The Challenges of Co-parenting With a Narcissist

divorce sucks. it doesn’t just suck, it sucks in a way that most other things never will. it completely sucks the life out of you.

I’ve experienced a lot of shit in my life and watching my kids deal with the aftermath of my divorce has been nothing short of total emotional chaos.

I’m an adult. I make my choices and I have to live with them. I’m strong enough to handle the consequences of my actions. Children, however, lack the emotional capacity to really persevere when their family falls apart.

Especially if your children are teenagers. Their emotional state is in the infancy of its development and they are emotional creatures at this age anyway. The best way I can describe this is postpartum depression on steroids. The perfect storm of fucked-ness.

This recipe for disaster is magnified when you are the only parent who is trying to pick up the broken pieces left from the divorce. After all, you had a life before this person, regardless of how much time you spent together.

Most teenagers are self absorbed. Their ego and superego (thank you Freud) are still developing

For your children, your little family unit is all they have known in their short lives. For them, this change is more devastating than any adult can fathom. Teenagers are already dealing with the shifting mood swings that only puberty can bring.

Add to this cocktail of hormones a traumatic event and you’re basically setting them up to fail. The fact that so many children from broken homes eventually live healthy, adult lives is a testimony to the resiliency of children.

Most teenagers are self absorbed. Their ego and superego (thank you Freud) are still developing. This is especially important of the superego stage of development where they are learning their values and morals from their parents. I wrote about this in an earlier article. 

She actually told me that she knew my ex was dating a married woman…

Teenagers are prone to mood swings. They also look to the adults in their lives to validate their choices, even though they don’t seem to want your opinion at all.

So, what are you to do when you are trying to co-parent these virtual ticking time bombs with a narcissist?

I’m still battling with this today, so many of my opinions are based on the experiences I’m having in real time. My ex is using our children as a tool to take his revenge on me for his own inability to deal with the pain he caused during our marriage. He is unable to take any responsibility for his actions.

Why? Simple. He’s a narcissist. He feels no empathy for anyone. The narcissist will never internalize anything they did, unless it benefits them directly. They are almost devoid of remorse. In fact this is the the cornerstone of their entire being. Any pain that is caused by a narcissist is projected onto whatever target they decide to focus on.

My ex is unable to process his emotions because, in his mind, he has never done anything wrong. So I’m crazy. I’m harassing him. I’m the only one causing any pain to our children. I’m the psycho, drama-creating bitch.

It’s very difficult to co-parent with someone who takes their version of the truth as gospel

The reality of the situation is much different than the version he has created to protect his fragile ego. The narcissist will always protect their interests first. It doesn’t matter who gets caught in the crossfire.

For me, my children are caught in the middle of this. They are being neglected, even ignored, and the person who could make things right is choosing to be self-serving. There’s nothing worse than trying to co-parent with a narcissist.

I take full accountability for my role in all this. I walk with those feelings every day, especially when I see the effect on my children. It’s very difficult to co-parent with someone who takes their version of the truth as gospel. The lies he (and others) feed himself to justify his actions now have been manipulated into some twisted bastardization of the truth. It’s his truth now, even though it is so distorted from reality that he wouldn’t know the truth if it bit him on the ass.

I was tired of being the neglected wife stuck at home crying, hoping today might be the day he sees my worth.

He has always believed the worst about me. We were together for 20 years. You would think someone would know truth from lies with this much time together. There were people in our lives who didn’t want us together and he would value their opinion over the truth because it fit his narrative at the time.

I shattered his ego when our marriage ended. I filed for divorce once before. I was completely miserable with him neglecting my emotional needs. He was disconnecting himself day by day from me. Soon after the disconnect. He began to cheat with other women from work (he didn’t know I knew about the hidden emails). I didn’t care. I just wanted out. I was tired of being the neglected wife stuck at home crying, hoping today might be the day he sees my worth.

Our fist separation is a long story. Another story for another article.   

What I’m trying to point out is I own all my faults. My ex knows all my sins (up until our separation). I’m honest like that. He knows what convictions I walked with. 8 months after filing the first set of divorce papers. I begged him back for two months. Chasing him, falling into his version of “Crazy” or  “Psycho”.

This time I didn’t chase him like I always had in the past.

Eventually, I finally had enough and decided to leave for good because I realized  his complacency and lack of respect for me would never change. I knew I couldn’t sell myself short and go begging back to him again. I know my worth. 

He couldn’t handle this. Even to this day he thinks I’m going to come running back to him or I still want him back (per our last conversation). Which is not the case at all.

He’ll go as far as giving a Oscar winning performance to prove how “psycho” my character is. Since, I’m not giving him any attention at all to feed his ego (I’m the only one that ever did). I’m not meeting his needs, he uses his victim mentality as an excuse to treat me and our children with contempt. He’ll play that card for sympathy with the children

Especially to romance other woman. 

I know you might be reading this hoping for some light at the end of the tunnel, but the reality is that if you’re trying to co-parent with a narcissist, be prepared to be the one doing the heavy lifting with the kids.

What exactly is the heavy lifting? Mostly providing emotional support. The narcissist will not see the need for any emotional support because they aren’t feeling anything that directly affects them.

You will have to do the job of two people now. Odds are, you’ve been already doing it. I was always the one to pick up the emotional baggage when I was married. Now that he is forced to actually parent, he is failing miserably. 

The narcissist doesn’t see a problem. If their children are hurting, even when the child expresses their pain and stress (to the narcissist), it’s really not much of a concern to them. After all, they aren’t the ones hurting, or, at the very least, they couldn’t have possibly been the one to cause any harm. They will never validate with real emotion or feelings, they will placate them and mask any true empathy with lip service and a robotic hug. 

Even things as simple as schedules, appointments, and other seemingly minor details will have to be skillfully planned in advance because the narcissist doesn’t value your role in the children’s lives. Simply put, once you stopped fulfilling a need in their life, you ceased to exist in any capacity.

This is especially frustrating when your children have bigger issues at hand. My son, (not his biological child) who he has helped raise since my son was 4months old,  has his own issues he is dealing with and has asked on countless occasions to go see a counselor to work these things through. I applaud him for being aware enough to know that he needs something more than I can provide.

The ex holds the insurance cards and is not taking this request seriously. This is more frustrating than I can possibly describe. The narcissist doesn’t see this as a priority. He lacks no emotion. How could your child’s mental well-being not be a priority? I’m absolutely dumbfounded and saddened for my son who now has a nonexistent relationship with the only father he knows. 

The narcissist doesn’t care about any consequences that might come out of this. It doesn’t even register with the narcissist that their actions might lead to negative consequences. Even violations to the court order will hold no value to the narcissist because they always believe their actions to be perfect. There have been plenty of blindsided narcissists who were left in disbelief after a court ruling didn’t work in their favor.

It just doesn’t register with them. In many ways, co-parenting with a narcissist is like adding another child to your list of responsibilities. If they don’t see value in including you in the court ordered decision making process, they just won’t. You’re not important enough to them.

Unfortunately, the children of the narcissist suffer the worst. If the narcissist is focused on getting revenge (like in my own divorce) on their ex, that’s the only thing that will be given any effort.

Basic things like bath times, clean clothes, hygiene, and daily routines will suffer if the narcissist is perseverating on you. You wronged them. They are perfect. You must pay for your disobedience to the almighty narcissist. It’s all very biblical when you really think about it. This makes sense, because most narcissists have a bit of a god complex anyway.

Ultimately, you have to pick up the slack left from the neglect of the narcissist. You have to be the disciplinarian, the shoulder to cry on, the friend, and the one to set boundaries because the narcissist will not see the need for these things if they are not serving their own desires.

I know this isn’t the panacea you were probably hoping to read, but I really want the gravity of this to sink in. Co-parenting with a narcissist is very difficult. So, it’s up to you to step up your game and do what is best for your children. You will be happy you did and your children will be grateful for it. They are more than worth the effort. Good luck.