother being ostracized by the family.

Social Media Smear Campaigns: Your uncle divorces his wife and publicly smears her on social media, falsely accusing her of adultery and calling her a “Jezebel.” He leverages their faith community to shun her. In reality, your aunt didn’t cheat on your uncle. She left him after years of his alcohol-fueled rage episodes and his infidelities.

Parental Alienation: A woman with undiagnosed borderline personality disorder abuses her husband and alienates the children from him. She routinely undermines, attacks and disrespects him to the kids, and encourages them to do the same. After the husband files for divorce, the wife deputizes their 12-year old son to assist in alienating the younger kids and to monitor them during visits with their dad.

Bullies of all ages, including children and teens, engage in such malicious behavior. It’s the responsibility of parents, teachers and other role models to correct and teach kids against bullying and mobbing. However, when adults like mom, dad, grandma and grandpa model this behavior, they teach kids that abuse is an acceptable way to handle disagreements and meet their needs.

The Usual Suspects in Mobbing During High-Conflict Divorce and Custody Disputes

A mob typically has one or two ringleaders who enlist deputies, flunkies, suck-ups, and flying monkeys to carry out the abuse. In divorce cases, the aggressor may recruit friends, family members, children, law enforcement, teachers, child welfare services workers, religious leaders, neighbors, and even strangers on social media (i.e., GoFundMeImmaVictim! pages) to attack the target.

While not everyone involved in mobbing has a personality disorder, the ringleaders often exhibit traits of narcissistic, histrionic, borderline, and antisocial personality disorders–the Crazy Trail Mix. These individuals lack empathy, are pathologically entitled, blame others for their problems, and are pathological liars. They are highly manipulative, vindictive, ruthless, emotionally and psychologically immature, angry, and enjoy conflict. They see themselves as victims, especially if they’re held accountable for their abusive and/or criminal behavior.

Common Traits of Bullies and Those with Personality Disorders

People with Narcissistic Personality Disorder (NPD), Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD), Histrionic Personality Disorder (HPD), psychopathy, and sociopathy share several common traits:

Anger issues: Poor conflict resolution skills and explosive rage.
Impulsivity and Recklessness: Acting without regard for consequences
Low Frustration Tolerance: Easily frustrated and bored.
Professional victimhood or tendency of interpersonal victimhood: Seeing themselves as victims even when they are the aggressors.
DARVO: Denying, attacking, and reversing victim and offender roles.
Contempt for Laws: Disregard for social norms and rules.
Authority issues: Defiance and contempt for authority.
Violence as Entertainment: Using violence to get what they want or for self-stimulation.
Control Issues: Using physical strength, charm, or popularity to intimidate or persuade others, including to attack their targets.
Jealous and Spiteful: Resentful of others’ talents and accomplishments.
Pathological Lying: Habitual dishonesty.

Mobbing ringleaders are bullies who aim to dominate and control others. Their behaviors can be covert or overt. Mobbing utilizes the surreptitious (i.e., sneaky) use of rumor, innuendo, inappropriate jokes, and public discrediting. Overt bullying often presents as moral superiority, righteous indignation, victim playing and competitive victimhood, and virtue signaling.

Why Narcissists and Other Toxic Personalities Engage in Mobbing

Bullies, as described by Namie and Namie (2000), are “inadequate, defective, and poorly developed people” who are angry, unpredictable, critical, jealous, and manipulative (Davenport, Schwartz and Elliot, 1999; Namie and Namie, 2000). They derive a sense of power and pleasure from controlling and abusing their targets. Narcissists, borderlines, histrionics, and other aggressors revel in the excitement produced by their animosity, which Westhues (2002) refers to as “the euphoria of collective attack.”

These individuals experience a high from getting away with their malicious behavior, scams, false victim narratives, and predatory acts. All bullies are repeat offenders. Getting away with abuse serves as its own reward. When these individuals are enabled to manipulate and control their targets through the system–be it the workplace or Family Court–they experience what is known as “dupers delight.”

Mobbing and Abuse of Process in Family Court

Abuse of process in refers to the improper use of legal procedures for purposes other than those for which they were designed. In the context of family court, this can include actions such as:

Filing Frivolous Motions: Submitting numerous unnecessary or baseless motions to create chaos, harass or burden the other party into incurring excessive legal fees.
Delaying Proceedings: Intentionally dragging out the legal process to cause emotional, financial, or legal strain on the other party.
Manipulating the Legal System: Using court proceedings to gain leverage in custody or divorce disputes, such as making false allegations or withholding important information.
Vexatious Litigation: Repeatedly bringing litigation without legitimate grounds, causing the other party to incur unnecessary legal fees and stress.
Using the System for Retaliation: Initiating legal action as a form of retaliation rather than resolving genuine disputes.
Using the System to Force Unwanted Contact: Crazy as this may sound, some toxic exes use legal proceedings in order to get access to clients who have gone No or Low contact. “I won’t be ignored, Dan!” (Glenn Close, Fatal Attraction).

Courts are supposed to take abuse of process seriously. Individuals found to be engaging in such behavior should face consequences such as fines, dismissal of their motions, or sanctions. In my experience with male clients embroiled in high-conflict divorce and custody disputes, abuse of process is rarely (if ever) taken seriously. Over the years, I’ve had several clients who are attorneys that practice in other areas of law. They were uniformly shocked and appalled by the abuse of process engaged in by their exes and their exes’ attorneys with little to no consequences.

When these clients ask their family law attorneys about addressing opposing counsels’ blatant lying and gamesmanship, they have all been told some version of, “Yeah, we don’t do that in family law.” Allowing the rampant abuse of process exacerbates conflict and tension between the parties. This is further evidence — as if we need any — that family court often fails miserably in protecting the “best interests of the children.”

Why Abuse of Process is Rarely Addressed

There are several reasons why abuse of process is rarely adequately addressed, especially when it involves female litigants and their attorneys. It essentially boils down to gender bias, money, ignorance, and incompetence. The most common factors include:

Judicial Discretion: Judges have a complete discretion in family court. Their personal biases or perceptions often influence their decisions. If a judge doesn’t recognize or take abuse of process seriously, then the abusers are gonna abuse.
Gender Bias: There are entrenched biases that affect how judges and court officials see the actions of female vs. male litigants. Women are often given the benefit of the doubt, especially if they’re seen as the primary caregivers or if their actions are framed as protective rather than malicious.
Complexity and Volume of Cases: Family courts are backed up and broken. Ironically, much of this is due to judges not reining in the rampant abuse of process. In turn, this leads to less thorough examinations of each case. In other words, it’s a self-reinforcing problem.
Acceptable Legal Strategy: Many family law attorneys engage in aggressive tactics as part of their strategy to represent their clients and “WIN.”
Lack of Consequences: Since most judges don’t hold attorneys and dishonest litigants accountable for unethical behavior, there’s no downside to engaging in abuse of process.
Perception of Child Welfare: This is a good illustration of how a woman’s feelings are often treated as more important than the facts of the case. When a female litigant says, “I feel unsafe,” the court frequently takes a protective stance rather than an evidence-based stance.

These issues could be remedied if the courts chose to do so. However, it would require significant judicial training to recognize implicit bias and abuse of process. Family law attorneys would also need to police and hold each other accountable [*Please allow me a moment of cynical laughter haiku: Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha. Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha. Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha.] Finally, implementing policies to better protect against abuse of process and ensure fair treatment for all parties is essential to mitigate these issues.

When Does the Harassment Stop?

The harassment only stops when someone with the authority to enforce consequences, such as a family court judge, implements painful deterrents and disincentives. Otherwise, the aggressor may continue to abuse the target, forcing them to quit, get fired, expelled, banned, or in the saddest cases, walk away from their children. The ultimate goal of the abuser is to force the target out of the group, organization, or family. Even if successful, the bully may continue to attack their targets after forcing them out with continued smear campaigns or vexatious litigation, for example.

Mobbing is especially painful when the aggressor manipulates one’s family and friends to turn against them. Losing one’s community and family of origin, no matter how dysfunctional, is emotionally devastating. Clients whose parents and siblings side with their abusive ex or partner often come from personality disordered or mentally ill families who abused them in childhood.

The present-day divorce and custody battle provides these pathogenic families an opportunity to reenact their original abuses all over again. It’s sick. Many adults who were abused as kids grow up and partner with women and men who are similar to the abusive/mentally ill parent, thus replaying the childhood trauma anew.

Conclusion

Understanding mobbing in high-conflict divorce and custody disputes is crucial for male abuse victims going through high-conflict divorces with toxic personalities. Recognizing the behaviors and traits of those who engage in mobbing can help victims navigate these challenging situations and seek the necessary legal and emotional support.

Counseling, Consulting and Coaching with Dr. Tara J. Palmatier, PsyD

Dr. Tara J. Palmatier, PsyD helps individuals with relationship and codependency issues via telephone or Skype. For over a decade, she has specialized in helping men and women break free of abusive relationships, cope with the stress of ongoing abuse and heal from the trauma. She combines practical advice, emotional support and goal-oriented outcomes. If you’d like to work with Dr. Palmatier, please visit the Schedule a Session page or you can email her directly at [email protected].

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