Family & Divorce

Divorce involving Personality Disorders and Addiction

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Divorce involving Personality Disorders and Addiction

Our Approach

We can help with organisations and professionals to support children in the best possible way at the time of a divorce or relationship breakdown

We are uniquely placed to understand and engage with the impact of addiction and mental health issues on relationships. Clients facing these issues often come to us at a time when they are damaged by years of emotional uncertainty and often abuse.

We work with clients who are impacted, directly and indirectly, by addiction, whatever the type of addiction, for example alcohol and substance abuse, gambling or sex and love addiction. The team has forged strong relationships with the therapeutic community in many fields, both in the UK and abroad, with the objective of working together with our clients to provide knowledgeable and well-rounded advice and support.

We actively encourage our clients to engage with their own therapeutic support throughout the separation process. This can lessen the damage that can be caused by what is often a high conflict court process, but also can encourage personal and emotional healing and avoid an identical future path.

A strong team ethic shines through at Kingsley Napley and there is ready support from across the whole team, whose assistance is always quick, accurate and reassuring.

Chambers and Partners _ 2025

The team are especially good at being empathetic towards their clients and taking the time to engage with their wider personal context.

Chambers UK _ 2026

Our Expertise

Addiction and divorce

We work with addicts and their spouses, families and support teams. We recognise the pressure that divorce places on a chronic relapsing condition and the responsibility we have as lawyers to avoid damaging, long fought battles whilst at the same time implementing change.

Family courts will treat addiction as an illness and will not apportion blame. The courts will understand that there are generally financial consequences of addiction and often adopt an “in sickness and in health” approach that will not punish the addict’s spouse.

How can addiction affect a marriage or relationship?

The secrecy and deceit that can accompany addiction often places immense emotional pressure on a marriage. The financial strain can be equally destructive, as trust is lost and, in some cases, the addiction results in a loss of career or lasting financial impact. Addiction may lead to growing resentment, frequent conflicts, emotional abuse, and, in some cases, physical abuse.

Addiction, in all forms, is one of the toughest issues a family can encounter. We have a deep understanding of the impact on the entire family and the professional support that is available.

Whether you are the addict or the spouse/partner of an addict, we will work closely with you to ensure holistic support and an understanding of the issues at play. With you, we will also agree the best process to resolve the various issues including the financial issues and child arrangements.

Personality disorders and divorce

We have also set about to understand and develop approaches to help clients wishing to separate from a spouse with a personality disorder or on the narcissistic spectrum, while also recognising that the charismatic appeal of such a partner often has its origins in our clients’ past.

There is a real failure in many family courts for judges to recognise and tackle the negative impact of narcissistic behaviour. Court time is limited, allowing only the usual, “on the face of it”, positive, public characteristics of the narcissist to be seen. Recognising that narcissism is a mental health issue which needs to be identified by the court should be an essential first step in the more chronic situations.

Using only a lawyer to fight a fire is likely to leave you without a house and nothing in the bank. High conflict divorces burn families’ financial resources making it vital to identify a strategy that will consider the risks as well as the rewards of pursuit. There is often a lot to be said for “Plan B” if we can support our clients in making themselves strong enough to see the long-term financial and emotional rewards of accepting what on the face of it may be a non-punitive outcome.

Ideally we would like our clients to come to us as early as possible as, the later they leave it, the harder it is to shift confidence from an overriding sense of defeat.

We will encourage our clients to obtain parallel support from their own therapists or a divorce coach, often both, and we would ask our clients for permission to work with that support team. We will support our clients in entering in to a new form of communication or parenting and will carry out a comprehensive assessment of any strategy. If the only solution is to go to court, then we will encourage a strategy with a built in allowance for the costs of engagement, both emotional and financial.

How can I support the children?

We recognise that children can be deeply impacted when living in a household where addiction features or being a child of a parent who is an addict. We can help with organisations and professionals to support children in the best possible way at the time of a divorce or relationship breakdown, and beyond it.

Concerns surrounding a parent’s substance or alcohol abuse are a common safeguarding issue raised in children proceedings before the family court. To read more about how this is dealt with, please see our blog on the topic here; Addiction and co-parenting – how to arrange drug and alcohol testing in the context of childcare disputes and other legal proceedings involving children.