Successfully co-parenting with someone you used to be in a relationship with requires a healthy dose of understanding, maturity, and selflessness. Even if you ended the relationship on the best of terms and are friends, it can still be difficult to manage.
New boundaries are being set, rules and guidelines have to be followed, and parents are learning how to cultivate a relationship where they do everything for the child—including invest and disinvest in each other’s personal lives when necessary.
Now when the other party is toxic or even narcissistic, the difficulty in co-parenting is amplified by a million. Your life is now planted right in the middle of everything unhealthy and uncomfortable: control issues, manipulation, lies, and constantly being provoked.
You know how uncomfortable that is for you. Now imagine how harmful that is for children who can’t properly cope, defend themselves, or fully make their own decisions—that should put a fire under you to get a hold of this situation as soon as possible.
But before we get into the six keys to survival, let’s talk about what it really means to be co-parenting with someone who is truly a toxic or narcissistic influence vs someone you simply have a difficult relationship with.
Spotting Unhealthy Behaviors In Others (And Even In Yourself) During The Co-Parenting Process
Co-parenting with a narcissistic or abusive ex is not the same as co-parenting with someone you simply don’t get along with. One of the biggest misconceptions about the other parent in the equation is that they are a negative, divisive force if they don’t agree or comply with every thing you wish to do.
While someone can be difficult to get along with or even a less than ideal partner or parent, this doesn’t automatically make them abusive or narcissistic. However, there are some signs to watch out for when it comes to how your co-parent treats you and your child:
- Emotional abuse. Emotional abuse is when someone humiliates, belittles, and/or uses your valid feelings against you as a way to weaken your self-esteem and confidence, gain control over you, or invalidate how your feelings and intentions.
- Lack of empathy. Being overly critical and judgemental of others while also not being self-aware enough to pinpoint when their behavior is hurtful or unacceptable; Instead of apologizing, they often default to, “you’re too sensitive” as a way to defend their actions.
- Lying and manipulation. Examples include thwarting your positive or beneficial actions by sabotaging plans, feeding your child(ren) incorrect information as a way to “get them on their side”, or only being a stable, available parent when they can get their way.
If you find yourself on the receiving end of these behaviors, or even the one to engage in them, the following tips may help you navigate co-parenting with someone abusive or narcissistic.
Please note that abuse, emotional or physical, should not and does not have to be tolerated. If you feel that this is a matter that should be handled with law enforcement, mental health or legal professionals, please do not hesitate to move forward with that process.
1. Acceptance and release of control.
The first step, and perhaps the most significant, is understanding and accepting that you cannot change or control this person. The more you lean into the idea of “getting your way”, the more you’ll be met by resistance by someone whose main goal is to also have their way.
The advice here is simple: release control and keep the goal in mind. The main focus of co-parenting should always be your child(ren). It isn’t about winning, getting your way, or even defeating someone you think deserves the shorter end of the stick.
Accept that you are dealing with a less than ideal co-parent that you cannot control or even influence into being who you need them to be, and make the deliberate decision to move forward as healthy and patient as possible.
2. Set boundaries early and often.
Setting boundaries with someone who is set on being toxic or unnecessarily difficult sounds like an impossible feat, but with a little work and dedication on your end, it’s very possible. The most important part of boundary setting is figuring out what limitations and restrictions are actually appropriate for your situation.
Your ex-partner may be perfectly fine in some ways, but dreadful to deal with in others. For example, they might be a generally great parent but their constant attempts to continue a romantic or sexual relationship with you makes otherwise simple things very awkward and messy.
Or perhaps they have no trouble communicating with you as a co-parent, but they also overshare details about their life with your child(ren), which is both inappropriate and uncomfortable for children.
A few questions to ask yourself to help you set proper boundaries in co-parenting situations:
- What specific areas need better boundaries?
- Would limiting or restricting this particular behavior help or hurt my child(ren)? Why?
- Once I set this boundary, what is a healthy behavior to replace the previous one?
3. Be strategic with your communication.
Communicating with a toxic co-parent can definitely be an uphill battle. More often than not, we wish we could do away with communication altogether! Unfortunately, that’s not realistic for the vast majority of co-parenting situations. So what should you do? Be strategic.
If you know that conversations always end in disagreements and arguments, keep them short, sweet, and fact-based. Don’t deep-dive into frivolous opinions, personal business, or anything that could fuel a pointless fire.
Maybe it’s better to send a text or email; Call on a trusted mediator to help connect you two in a healthy way; or even set up a schedule where you two talk about your child(ren) at the same time every day, week, or month.
4. Make a solid parenting plan and schedule.
A solid plan and schedule that actually works is the best case scenario in co-parenting because it outlines expectations and responsibilities with great specificity. You have dates, times, and everything else you need with very little room for debate or argument about the details.
For the sake of keeping it real, these don’t always work. This is especially true when you have a wishy-washy co-parent that’s inconsistent with both their word and their time.
In this case, the best choice may be to seek legal help. Of course, getting the courts involved is never a fun process, but they give you the necessary tools and resources to develop detailed custody, financial support, and appropriate visitation schedules.
5. Develop healthy coping skills for yourself—Yes, you will need them.
You won’t win every fight. Arguments will happen again, and then some more. Your child(ren) will be upset at the circumstances, and sometimes upset with you. Your ex-partner will stop cooperating with you at times. These are just some of the harsh realities of co-parenting with a toxic or narcissistic person.
And to be completely honest, this doesn’t mean you’re failing or doing a bad job at all. Rather, these are just the natural difficulties and discomforts of trying to turn an unhealthy thing into something, well, healthy.
Self-care is important here. Make sure you take some time out to keep yourself grounded and centered. Support groups, therapy, time with friends and/or family, spa days. Whatever it takes to stay sane, please do it.
6. Continue to develop an open, honest, and appropriately transparent relationship with your child.
One of the biggest mistakes parents make is treating their children as if they are too young or too dumb to understand certain situations. The unfortunate reality is that kids may not fully understand what’s going on, but they are still very aware of the distress, instability, and toxicity constantly developing around them.
This puts them in an incredibly vulnerable place because they take in all of the stress and discomfort from the situation, but often don’t have the necessary tools, skills, or support to deal with it.
This is why it’s important to talk to your children. You don’t have to tell them everything happening between you and the other parent, but you do need to have open and honest conversations with them about their thoughts and feelings about everything going on around them.
When it’s your turn to speak, make sure your child(ren) know that:
- They are loved.
- They are supported.
- They have a safe space.
- This isn’t their fault.
- It’s OK for people to disagree.
- Disagreements can be fixed.
- None of this is their responsibility.
Once both parents establish healthy boundaries and an open line of communication with their kid(s), you’re already well on your way to developing a healthy co-parenting situation.
