Demetria Graves: Divorcing a Narcissist Without Losing the Judge

Fifteen to twenty matters can sit on a single day's calendar in a California family courtroom. That is the room your account of the last decade has to fit inside. It is why, Demetria Graves says, the concise and factual party tends to come out ahead of the one throwing everything at the wall, and why she gave up writing long speeches early in her career after never getting past the third sentence.

Demetria Graves is a Certified Family Law Specialist, certified by the State Bar of California, and a managing partner at a Los Angeles area firm based in Pasadena. She hosts her own family law podcast and has been working specifically on what it takes to divorce a high-conflict ex, which is the frame for this conversation. She is direct that divorce attorneys are not equipped to diagnose anybody, and equally direct that they are not your therapist either, which shapes most of her advice about building a support system around the case rather than through it.

She and Lisa start at recognition, including how often the people who name the problem first are the children, and why staying for their sake tends not to hold up. Demetria describes how controlling behavior presents differently in the cases she has handled, some through the children and some through money, and is careful that this is her own caseload rather than a rule about anyone. Then the practical layer: when to make the first call, what to ask in that meeting about strategy, about who in the office will actually touch your file, about timelines, and about how you will be billed.

The heart of it is what a high-conflict case does to you and what to do about that. Filings arriving all at once by design. An opposing party who is charming with the clerk and the judge. Counsel whose actual objective is to provoke a reaction that can be described later as instability. Demetria's advice is to disengage from most of it, answer only what needs answering, and describe conduct rather than reaching for a diagnosis, partly because a label does not decide custody and partly because you cannot know how the judge in front of you will hear it. She and Lisa close on the practical plan that should exist before a petition is filed: housing, money, the car, the kids' school, and the sixty days or more it can take for support or fees to be ordered.

As always, this is strategic education, not legal or mental-health advice for your specific situation.

🎓 What you'll learn

• Why naming your ex a narcissist in court weakens the argument you came to make
• What to ask an attorney in the first meeting, and how the billing actually works
• Why deciding across several conversations is normal rather than a failure of nerve
• Whether filing first makes any real difference to your case
• The all-at-once opening, and why you can end up looking like the problem on day one
• How legal abuse runs through filings, depositions, and your own legal bill
• Why custody and paternity cases often run longer than divorces do
• The practical plan to have before you file: housing, money, and the wait for support

⏱️ Chapters
0:00 Intro
1:00 Recognizing it, and why a divorce attorney cannot diagnose it
5:00 Staying for the children, and when the children raise it first
7:00 How controlling behavior shows up differently, and why it is not gendered
9:00 Questions to ask an attorney, and how the billing actually works
12:00 Stops and starts, and why taking your time is not a failure
15:00 Who files first, and whether it makes any difference
17:00 Guns blazing on day one, and why the narcissist label works against you
20:00 The other attorney's job is to knock you off your game
23:00 Custody and paternity cases, and legal abuse by sheer volume
29:00 Behavior over labels, and preparing your own side of it
33:00 The practical plan: money, housing, and the sixty-day wait

Keep going 💜
Book a free 30-minute discovery call and we'll help you map your next steps: https://beentheregotout.com/call
📘 Been There Got Out: Toxic Relationships, High-Conflict Divorce, and How to Stay Sane Under Insane Circumstances — https://www.amazon.com/dp/194627495X
📘 Been There Got Out: When Your Ex Turns the Kids Against You (our parental-alienation book) — https://www.amazon.com/dp/1967674183
🔗 Demetria L. Graves at The Graves Law Firm: https://www.losangeles-divorcelaw.com/about-the-firm/demetria-l-graves/
🔗 Legally Uncensored, Demetria's podcast: https://www.legallyuncensoredpodcast.com/

About Been There Got Out
Chris Barry and Lisa Johnson are high-conflict divorce, custody, and co-parenting strategists, and the founders of Been There Got Out. They know these cases from the inside: both have successfully represented themselves in family court. Few attorneys have a playbook for a case like this — Chris and Lisa write yours with you, so you and your kids can get through it as unscathed as possible.