Unapologetic Parenting

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.

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.

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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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.