Episodes
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We hear mixed messages about leaving relationships all the time. If only you were stronger, you would have left sooner. If only you were stronger, you would have stayed longer and tried harder. Weak people focus on themselves too much...and weak people don't focus on themselves and their needs enough.
Such messages are unhelpful and often get us nowhere except bogged down in shame and self-doubt.
The better path is to focus on what's ahead and to pour our energy into moving forward rather than trying to "if only" the past. What happened, happened, and that's done. Instead of picking apart the past and beating ourselves up in the process, we can be grateful for where we are now and look forward to what we want to create for ourselves next. -
Hypothesis: the heart of so many of the family court’s judgment errors boils down to the emotional illiteracy of the lawyers, judges, therapists, and other paraprofessionals attached to the system.
The family court system is not trauma informed. The judges are not therapists and spend the least amount of time learning about the case out of all the players. The therapists attached to the system are often opportunists to make matters worse for their own gain. Facilitators and evaluators make their money off of conflict and refer to their therapist buddies. Lawyers profit off of conflict and more conflict.
The court system is often completely emotionally illiterate when it comes to anger. Anxiety, grief, ptsd, concern, passion, forwardness, and fear are misinterpreted as anger and used again the person feeling these legitimate emotions.
Meanwhile the actual abusive party is pretending to be innocent and cooperative…while accusing the other party (often their past and/or present abuse victim) of having anger issues.
The result? Terrible judgments by the court that treat the abuser as the victim and the victim as the abuser.
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Episodes manquant?
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Court-ordered coparenting is pretty much doomed to fail when one of the parents is highly narcissistic. When the courts take a one-size-fits-all approach to coparenting expectations and standards, they end up creating a sure-to-fail situation where everyone involved loses. That is, everyone except those who directly profit from the increased conflict, legal expenses, and court-ordered therapy work that is generated by trying to force those who are incapable of collaborative parenting into an idealistic coparenting model.
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When we deal with high-conflict and disordered coparents, it is vitally important to document certain things and collect data. In this episode, I discuss the importance of tracking data to establish patterns for the purpose of not only clarifying those patterns, but to be able to use those patterns as permission to forgive yourself and believe in your own sanity.
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We do not teach out kids about narcissism, borderline, and other disorders because of their other parent. We teach them about high-conflict individuals and about the importance of standards and boundaries because those lessons are crucial to a good life. Whether the other parent is high-conflict or narcissistic or not, it is important to teach our kids about how to handle themselves in a real world that is populated by significant numbers of problematic people.
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We begin with the principle (the fact) that the narcissist's words and actions are caused by their disorder...not by you. Their words and actions are disordered, not personal.
From there, we focus our attention on the things we love and the things we are creating. We avoid mantras and affirmations that refer back to the narcissist because such affirmation work to produce more of the same. Instead, we direct ourselves to the things we love about ourselves, our kids, our home, our lives, and the things we are excited about creating. -
Child exchanges can be uncomfortable and tense...been there! This episode discusses several potential remedies and rules of thumb for conducting child exchanges with a high-conflict or disordered coparent.
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Narcissists seek attention, plain and simple. They thrive off of baiting others into conflict and needless interactions. The same generally goes for Borderlines and other various disordered exes.
When baiting is an issue (i.e. the narcissist acts out in one of their many attention-seeking ways), the best antidote is to remain deeply focused on your own vision of what you are working to create in your life. The narcissist seeks to divert your attention away from you own life so they can have your attention for themselves. Don't give it to them. -
Narcissistic coparents, as well as Borderlines and other similarly disordered individuals, have a nasty habit of making up lies, fictitious events, and false allegations. Those of us who have dealt with such people know that there is no end to what they will cook up and pretend to be real.
This episode focuses in on getting very clear on the facts, clear on your own character, and discusses the importance of being impeccable with your word. Once those spaces have been managed, anything that they narcissist can throw at you has been tended by your self-awareness and character. -
Can we get the court to see the Narcissistic coparent for who they truly are? Most likely not, especially since the Family Court System is 1) not equipped to handle mental health matters 2) is predominantly trauma-uninformed and 3) financially incentivized to not see such things clearly.
That said, there are still powerful strategies for protecting yourself if you end up back in the court system. -
ou are not defined by your divorce experience. Your value as a parent is not determined by a custody schedule. What your ex says and does is not a reflection of your worth.
Shared custody does not make you a part time parent or less of a parent. Having a high-conflict ex does not indicate any lack of worth in yourself. Their behaviors often reflect their disorders and not anything personal about you.
Your divorce story is not the narrative of your life. At most, it is a few scenes in a chapter and nothing more.
These people and situations do not define who you are. You do. -
We are generally well aware of what overt narcissists look like, but narcissism can manifest in different ways, including the covert or vulnerable narcissist. This episode touches on the traits of the covert narcissist, and then discusses what to do when it becomes clear that you are dealing with this type of narcissistic person.
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When The Kids Are Failing School At The Other House
Often times when we step in to bail the other parent out, we are enabling them to continue failing as parents. We think we are helping the kids, and perhaps they do benefit in the short-run in some way, but in the big picture we are usually playing into codependency dynamics.
This is a game that currently gets played out with the kids' schooling, especially when they are learning remotely. One household lets them fail and the other gets pulled in to bail them out. The home that lets them fail offloads all accountability onto the kids and onto you to rescue. When dealing with a narcissistic ex, they create a situation where you seem to have to choose between engaging the narcissist and letting the kids fail. It is one of the classic games they play.
We know that bailing the other parent out is part of the narcissistic game that keeps us feeding attention to the other parent. They fail and struggle to draw us in and to offload responsibility onto us. We rescue and compensate for their lack of engagement with the kids and get baited into needless contact with them.
But we’re not doing anyone any favors. Yes, of course we always have a responsibility to make sure the kids do well academically. Academic success is a core responsibility we always carry as parents. The way we can help our kids in this seemingly no-win situation is to introduce logical consequences when they don't show up for themselves to take initiative in their own education. In other words, we have to train them in the skill of showing up for themselves and performing self-sufficiently, which may require us to be the disciplinarian.
We take on this role because we do not want the kids to develop the habit of hiding behind the narcissistic parent's neglect that enables the kids to be lazy and undeveloped.
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#coparenting #coparentingdoneright #codependentnomore #coparentingwithanarcissist #coparentingwithatoxicex #blendedfamily #blendedfamilyproblems #divorcedmom #divorceddad #divorcedparents #divorcedmoms #parallelparenting #unapologeticparenting #narcissisticmother #narcissisticfather #toxicrelationships #toxicfamily #stepparenting -
If you haven't discovered it already, many people seem to have a near limitless capacity to make stuff up and lie, especially in the divorce and coparenting context. This episode digs into these behavioral patterns and discusses strategies to protect yourself for the crazy when it comes. And it will come.
We should never under-estimate an ex's capacity to completely fabricate conversations and events, especially when any Cluster B personality disorder traits are involved. Don't be caught off guard. So many times clients have thought their exes would never do such things, and then they find themselves defending against false accusations, forged documents, and spending tens of thousands of dollars to fend off craziness. -
It is difficult, if not impossible, to comprehend parents who literally do not show up for their kids...especially when that absentee or negligent parent is the other parent of your own child.
Many times the child neglect is part of an attention seeking game played out by a narcissistic parent. The game is designed to keep you enmeshed in contact and enabling.
This episode discusses those situations where the other parent sucks at being a parent, what often lurks behind such behaviors, and what we can do for ourselves and our children when this occurs. -
For those of us who have gone through the divorce process, we often figure out fairly quickly that there are more adversaries than just the ex. We are up against the ex as well as their divorce lawyer, who has a vested interest in stirring up as much conflict as possible. We often have our own divorce lawyer who is aligned with us on one hand but against us on another. Many people end up misused, exploited, and dropped by their own lawyers.
Then add to the mix the court system itself, possibly biased judges, therapists, ad litem attorneys, and you quickly find yourself fighting battles on multiple fronts. -
In this episode I tell my story of how I messed up on my own rules and ended up assaulted, which resulted in me having a permanent neck injury. When it is time to move out...get out, stay out, stay safe. If you must go back to the house for any reason, do so in a way that provides for accountability and protection.
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Narcissistic parents often work to create situations where you are forced to choose between two unsavory choices. They don't want you to have you time. They don't want you to have a good time. So they create situations that feed them attention while simulteneously diminishing your experience with the kids.
And when you choose to take the higher path that actually serves the kids...they use that against you, too.
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#coparenting #coparentingdoneright #coparentingwithanarcissist #coparentingwithatoxicex #parallelparenting #narcissist #narcissisticabuse #narcissisticmother #narcissisticfather #toxicfamily #toxicrelationships #toxicpeople #divorcedmom #divorceddad #divorcerecovery #stepparents #healthyboundaries #blendedfamily #narcissisticabusesurvivor #divorcecoach #unapologeticparenting -
It is okay to teach your kids that they can keep or drop any family traits and practices that they want. There are family habits and values that lead to great life, and there are family habits and traits that may lead the kids away from the type of life they want to create.
We try to have frequent conversations with the kids about the types of life experiences they want to have both now and in the future and then have them check in with which traits, behaviors, and values lead them closer to those experiences and which lead them away.
We couple this with a message that anything and everything they see in the adults and parents around them is it open to critical thought. Not everything we do as parents will serve them as they move into adulthood. Not all of our examples will be good for them.
Ultimately, they are free to decide what they want to keep and what they want to add to. They are always free to decide what they want to drop and what they want to replace with practices of their own.
There are no sacred cows. There are no ways of being that they must keep simply because they saw it in a family member. Everything is open to scrutiny. When we give kids the tools and options to weigh the ways they want to be in life and the freedom to choose or reject any parental traits, they are strengthened in becoming their own unique people. - Montre plus
