Episode 333: If there's a playbook for them, there's a playbook for YOU

The Divorce Survival Guide Podcast

Kate Anthony

Relationships, Education, Self-improvement, Society & Culture

4.4 • 573 Ratings

🗓️ 24 July 2025

⏱️ 50 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

If you've been in a narcissistic, emotionally abusive, or coercively controlling relationship, you may think you're alone in your confusion and trauma. After working with thousands of women, however, I can assure you that abusers are all operating out of the same playbook. The gaslighting, the love bombing, the silent treatment? The patterns are actually completely predictable. It's called the Abuser's Playbook. And if there's a playbook for them, there's a playbook for you, too.

In this solo episode, I walk you through ten of the most common tactics abusers use and more importantly, how to counter each one. This isn't about changing them. This is about keeping yourself safe, reclaiming your sanity, and taking your power back.

The 10 common tactics narcissistic abusers use (and what you'll hear about in this episode):

Love bombing and future faking that keeps you hooked and how to track the cycle
Gaslighting that erodes your sense of reality and how to ground yourself in the truth
Projection that flips the blame onto you and how to recognize what's actually theirs
Triangulation that isolates you and how to stay rooted in your own perspective
Hoovering that pulls you back in and how to hold your boundary when it feels impossible
Smear campaigns that twist your story and how to stay steady when your reputation is under attack
Threats and intimidation that instill fear and how to protect yourself and plan ahead
Stonewalling and silent treatment that punish you and how to stop chasing their approval
Baiting and rage that push you to the edge and how to respond without losing yourself
Financial abuse that traps you and how to begin reclaiming control

➡ Download The Survivor's Playbook at KateAnthony.com/playbook

Resources & Links:
Focused Strategy Sessions with Kate
The Divorce Survival Guide Resource Bundle
Phoenix Rising: A Divorce Empowerment Collective
How He'll Likely React Bingo card
Kate on Instagram @kateanthony_divorcecoach
Kate on Facebook
The D Word: Making the Ultimate Decision About Your Marriage

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DISCLAIMER: THE COMMENTARY AND OPINIONS AVAILABLE ON THIS PODCAST ARE FOR INFORMATIONAL AND ENTERTAINMENT PURPOSES ONLY AND NOT FOR THE PURPOSE OF PROVIDING LEGAL OR PSYCHOLOGICAL ADVICE. YOU SHOULD CONTACT AN ATTORNEY, COACH, OR THERAPIST IN YOUR STATE TO OBTAIN ADVICE WITH RESPECT TO ANY PARTICULAR ISSUE OR PROBLEM.

Episode link:
https://kateanthony.com/podcast/episode-333-if-theres-a-playbook-for-them-theres-a-playbook-for-you/

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	This whole thing is about control.
0:01.8	Every ounce of this playbook is about power and control.
0:04.7	So how do you counter it?
0:06.2	You keep a fucking journal.
0:08.3	You write shit down all the time.
0:10.4	You save texts, emails, and voicemails.
0:14.7	You save.
0:16.2	You document the truth.
0:19.2	Now here is the most important piece of this. This is for you, not for them.
0:25.1	This is not so that you then turn to them and say, no, see, you did say that. It even says it
0:31.9	right here. Look, here's the screenshot. They don't care about the truth. They don't care about
0:37.1	the truth. They care about power and
0:40.6	control. It's not countering him. It's countering this in your brain. It's countering this for
0:46.5	yourself. Welcome to the Divorce Survival Guide podcast, where we have open and honest conversations about co-parenting, separation, divorce, and the hardest question of all, should you stay or should you go.
1:05.2	I'm Kate Anthony, your divorce survival guide, and I'm here to help you navigate some of the roughest waters
1:11.7	you've ever swum in and answer some of your toughest questions. I've been to hell and back,
1:17.8	and now it's my mission in life to help you get to the other side of this process with your sanity
1:23.9	and your heart intact.
1:38.8	Hey everyone. Welcome back. So it's been a while, I think, since I've done a solo episode.
1:48.1	So here I am. And I want to talk to you about something that I said to a client recently, I said, since there is a playbook for them, meaning really the narcissist's playbook, right? If you have
1:56.6	been in an emotionally abusive, narcissistic, coercive-controlling relationship.
2:05.5	You know that there's this narcissist playbook.
	...

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