7 Ways To Make Co-Parenting With A Narcissist Tolerable

Co-parenting with a narcissist seems impossible. I know I’ve been there. If your husband or ex is narcissistic, here are 7 ways your he might try to undermine you and your kids, along with 7 ways to overcome it.

To find out how bad it is, see which of the 19 different emotional abuse tactics he uses. Take our free emotional abuse quiz.

The 7 Ways A Narcissist Will Undermine Co-Parenting

• Gaslighting: Narcissistic men are good at making you doubt yourself. They might say you’re overreacting when you’re not. They may say your helicopter parenting when you’re not. Be on the lookout for how he tries to undermine your self confidence.
• Using The Kids To Hurt You: A narcissistic ex may manipulate the kids to hurt you. Or they may want to go into chaos, and so they undermine the children’s medical care, extra curricular activities, or school work.
• Playing the victim: Narcissistic men might twist things to make themselves look like the victim. They may exaggerate situations to get sympathy from others and make you seem like the bad one.
• Undermining your authority: They might try to take control by making decisions without asking you. Or tell your children that you’re not smart or not a good parent.
• Using money as leverage: A narcissistic ex could use money to control you by withholding child support or making unfair demands.
• Seeking revenge: Narcissistic men may hold grudges and act out of spite.
• Lack of empathy: A narcissistic husband or ex won’t understand or care about your feelings. This will make co-parenting with a narcissistic parent really hard.

How Do Stay Sane When CO-Parenting With A Narcissistic Parent

Co-parenting with a narcissistic parent requires a strategic and mindful approach. Here are seven ways to make the process more tolerable:

1. Know Communication Won’t Help When Co-Parenting With A Narcissist

Since communication is just another way for the narcissist to manipulate us, at Betrayal Trauma Recovery we’ve learned that we can’t count on communication to resolve anything. It helps when you know that communication won’t do anything to stop him from causing chaos. Instead, use effective boundaries that don’t need to be “communicated”, like the ones we teach in The Living Free Workshop.

2. Learn About Strategic Boundaries

To learn how to set boundaries strategically, consider enrolling in The BTR.ORG Living Free Workshop.

“I’d been to so many therapists. They just kept telling me to “set boundaries”. What a joke. It never worked. But then I enrolled in The Living Free Workshop at Betrayal Trauma Recovery, and holy cow do these ladies know what they’re doing. I could tell immediately they’d been through it. And figured out safety from these dudes. Thanks so much BTR!!!”

3. Use a Parenting App when co-parenting with a narcissist

Parenting apps can help, because everything is documented. There are calendars and info banks to use to limit communication as much as possible.

4. How Do You Co Parent with a Narcissist When He Undermines Everything? Prioritize Self-Care

Taking care of your own physical and emotional well-being is crucial when co-parenting with a narcissistic parent. Engage in activities that bring you joy and relaxation, and seek support from friends, family, or an online support group for women.

5. Focus on Your Children’s Well-being

Keep your focus on what’s best for your children. Avoid hurting your children by promoting their narcissistic dad’s behavior as “love”. Instead, say, “I’m so sorry. I felt that way too. He hurt me too. I’m sorry he doesn’t seem capable enough to love someone as lovable as you.”

6. Develop a Support Network

Surround yourself with a supportive network of friends, family, and professionals who understand your situation and can offer guidance and encouragement. If you need support, here’s our daily group session schedule.

7. When Co-Parenting With A Narcissistic parent, Stay Informed

Educate yourself about narcissistic behavior and its impact on co-parenting. Listen to The FREE Betrayal Trauma Recovery Podcast to hear other women’s stories and how they coped.

transcript: 7 Ways To Make Co-Parenting With A Narcissist Tolerable

Anne: Tammy Guns is here today. She’s going to share her story. She started her career in auditing and accounting for two big four public accounting firms. Then she served in leadership roles in large scale healthcare organizations before her career as a certified divorce financial analyst. Her expertise extends beyond the advisory realm as a trusted expert witness in courtrooms, offering invaluable insights, utilizing forensic accounting.

She has also served on two boards of directors and completed Deloitte’s certification program for women board readiness. We will talk about co-parenting with a narcissist. Welcome, Tammy.

Tammy: Thank you for having me. I’m excited to talk with you today.

Anne: You mentioned that your personal story is part of what interested you in becoming a certified divorce financial analyst. So can we start there?

Tammy: Yes, well, you can only connect the dots backwards. And when I look back to my dating of him. There were so many signs that showed he was a narcissist, but I was so young.

My wonderful father was incredibly involved in our lives. I’m one of four children. When I met my ex husband, I did not believe a man could not be a good husband and a good father, because I had such an amazing example of one. I was right out of college when I met him. I was just captured. He’s good looking, charismatic. He’s super intelligent. He was a football player in college. I’m like, of course, he’ll be a good dad, of course he’ll be a good husband, because that’s what I had as an example, and I was looking for all the wrong things.

“I Couldn’t Have Known”: What I Wish I Knew Before co-parenting with a narcissistic parent

Tammy: Today, I’d have a phone conversation with him and realize absolutely what a narcissist he is. And co-parenting with a narcissist can feel impossible.

Anne: Well, we don’t know. It’s not our fault. I think even if you learned about narcissism, until the mask comes off, you still wouldn’t know that they were a narcissist. We don’t even have the context for it. You might see the red flags. But because of your context, you think, oh, he’s tired or stressed out. So to say, people saw red flags and then ignored them. I would say people saw the red flags, and the context they had for them was not that context.

Anne: Knowing what you know now, what would you do differently? It’s like, would you do anything different? When you knew what you knew then. And the answer is always I couldn’t do anything different.

Tammy: Correct, I couldn’t. So I was married for about 17 years when my then husband came home and basically said to me, “I’m done being married to you. I know how much you love the children, so you can have them.” It was pretty traumatic to have the rug pulled out from underneath me.

So I ended up going on the journey of a divorce, certainly not understanding anything that was going to happen. In today’s environment, it’s more of a 50/50 situation. But, I went from being a stay at home mom to going back into the workforce, as well as having the children a hundred percent by myself. I do have four college degrees, so I was in the workforce for a while, but at the time I was a stay at home mother.

He Didn’t Want To Be Responsible For The Children, But He Still Wanted Control

Anne: Wow, that is very unique. I don’t hear that every day, where you got them 100 percent of the time. So many women, at least who listen to this podcast or who are co-parenting with a narcissist, are fighting these narcissists or abusers in court for years. So that is like a miracle. Was that happening with many people back then?

Tammy: Even back then, dads had the kiddos every other weekend, probably one night during the week for dinner, like a Wednesday night. What happened in my particular situation is that my ex went through a midlife crisis. He started dating a 25 year old girl who reported directly to him at work. His midlife crisis was, not only do I not want to be married, I also don’t want the responsibility of caring for children. He wanted to travel the world with her, do all sorts of fun things, and of course children get in the way.

At the time, I was incredibly scared. How will I take care of these children full time, as well as work full time? But as you said, Anne, in hindsight, it was the greatest blessing that could ever happen. That way I did have the children by myself as far as not co-parenting with a narcissistic parent.

I spent 10 years in court with him, but it wasn’t over the time with the children. It was a matter of him actually paying me. Our ink was not even dry on our divorce decree, and he was already not paying me spousal support, not paying me child support, et cetera, et cetera.

Hindsight: Unrecognized Signs of Narcissism

Tammy: So I was unfortunately wrapped up in the court system for a very long period of time. Until my youngest child went off to college, but I never had to fight him for time. Like I said, I feel fortunate.

Anne: How did you know that he was a narcissist?

Tammy: He told me, on our wedding night, I will not fail. I do not fail at anything. And so I believed our marriage was for the rest of our lives. I didn’t think he would want to be divorced, because that would be a “failure”.

Of course, everything’s crystal clear in hindsight. But certainly not when that’s happening. I looked up a lot about narcissists. He meets the Mayo Clinic definition of a narcissist, like every point. He lacks empathy. I know that many times people throw the word narcissist around loosely. And that could be just somebody who’s self-absorbed, but he actually meets the Mayo Clinic definition. He didn’t physically abuse. However, emotional abuse has lasting scars.

Anne: And talking about emotional and psychological abuse, which the court doesn’t recognize. And so there’s no way to protect your kids through the courts, because of the current climate of not recognizing it. And so that’s why we have a workshop that teaches women how to strategically face co-parenting with a narcissistic ex.

So let’s talk about court and the problems that happened in court regarding the payment. Even though you had children a hundred percent of the time. And my guess is you had a ton of proof.

What You Need to Know About Family Court When co-parenting With a Narcissistic Ex

Tammy: First of all, depending on what state you are in, you may or may not have a dedicated family court system. Now, why is that important? In my particular case, there was no dedicated family court. So therefore, you would have judges just rolling off the criminal bench. And now they’re like, Oh, hello, I’m in the courtroom. And now let’s talk about family law. My ex was a chief financial officer, a very good looking man, very articulate.

Who would be able to go into court and look the part and talk the part. And he was able to twist all sorts of things so that the judge would actually have some compassion for him, and why he was not paying his child support payments or behind, in paying his spousal support payments.

And in the judge’s eyes, you can imagine, right? They’re just coming off the criminal court system, where there are many very dark things that happen. So then when you’re just looking at someone, Oh, you’re behind on your child support payments, and here’s the reason for it: they have a level of compassion that they should not have.

And the courts are very clunky. He wasn’t paying. So now I’m financially feeling that impact of not having that income.

And now you’ve got increased expenses, because now your attorney says, I need another $5,000. I need another $10, 000. And they want their payment right away, or they’re not going to work for you. So now your expenses are increasing at a time your revenue or your income is decreasing.

Playing keep away with court dates

Tammy: And it’s not like you’re going to get an answer in five minutes. You might file something with the courts, and they might not hear it for months. And then just as it’s coming up, and he did this to me a lot, and actually because I had the children a hundred percent of the time, I moved states for my career.

And even though the children and I lived in Colorado. I always had to catch a plane to go back to where he was domiciled, to go to court. It’s so frustrating. I had paid for my plane ticket.

I had my attorney completely prepped for the hearing, so you paid all that attorney preparation time. I’m paying for the hotel room, and I’d get a call at 10:00 o’clock at night from my attorney. Oh, by the way, they’re continuing the hearing. A narcissistic parent will do that on purpose.

A narcissist is going to do that in order to mess with you. If they really had a good reason to continue in the hearing, they would have done it before I ever got on that plane. So that was just another tactic to interfere with my life. This would just go on and on. One of my hearings took over two years for them to consider child support.

So people should understand. It’s not like, yay, I get my day in court. No, even when you have your day in court, the ruling, I’ve been on cases that I’ve testified, and the ruling doesn’t come until a year later.

No Matter What Your Attorney Or The Law Says, A Narcissistic Co Parent Doesn’t Play By The Rules

Anne: It seems to always benefit the abuser and never the victim, just in general. If you want a rule, which there are no rules, right? Because it can go any way, but the likelihood of it benefiting the abuser is much higher than the likelihood of it benefiting the victim.

Tammy: Absolutely.

Anne: That’s the scary part. And I think the other issue is enforcement, because no matter what the ruling says, when you’re co-parenting with a narcissistic parent, enforcing it will be another part of the problem.

Tammy: I’m on the case right now, where one party should pay my fees, as well as my client’s attorney fees. Now, there’s even a ruling that says that has to happen. I still haven’t received my payment. So I know exactly what you’re saying happens. The cases that end up in court and end up in court for years, always one of the parties is a narcissist. Because no one else wants to spend that kind of energy, time, and resources.

In fact, my attorney would always say it’s cheaper for him to pay you than to pay his attorney and get the ruling, because the rulings would go in my favor, but it’s a year and a half later or two years later. So in the meantime, I’m struggling. So it is absolutely an abuse tactic. And I said to my attorney, I don’t think you understand.

Playing “Their Game:” Co-Parenting With a Narcissistic Parent

Tammy: This is not a matter of it’s less expensive for him to pay me outright. This is a game. I promise you that when you’re co-parenting with a narcissist, this is a game.

Anne: It’s a power play, and they like it. They’re the opposite of normal people, who think that chaos and spending money to hurt people is not enjoyable. There’ve been times where he comes into court so happy. And that always surprises me. It shouldn’t, but it’s really interesting to me. The victim is so overwhelmed. Not necessarily disheveled, because women can show up well put together.

So that’s not what I’m saying, but she’s clearly not enjoying this. And he is enjoying it. What are your thoughts about why these types of abusers enjoy it? Especially after your own personal experience?

Tammy: Having experienced it myself, I promise you the abuser walks in almost like a saunter. It’s interesting to see it. I’ve seen the narcissist put their arm around the back of the chair of their attorney, and they sit back and are absolutely at ease.

And of course, this guy says he has no money, but here’s evidence he actually does. Yeah, it’s a game, and it’s a way to still exert control. Because in a relationship when you’re still together, whether dating or married. There’s a level of control that happens.

And I remember my attorney said to me the day we actually officially divorced, “I’m worried about you.”

getting a warning from my attorney

Tammy: And I said, “Why would you be worried about me? He’s never hit me. He’s never done anything physical to me.”

He said, “I’m telling you right now, he no longer has control over you, and he will seek it in some manner.” And that’s what he did. So instead of being able to abuse me emotionally in our home every day, the only way to exert control and abuse over me was through the court system. And he used it. It truly is a weaponization of the court system.

Anne: Yeah, it’s legal abuse that the legal system is willingly and actively participating in. Now, does that mean I think they are knowingly doing that? No, I don’t think the judges are like, I know he’s abusive, and that’s fine. But they are making the abuse worse for the victims, and it’s unfortunate they’re not aware of that. They become extensions of the abuse in some way.

Tammy: They do. And these judges have many cases on their docket. People have their “right” to their day in court. So when you file a petition, when you file motions, you have a right to that. Yes, the abusers know that. A lot of times I’ve seen cases where people are behind in paying their child support payments. All of a sudden, the day before court, like I’ve seen cases where people are behind over $100,000 in paying child support. And then the day before court to compel them to pay, they might pay like $30, 000.

And so then you’re like, Oh, okay, well they made an effort. So it absolutely is a system where the narcissist can continue to abuse victims who are co-parenting.

Caught Between A Rock And A Hard Place: Pressure To Settle When co-parenting with A Narcissist In Court

Anne: Can we talk about what I would like to deem as unethical pressure? A victim’s attorney will put on her to settle, which might be in her best interest, rather than spending another $150, 000 going to court in attorney fees. This happened with me, and I am still upset about it. We didn’t even present anything to the court. Like a motion or even a defense or anything. And my attorney said, “That will cost you $150, 000 in attorney fees. So why don’t we just shut this down now and only pay $40, 000 in attorney fees?

In the process, I got zero things that I wanted, like literally zero. So the only thing I paid the attorney fees for was to basically wrap up the case. So I didn’t have something in court happening. I knew I had all the proof on my side, but it was too expensive for me to do it. And the attorneys knew it. Lose, because even if I won, I was still out $150, 000 that I did not have. So can you talk about that rock and a hard place that victims are in, and how their attorneys end up traumatizing women in this process?

Tammy: You’re absolutely correct. This is the dilemma that happens. The fact that an attorney will sit down with their client and say, “Listen, we’re going to go to court and we’re going to lose on things.”

Winning in court of appeals but losing anyway

Tammy: We’ll go to court, and we’ll win on things that you thought there’s no way we’ll win. It’s hard to tell what could happen in a case with a with a narcissist. Certainly you have prior case history, but the courts are always evolving. And so it’s never a hundred percent sure. That’s why in my particular situation, we even went to the court of appeals, because the lower court judge who had rolled off the criminal bench didn’t understand family law, and actually made an error in the ruling. And so that was an additional expense.

Now I’m fortunate, this is not the case most of the time. My attorney firm believed so strongly that the judge had made a mistake. They said, “We’re going to fund most of this.” Cause it was tens of thousands of dollars, and they wanted it because it was prestigious, and for their law firm to go before the court of appeals and actually win.

And we did win in the court of appeals. But again, now you’re talking about another year. Had, I had to make that decision myself and foot the entire bill. There’s no way. I would have had to live with the judges error in the ruling. But even though the attorney firm I worked with was willing to do that, it was remanded to the lower court.

And let me tell you, it can really annoy the judge that now you appealed them and you have to continue to be in front of that judge. They can retaliate against you in their rulings. And so even though I won in the court of appeals, in reality, I did not.

Why Is The Law So Unpredictable When Co-Parenting With A Narcissist?

Anne: Can you talk about why the law is so unpredictable?

Tammy: Back when I divorced, there weren’t a lot of statutes, and that was back when whoever had the bigger, better hired gun would win in the court system. Now, I will say the courts have improved on some level in that there are far more statutes that they follow. So it is better, but it’s still not where it needs to be. Case law can affect things. Back when I got divorced, if you got divorced with the exact same case facts in a different county or in front of a different judge, you could get an entirely different ruling.

It’s just that it’s a very old, archaic system that has a lot of things that need improvement. Because, like I said, the landscape is they really want 50/50 parenting.

Anne: Yeah, in Utah, we just passed Om’s’s law, which is similar to Caden’s law. Are you aware of that law?

Tammy: I don’t think I am.

Anne: Where are you?

Tammy: I’m in Colorado.

Anne: So you guys passed it too.

Tammy: Okay.

Anne: It made reunification therapy illegal. And the reason why is because abusers and narcissistic co parents are using it. I mean, it’s just an abuser tactic. So, now they’ve just renamed it a different name, and they still do it. There’s no way to stop them, because now it has a different name, and they’re still court ordering it. Even though it’s against the law, and also against the law in Colorado.

Passing Laws to protect children

Anne: We try to run it here about emotional and psychological abuse. Because at least two cases were here, and you had one recently, someone who was never physically abusive, ever, then murdered people. Yours was with the dentist who murdered his wife. It is called Caden’s Law in Colorado, and it was passed in 2023. It protects children from abuse in custody cases. And this would be at play with the money situation if he gets less custody.

Because then he would need to pay more, and I feel like there’s two things happening with abusers. There’s just the control, they like the control. But the second part is that they want the most custody to pay the least amount of child support. And so the kids get to their house, and thtey neglect them at their home. They don’t think, “Wait, I’m going to have to actually do something with these children.”

Tammy: Absolutely.

Anne: They just want to have the most amount of parent time possible, because all they see is the paycheck to their ex. And a narcissist would rather make their kids miserable at their house, neglecting them, than pay their ex any child support.

Tammy: Absolutely, because the child support formula, at least in Colorado, is based on the income of mom, income of dad, who pays the health insurance, because that ends up getting split. And so if one person pays it, that’s factored into the child support calculation. And then obviously time with mom and with dad.

Time Is Money When Co-Parenting With a Narcissist

Tammy: Yes, more time if it’s a 50/50 split. Child support ends up being pretty low actually here in the state of Colorado. Whereas, if mom has predominantly far more time, the child support calculation certainly increases considerably. And when the children are with dad, homework isn’t done. Or they get dropped off at school late, you know, things like that.

Anne: We don’t recommend trying to get a parenting coordinator or custody evaluator when co-parenting with a narcissist, because that’s another avenue for him to abuse her. So if he messages her, and she won’t do what he wants, because the parenting plan says no, right? You’re supposed to pick up on Wednesdays, and he’s like, no, I want to pick up on Thursdays. Then he can go through the parenting coordinator, and the parenting coordinator will make her do it. That’s why we’re like, don’t even use a parenting coordinator. We do not recommend it at all.

So one of the things that I’ve often either asked women that I talked to, or I’ve thought myself, is, “If you were a billionaire, would you want to remain married to this person?” Pretty much everyone I’ve asked says, “No, I wouldn’t. Because I want to continue being a stay at home mom.”

Or “Because I want to continue to homeschool.” I’m not a homeschooler, but other women have wanted to do that. Their life is drastically changing in a way they can’t control. And so finances are such an important piece of that puzzle.

Financial Strangulation: What You Need To Know And How To Be Strategic

Tammy: Absolutely, it’s incredibly frustrating, because what can happen in a divorce with a narcissist is what’s called financial strangulation. And the other side can do that, especially if you have a working spouse, and then the other is a stay at home spouse. And so they’ll cut off bank accounts or credit cards. So it can cut off people’s access to cash or the ability to leave the situation. Here I have four college degrees, but at the time I divorced, I was a stay at home mom because we supported his career to advance.

And it helped him. It didn’t help me personally. And then I had to raise my children a hundred percent, but also get back into the workforce. And it’s very scary.

Anne: I recently saw two cases where the ex was extremely wealthy. When I say extreme, I mean extreme. The women ended up with hardly anything, because he shut down bank accounts or moved money around, spent a lot of money, or ended up scaring her so badly that she did not get what she was entitled to. And the lawyers in her case were like, do you want to spend four more or five more years? I think there’s a disconnect between what you’re legally entitled to, like this is the law.

And then actually spending the money to get it, and there’s no way around that. That’s what our Living Free strategies are about in our workshop that teaches women. This is strategically how to deal with them.

Dealing with financial control

Anne: And it might mean that you leave a bunch of money that you’re entitled to on the table. So that he doesn’t abuse you anymore.

Tammy: Exactly what you’re saying. If one person has control over the credit cards, has control over bank accounts, take out a credit card right now in your name only. You can use the household income. So you can get a higher credit limit. Financial strangulation is a real thing. Because to have an attorney represent you, you have to pay the attorney, and to pay your bills, you have to have financial resources.

Like you’re saying. Women say, “I don’t even qualify for rent. No one will rent to me because I don’t have a credit score history.”

Some landlords want the full lump sum right away, and people don’t have financial resources to do that. It’s rare that people have financial resources, because like you’re saying, most people are just getting by.

Anne: In a defense case, like if you’re charged with a crime, you at least get the public defender, but there is no version of a public defender in divorce.

Tammy: What’s supposed to happen is that once a petition for dissolution has been filed, everything has to be status quo. So you’re not allowed to change beneficiaries. You’re not allowed to drop people from health insurance policies. You’re not allowed to do all these things. But abusers will do that. And do you have the ability to say they were wrong? Yeah, but it requires financial resources to pay the attorney to get in front of the judge.

co-parenting with A Narcissist: what to do when he Isn’t Following The Law And You Can’t Afford A Fight

Anne: And think that’s the main problem that I see repeatedly with attorneys is they’ll tell the victims, well, this is the law. He can’t do that. I think the court isn’t recognizing that he IS doing it. I remember my attorney saying, “Once this is signed” and I’m just laughing now. “You don’t need to worry, because this is what the parenting plan says.”

And I was like, “The second I sign it and he signs it, the case is over. But I can literally scrunch it up and throw it in the garbage can because he’s not going to follow it.”

Tammy: Correct, a narcissistic parent, doesn’t follow it. Even when I went through my divorce, he tried to have a good appearance in front of the kids. He would say, “I’m going to pick up the kids at five o’clock for dinner.” So I would make plans to go out with girlfriends, or maybe go on a date, and lo and behold, it’s eight o’clock and he still hasn’t picked them up.

He might keep them overnight on a Friday night and he would say, ” They’re sick.”

And I’m like, “It’s Saturday.”

He goes, “I don’t know who their pediatrician is. I don’t know who to call.” So, back to the beginning of our conversation. I was fortunate that I had the kids a hundred percent of the time. Because had they been with their dad, they would have missed a lot of things. He didn’t know who their pediatrician was.

He purposely creates exhaustion

Tammy: And it actually would have been for me personally, not even the children. I know I would have gone through him not picking up the kids when he said he was or not dropping them off. In fact, when I moved states for a job, he had the children that day. And he knew I had to get on the road at a decent hour.

Our exchange time was 5 o’clock, because I had many hours to go before I could get to a hotel. He didn’t bring the kids back that night until 11 o’clock, and I had to get on the road that late. What are you going to do? How litigate that in court?

You know, that was just another way to exhaust me, which is terrible, right? He purposely kept the kids until 11 o’clock that night. I was exhausted. So, I know that I was fortunate that I got my children 100 percent of the time. Because I would have had that day in and day out, that type of abusive situation of not following the parenting plan at all.

Anne: So it’s hard to be like the parenting plan will help, or in my own personal case, my attorney would say, “Did you see the draft, was it okay?”

And I was like, “I’ll just sign anything. I don’t even care what it says, because it does not matter.”

Tammy: Because you know who that person is. There’s got to be more education within the court system.

Why Having A Strategy For Co-Parenting With A Narcissistic Parent Is So Important

Tammy: I remember going to a therapist who specialized in narcissists right after I divorced, because I was quite broken emotionally. I remember the therapist saying to me, “You know, that tool belt you have to interact with other people? You need to take that off and set it aside, because it doesn’t apply with a narcissist.”

I remember almost having this sigh of relief hearing those words, to know that there was someone who absolutely understood what I was going through. Because you can’t explain, like other people, even my girlfriends, who I love dearly, they would say, “Why does he do that? Why can’t the court see what he is doing?”

And I would say, “Here’s the thing, you’re trying to use that tool belt of normal conflict management or normal personal interaction, but that tool belt does not apply with a narcissist. You have to take that off and throw it away because we are talking about an entire new set of circumstances. And they don’t play by the rules. It’s all playing to win. It’s a game.”

And it’s sad. I actually believe, this is in hindsight, that my ex husband saw my goodness, and he saw my light, and he wanted what I have. He wanted my view of the world. And so because he couldn’t have it, he was going to make sure I was just beat down to the ground.

He uses legal abuse

Tammy: Unfortunately, it took until my daughter turned 18 before I finally could have a life where I could live without him in it. In the court system, you’re tied to them until they’re 18 years old. And so he could use the courts to abuse me up until that time. Just like you’re saying, they view the courts as an extension of a way to abuse you. At the time, I looked at it as, I’m doing this on behalf of my children. My children have a right to this money. I took him to court to get him to pay, but he always took me to court to reduce my child support.

A narcissistic parent is going to lie. And a lot of them are quite successful individuals. My ex was a chief financial officer, because they can use their charisma to move up the corporate ladder to be business owners.

I had one case where, “Oh, I make $80, 000 a year.” And I told the judge, “No, he makes $480, 000 a year.” The judge absolutely took my report in its entirety. During COVID, where people got those PPP loans, that was a huge abuse in the court system. Because these business owners, maybe their revenue had gone down. But now their employee expenses were zero, because the government through the PPP loan paid for that, but they still got to deduct those expenses.

The court system is a gauntlet of pain

Tammy: So these narcissists ran to court, and told the judge, stop my child support. Look, my business is in the red. In reality, it wasn’t. Their revenue was down, but their expenses were zero. You have to be careful of these people who run to the court seeking relief from their child support payments. In reality, they were doing just fine financially because of these loans. And I know the shortcomings of the court system.

Anne: The court system is this gauntlet of pain.

Tammy: If you’re going into a court system and thinking it’s going to solve your problems, it’s not. Are there glimmers of hope and are there things that can happen? Yes, you’ve got this legal system, but then you’ve got the emotional situation you’re going through And certainly there’s a financial situation. You have to have a multi-pronged approach to resolve it.

And that’s why, the beauty of you offering a course to women to help heal them and give them tools in other avenues to deal with this narcissist. Even recently, I saw my ex husband, because my oldest daughter, my middle child, just got married. You’ll continue to see them at birthdays, graduations, weddings.

The Court System Is Not Going To Solve Your Problems with A Narcissistic parent: Build A Support System

Tammy: The tools that you offer in order to be able to deal with them, they’re invaluable going forward. You can get to the other side, but you need an incredible support system. You cannot do this alone. I would always say to my girlfriends, I swear I’d be six feet under if it weren’t for them. Because they were the ones that saw my beauty. They were the ones who saw my strength. They were the ones that were my greatest cheerleaders, who said, “Get up, dust yourself off. You can do this another day.”

So I really believe having an effective support in place was key for me to be able to get to the other side of this. I could never get to the other side alone.

Anne: Going through the court in some way or another, you’ll have to have a legal document that you sign to be divorced.

Tammy: Correct.

Anne: There’s no way around it. Now, the way I got my kids completely free of my ex, we didn’t go to court, but he signed a legal document. So, I’m not saying that will work for everyone, there’s no guarantees. But, there’s no way around the legal ramifications and some type of legal process. And, you can do a DIY. You can have a BTR coach help you. You can hire an attorney. There are multiple avenues to do this, but you have to do it.

There’s No Way Around It: You Need A Good Team and A Good Strategy

Anne: And so, no matter how terrible it is, or miserable or hopeless, having the right team a trauma informed divorce coach like we have here. We mostly deal with things like strategy and emotions. How to keep yourself centered, thought strategies that you can use so that you can actually function. I think the hopeful part is that this is one of the hardest things you’ve ever done. You can get through it, you will survive co-parenting with a narcissist.

There is a light at the end of the tunnel, and our team will be there for you. No matter what the outcome is, you will survive and your kids will be okay. I think that’s what I’m trying to land on. For all of us who have been through it, and we’re looking back. We know that will happen, but it’s very hard to feel that when you’re going through it.

Tammy: It is. There’s no other way, especially when you have children, because the courts require you to have the parenting plans and whatnot. But there is light at that other side, but you must walk through this process. And that’s why, just as you stated, it’s important that professionals are in place. Who will help you on several fronts to navigate this environment, legally, as well as personally, emotionally, spiritually, all of that. The more of a support system you can have in place, the better chance of your success.

Anne: Well, thank you so much, Tammy, for spending time to talk with us today. I appreciate you.

Tammy: I have enjoyed my time with you. Thank you so much for having me on your show.