Co-parenting is one of the most challenging obstacles you’ll have to face when dealing with a narcissist.
They simply won’t cooperate because they don’t want to fall in line and they don’t want to do the right thing. They don’t want to be held accountable or follow rules and regulations, and they don’t want to be harmonious and they definitely don’t want to be a team player.
In fact, they will do the opposite.
And will not hesitate for an instant to use the children as pawns to trigger you to get a reaction. They will do this by smearing you to your own children and wreaking havoc in your relationship with them.
Is there anything you can do to safeguard yourself and your children? To curb this type of abuse? To live your life harmoniously and happily?
I believe there is, so join me in today’s Thriver TV episode and I will show you the tools that can make this possible.
Video Transcript
In today’s episode, I’m going to explain to you how narcissists don’t co-parent, why trying to get cooperation creates less and the necessary tools that you need to detach, self-heal and self-generate and why that is so important.
Just before we get started, remember to hit the subscribe button, if you haven’t already, and like this video, if you find it helpful.
Let’s get going on this incredibly painful and sensitive topic.
As a mother, I know how this can affect your child as well as your relationship with your child and of course, yourself. I’m incredibly passionate about this topic, and it’s my deepest desire to help give you some direction, power and relief as well as solutions with this today.
This is so important because people will tell you it’s impossible to share custody with narcissists successfully and for you and your children to have happy, productive, and healthy lives in such a situation. I promise you that is not the truth, because so many people in this community have got really successful relationships with themselves, their life and their kids whilst co-parenting effectively.
How Narcissists Don’t Cooperate
Let’s get going on my first point that I really want to cover with you. It’s about how narcissists don’t cooperate.
Narcissists don’t co-parent. I don’t know that you’ve been experiencing this. They don’t want to fall in line. They don’t want to do the right thing. They don’t want to be held accountable or follow rules and regulations, and they don’t want to be harmonious and they don’t want to play on a team.
The one thing that a narcissist is interested in, in all circumstances is narcissistic supply, which means that I can affect other people significantly enough to know that I exist. It’s attention.
So, when you are attempting to co-parent with a narcissist, he or she is going to trigger you. They’re going to be uncooperative. They’re going to say one thing and do another. They will use the children as pawns, absolutely to trigger you to get a reaction, which means – I’m significant enough to affect you.
Another thing that narcissists do time and time and time again, in attempted co-parenting, is they play divide and conquer games, which means that they are going to set the children against you. They’re going to smear you to the children.
They’re going to tell the children that you said this when you didn’t say that, and that is then going to be a narrative of blaming you and that you are the cause of the problems. That’s what they’re going to tell the children. They’re going to tell that to other people in their life as well, people who are around the peripheral, because what that does is it vindicates them. A narcissist is so interested in a narrative of them being vindicated … that it wasn’t me – it was you.
A narcissist wants to play all of these games and use all of these tactics to punish you. How dare you leave them? Or how dare you try and get on with your life? Or how dare you tell other people what they are or how they behave? How dare you?
The false self can’t deal with that. So, punishing you by using the children as pawns is a very, very common tactic. So, let’s just get all of that very clear. I want that to be clear so that you can understand what their motivation is. It’s about narcissistic supply, so that means they are not going to cooperate because to keep you happy and have a harmonious co-parenting relationship means that they’re not going to get narcissistic supply.
Trying To Get Cooperation Achieves Less
We can so easily fall into the trap of trying to get cooperation by trying to hold them accountable, by reacting, by saying, “No, this is what you do need to do. Why aren’t you doing this?” Arguing and getting frustrated.
Of course, you’re going to get hurt and frustrated. This is your children, but the more you try for cooperation, the less you’re going to get, because it is feeding the narcissist’s need for narcissistic supply. If they know that they can affect you, they’re going to do more of that. I know this is hugely counterintuitive as a parent.
Of course, you’re going to speak up. Of course, you’re going to try and hold them accountable. Of course, you’re going to want to get them to do the right thing and get angry with them, because with a normal person, if you pointed it out, they’d be like, “Oh yeah, okay. Look, I should have been there at 2:00 p.m. I’m sorry, I’ll do that next time.” Whereas the narcissist will come back with tit for tat or they’ll lie to you and then they’ll be even later next time. They’re going to keep doing that. So, we have to stop doing what is the intuitive normal response, which is to fight back. It’s going to make it worse.
Now, this is where you need to understand a deeper Quantum understanding of this because I promise you when you’re up against a narcissist, this is not a normal battle. This is a spiritual battle. This is a deep inner, emotional, energetic, spiritual battle. So, the old rules don’t apply here.
You have to understand what is really going on with a psychic vampire, who is stealing your energy and your attention and your emotions and using them as the bullets against you.
So, the deeper Quantum understanding is so within, so without. The more upset and frustrated and angry you get, the more you are going to receive back from the narcissist the spiritual mirror of those traumas. You’re going to get more things to get disturbed about.
Detachment – The Beginning Of Parallel Parenting
What do we do?
We have to apply the right tools to change this around and get your power back for you and most importantly for your children – for their health and sanity.
Detachment is the first tool, and this is the beginning of parallel parenting and I’ve included a link to my information regarding parallel parenting with this video and you’ll find it in the blog as well. It is essential to understand what parallel parenting is all about.
In essence, you let go of trying to control the narcissist parenting with your child and you fully engage in what you can control, which is your parenting, your boundaries and your rights. I know you might be thinking, “But, Melanie, if I let go and I let whatever happen over there, it’s going to get worse.”
It’s actually the opposite with a narcissist. By controlling what you can control, which means detaching and when you do need to have contact with a narcissist, rather than having direct contact, you’re having your parenting situation and there’s their parenting situation, and the middle body communication ports between those need to be a third party contact.
Now, detachment can be really effective with a tool such as Our Family Wizard, and I’m going to supply the link to that as well, so you can look it up. A lot of people have been able to get a court order, which says, we’re going to have this parenting tool. It’s a recognized parenting tool.
So, it means that all communication is only about your child. It’s all accountable. It can’t be deleted off a server, and you are able to respond in ways where you refuse to get emotionally hooked in and you’re not retaliating. You keep it very clinical, very grey rock – this is what I will agree to, this is what I won’t agree to and leave it at that.
Because when you go into effective modified contact, which comes through detachment, you are starving the narcissist from narcissistic supply. Right? You are no longer feeding the bear that then has the energy to keep coming back and attacking you harder.
Also, this is about detaching from the trauma of what’s going on with your children. I promise you as a parent, where your energy goes, where your somatic beliefs and inner composition goes is where your children’s goes.
If you are constantly obsessing about them being co-parented with a narcissist, well, then that’s going to make your children sicker. I promise you, and we’re going to talk a little bit more about how do you detach from reacting, how do you detach from the obsession about what’s going on with your children.
Again, it’s all counterintuitive I know that, but we have to get very empowered as parents to know what will work and what won’t work. I promise you for myself and my own experience with a narcissist, with my son and with thousands of other people over the last 10 plus years, your involvement and concern makes your children and yourself sicker and more at risk. We have to do it the Quantum way. This is a spiritual war that you are in with a narcissist.
It’s not logical.
Self-Healing – The Removing Of All Of Your Internal Triggers
This brings me to the next point that we need to look at very deeply … self-healing. This is the Quantum understanding. So within, so without. The more traumatized I am, the more evidence of my trauma is going to meet me from the field from the narcissist.
So, what does this mean, the self-healing? What it means is the removing of all of your internal triggers. You may think that you need to be triggered and energized in that anger, the frustration or the pain to protect your child. You need to know, that is a complete false premise that we believed.
When you are triggered into adrenaline and cortisol, this is where you are not connected to solution, intelligence or support. You’re in your primal prehistoric primitive functions, which are fight and flee.
In fight and flee, it’s effective over a short term to get up a tree away from a predator, but in as far as dealing with a narcissist, all it is going to do is immerse you in the problems even harder without emotional solution and support to get it out of it. It doesn’t work.
If you have released and removed your triggers, you still have the knowing it’s not wrong and then you have the calm emotional beingness. You are powerful in your body and you are not being derailed.
That’s when the right people, resources, support, legal team and judge, etc. will be coming into your experience granting you more of who you are being on the inside, which is powerful, whole and centered. That’s when things start backing you, that’s when all of life can partner you to bring you an outcome of being more calm, powerful, and centered. Which means true healthy unfoldments that also match your Source Truth, which is your and your children’s wellbeing.
You have to understand that in this spiritual war with the narcissist, with them putting the children in the middle, the narcissist is using your anxiety and your traumas to get the hit of energy to continue hurting you. When you stop doing that, because you’re powerful, calm, and centered, then the narcissist runs out of the bullets to hurt you with.
What also happens, and I love this part, is your children will start gravitating to you. They are highly intelligent beings. They are highly intuitive, emotional, sensitive, aligned beings when your trauma is out of the way. They work it out for themselves.
Self-Generation – Releasing All Dependency Hooks
This leads me to the next point. There’s the detachment that is a necessary tool. There is a self-healing that is a huge component of this. Then what comes next is self-generation. This means releasing all of your dependency hooks on the narcissist.
What I want you to understand is that becoming self-generative means I no longer need or rely on you – you false self – who is completely unreliable, who is completely using unreliability to trigger and hurt me and my children. I no longer need you. I no longer rely on you to grant me or my children, a great life. Which means we don’t need you for love, approval, survival, and security because we are becoming a force of that ourselves.
Now, this is huge. This is everything. Because then, you are leading the way as an empowered model, moving out of victimization. That changes the pattern of your children being hooked on sick abusive people trying to get their needs met. This is the most horrific thing that we can teach our children. This is what as victims we do. As a victim, we say, “That is disgusting what they’re doing. They should be doing this.” So, what do you think your children are going to do? They’re going to gravitate to more of those people in the future saying, “This is disgusting because you are not granting me this.”
When we get out of that state, we become an empowered whole person saying, “You can be whatever you want to be. I don’t need you because I am this to myself.” You lead the way for your children and this is beyond powerful.
Now, we have to get past thinking, “Oh yeah, but Melanie, if I do that, I’m going to let the narcissist off the hook. It means that they’re not going to be accountable or responsible.”
A narcissist will never be accountable and responsible. Let go of that. Just let go of that.
A narcissist is never getting off the hook because a narcissist is trapped in their own soul torture every single day needing narcissistic supply to get out of their own self-annihilating thoughts of how defective and unlovable they are.
So, moving beyond all of this means that you reach this soul graduation, “I am capable of generating love, truth, power, success, and peace for myself and my children, regardless of what anybody else is or isn’t doing.”
Can you feel the power of that? Feel it in your body. This is when you leave that rubbish behind.
So, if you agree and resonate with this, I want you to pause this video and I want you to write this powerful declaration below.
“I am capable of generating love, truth, power, success and peace for myself and my children regardless of what anybody else is or isn’t doing.”
I know it’s long, but it’s a very complete powerful declaration. This is going to set up a truth for you that will change everything.
Conclusion
I know that if you are struggling with co-parenting, this formula that I’ve outlined today, that I’ve put here for you, is essential for you. This is what it is, understanding that trying to force a narcissist to co-parent is Wrong Town and how it’s going to make matters worse and not better and this is about taking your power back by detaching, healing on the inside everything that’s getting triggered and being self-generative to leave the madness, the nastiness, the games and the abuse behind.
I want you to know that your children are going to become incredibly empowered and equipped from a very young age to deal and be solid inside, because you led the way for them.
The most effective parallel parenting people in this community have set up boundaries and court orders to detach. They’ve often used Our Family Wizard. They’ve worked diligently on their self-healing and their self-generative belief systems and self with NARP, my Narcissistic Abuse Recovery Program, and many of these people have won custody battles and all sorts of things against the narcissist as a result of using these formulas.
I want to help all of you out there who are struggling with this to take your power back and make it work for you and your child. You can do that in the most effective way by becoming a NARP member.
When you become a NARP member, which you can do today, you can also access the NARP members forum, where you get assistance with parallel parenting from an incredible group of parallel parenters and people from all over the world, who’ve been able to use this system effectively, as well as some of the best minds in narcissistic abuse recovery that can help you with any situation that you’re going through. We’ve seen it all.
I’d also love you to check out the successes that NARP members have had, including with their children. I’m sharing the link to some of these testimonies with you with this video.
I really hope from my heart to yours that this has granted you hope that you know it is not true that you and your children are doomed to a horrible existence for the whole time that you’re going to have to co-parent with a narcissist. That is not the truth. In fact, there can be even more incredible power and heights for you and your children because of this challenge. That’s what NARP will help you achieve.
As always, I am looking forward to answering your comments and your questions below.
Dear Mel, What an absolutely powerful and inspiring video🙏🏾🙏🏾🙏🏾
“I am capable of generating love, truth, power, success and peace for myself and my children, regardless of what anybody else is or isn’t doing”. That feels so grounding, elevating, and empowering in my body💪🏽❤️❤️
Hi Sangeetha,
Thank you and am so pleased that this spoke to you, deeply, cellularly.
Much love to you and yours
Mel 🙏💕💚
Thank you muchly.
This model works and over the past 2 months I have stood in the sidelines watching the Narc set our child up for expulsion from her school. The trail of evidnce is phenomenal, I sat through a meeting with school principal and Narc – in total silence. The Narc “ran straight over the cliff edge and hung himself ” by showing his true self infront of the principal. Amazing day for me – I really did not care and chose to see the benefit for me in the situation. When we heal, detach and get out the way , these Narcs provide quite a show . The funniest thing with that is how completely obliviuos they are to how they expose themselves. Stay detached you cool parents out there, it works wonders 🙂
Hi Annica,
I love that you are working with this model and seeing the incredible and powerful results!
Thank you for your post that will help to inspire others.
Much love to you
Mel 🙏💕💚
Detaching has helped a lot. Melanie, you hit the bulls eye for me. Letting go and reclaiming my identity is huge! My adult children know, but the dog doesn’t, but he’s learning, also, lol, who takes care of him. I feel in control again. In such a short time. Thank you!!!!
Hi Christine,
how gorgeous that you’ve turned this around in such a short time!
Kudos to you!
Love and blessings
Mel 🙏💕💚
How do you parallel parent and detach if you are still living with the father? Eldest son has already mimicked father’s behavior and can be abusive, belligerent to me and younger sisters and has violent tantrums. Therapist has recommended coparenting therapy. Without going, it may appear like I am uncooperative. Going may set me up for more abuse and frustration. How to implement what you suggest when one has not decided to divorce or separate but needs the peace to start healing? How to parent when preparing to leave but know it may take years?
Sending strength in this trying time🙏Just focus on you! I spent too many damn years worried about him and his behaviours… all wasted years… just focus on you🌹
Great article and spot on. I’d love a few practical examples of how to handle disputes in a detached way. They will always happen. I’d feel more confident on my path to healing to have some practical tips I can use.
Hi Grace,
it certainly doesn’t make things more difficult, but it’s not impossible… Even though it may seem to be.
I’d love you to come into my free webinar http://www.melanietoniaevans.com/freewebinar to start learning how to tap into some sanity, peace, relief and power even in the most difficult of narcissistic abuse circumstances.
I would suggest that as the most fundamental starting point for you.
I hope this helps.
Sending strength and healing
Mel 🙏💕💚
You really rock Mel!! Solid advice and at a time I needed it🙏Making the moves😁
That is so awesome Erin!
Many blessings to you
Mel 🙏💕💚
I am capable of generating love, truth, power, success and peace for me and my children regardless of what anybody else is or isn’t doing.
Thank you, Melanie. XXX
Hi Malou,
Please know how welcome you are!
Much love to you
Mel 🙏💕💚
Hi Mel,
you are absolutely right and the way you advice does work!!
Remember last week?
I wrote to Karin, she is one of your wonderful supporters!!
We celebrated the wedding of our eldest daughter last Thursday due to COVID-19 with only 25 friends.
Days before I felt completely unsure and became nervous, because I was going to meet him again and this time with his girls friend and even with my mother in law!!
Karin sent me links and advised me how to look at the situation with wise & warm words and heart.
I started with module one and wrote and grew everyday stronger in a week and finally I became more and more self-generated and it seemed to me that I became even beautiful 😉 … our three girls couldn’t believe it, when I arrived at the wedding
My shining from inside and outside seemed to infect the girls, it was surrounding them, like your angles in the modules 😍🙏🏻 too and we became a glowing bowl of light and love and strength … unbelievable and ever so
w💫nderful … I hadn’t said a word☝🏻I was just shining💃🎉
You are right, when you say: “So within so without ✨🥰✨“ … even the invited friends and the parents of my new son in law felt this special atmosphere which seem to infect everybody … even COVID didn’t have a chance😄
I’ve got certainty, that “I AM capable of generating love, truth, power, success and peace for myself and our girls, regardless of what anybody else is or isn’t doing!”
Im still feeling strong, self generated and beautiful ☺️ and I promised myself and especially my inner being I’ll do further work with your modules✌🏻
As Peggy Guggenheim once wrote in her biography: “I’m a liberated woman”
Thanks ever sooo much Mel for the work you are doing and thanks to Karin for her wonderful support.
Hille ✨
Hi Hille,
that is beautiful that our wonderful Karin helped you so much.
I am so thrilled for you and your girls and that you had such a wonderful NARP QFH infused wedding!
Many blessings and much love to all of you
Mel 🙏💕💚
“I am capable of generating love, truth, power, success and peace for myself and my children regardless of what anybody else is or isn’t doing.”
In fact, there can be even more incredible power and heights for you and your children because of this challenge. That’s what NARP will help you achieve.
Thank You Again Melanie 🙂
Kondwani
Hi Kondwani,
Thank you feel beautiful and inspiring post!
So much love to you
Mel 🙏💕💚
Such wonderful strength love and solidarity here.
The authentic love for myself f is key and Melanie’s programme is helping me own this and live a healthier life for me and my children.
There is no shame in the mistakes I’ve made of the trust I put in people. Being able to admit these things is the difference between me and the Narc – lets keep thriving together it’s so important xxxx
Hi C B,
I’m so pleased that you are feeling this!
Thank you for being such an inspirational and beautiful Thriver.
Love and blessings to you
Mel 🙏💕💚
This video was absolutely brilliant and helped alot. It’s just so hard to out into practice but I’m going to keep trying!
I understand everyrhing you say, sometimes I feel like I’m inside your head…lol
I am in the process of trying to set up child care arrangements for my children and he never plays ball but always manages to play victim. This has been the case for 4 years.
I am so tired and have no energy left. He doesn’t want it to be amicable and nice for us all but I do, but because of my reactions to his bullshit I end up looking like the unreasonable one. It’s like dancing with a devil.
Hi Rachel,
I’m so pleased that this is helped.
I’d love you to come into my free workshop http://www.melanietoniaevans.com/freewebinar
Doing so could prove to be exactly the game-changer that you have needed.
Sending you strength, healing and blessings
Mel 🙏💕💚
Practicing the Wisdom of Solomon with my grown adult sons who now have children of their own, and are mimicking the need for narcissistic supply and entitlement like that of their sperm donor in claiming they “miss” their natural mother in their lives and that of her grand daughters. I have detached and will not become embattled in their own spiritual warfare and gaslighting nor set myself up in competition with my ex’s new replacement part for their affection and attention nor willingly give it myself without honor and reciprocity. Although my heart hurts for their hurts and their lack of awareness of their own cognitive dissonance in how they have interpreted the situation, I know in my heart, for me and for them, I am doing the right thing. To be quite honest, my empathetic nature is more concerned for my feminine counterpart, my sister in strife now married into this mess of which I know is in the stage of the love bombing and entrapment of a totally dysfunctional group of narcissistic male dominance. In every picture of this newly formed “family” that excludes myself as the birth mother and my blood in my grand daughters, I see the same look in her eyes of bewilderment and shock that something is not quite right, something is off, but she cannot put her finger on it just yet, but which I know her soul is fighting for understanding and coping mechanisms. In a way, I hope she accepts her role as subservient and peripheral, as this is the only way she will survive a nefarious plot to destroy her for the benefit and supply of the narcissistic urges present in their personalities. Perhaps in a few years, she will be one of your followers, as I can realistically predict the behavior that is to overcome and drown her eventually. It’s like looking at the doomed, and no way to save her, nor do I really want or need to save any of them from their own making. I generate the love, the self preservation for my own well being and theirs, which is always and essentially enough.
Hi Carol,
I am so pleased that you are focusing your Love and healing on you.
That is always the very best that you can do.
Sending you and your children and your sister love, truth and breakthrough.
So much love to you, and please keep being the loving and courageous soul that you are.
Mel 🙏💕💚
Have been doing parallel parenting for 10 years but last year, having been turned down for an adoption he was applying for due to my testimony regarding his dom violence, he has alienated our daughter aged 12 and havent seen her for a year now. Its tough going as social workers and court have chosen to hide his dv in the contact hearing. Have a final contested hearing at the end of this month where social workers are backing the total removal of contact with me as they are following the wishes and feelings of our child who is totally under his control. I am narping like a demon but its tough keeping centred in this situation.
I totally get it Melanie 💚, and have just been on the phone to my now adult son who didn’t want anything to do with me a few years ago.
I worked the NARP program diligently on myself and by proxy on my son for a long time, and now, even though my son lives in the same house as the narc Dad and his partner, I don’t stress about it, and so our relationship has got much better. He knows that I am the stable parent who loves him unconditionally, and he stays with me sometimes or we go out for pizza. I say nothing about the manipulative paternal family system. I focus on our relationship and lead by example. I let him be himself and tell him every day that I love and support him. After the divorce where I got no maintenance and had my car taken back, I had to sell the family home, but I have managed to buy my own place and car and set up a little business, and have a kind and loving partner and some great friends. Believe me; if I can do it, everyone can. Thank you Mel and your team! 💓
Hi Pauline,
I am so thrilled for you and your son that you have been able to come back together, and that NARP http://www.melanietoniaevans.com/narp has been able to help the shift into this sacred and loving space for you both.
Reading about your breakthroughs brings me great joy. I am so happy for you Pauline!
Thank you for your gratitude to myself and the team, and please know how grateful I am for you.
Much love to you and yours
Mel 🙏💕💚
Hi Vicki,
My heart goes out to you, I can’t even begin to imagine how painful this must be. Please feel the love and support of this incredible community as we all stand with you for the healthy, safe and loving reunion between you and your daughter.
So much love to you both
Mel 🙏💕💚
My poor daddy “didn’t feel significant enough to affect me”, so he began conditioning my step-sisters against me — I only got the results of artful stealth in that “self-vindicating narative”. It affected me “good”, daddy, because I was still sane, did not know insanity and could give such little else in return but to stand and watch you bight off big, dark red mellon chunks of me. You were just starting me off on a possible last lifetime fast track, when I finally agreed to be thrown out of your house. And I am gilded with antique rage over it, but now I understand I must keep fathoming the difference between our species — your initiation of me struck with improvisory mastery (there’s the old stomach knot!). It replays then fast rewinds back to sitting on your shoulders in the few frames I had had with you in childhood. Knowing my weakness even then, you crowned me with a radical conviction that I was the new king of the land. But having seen through a such a father’s glint may turn out to be even better than the vast beauty of nothing, given a little more work. That essentially narcissistically transcieved program perversely helped me get through the next fifteen years of abuse as the dungeon prisoner/pauper/subject/hunchback/servant/jester of my mother’s lonely court. Today I rent a small island of self-exile from that entire land, the dethroned king-supposed-to-have-been, I have awakened on my thrown, having dreamt myself made of negative matter, to celebrate the day inside the film negative of having been the third party that you and mom weaponized against each other. And we are together again, in a three-way dark supply feeding frenzy. like how other families play in pool water. So I smile. (I should go transmute this beastly layer while it has me by my scruff.) Mommy, daddy, you affected me so good, so good . . . I love you.
I am glad those days of “parallel parenting” are long over. When the Narc and I split up I knew he would balk at any child support or any visitation etc etc. So I never went to court regarding child support. If the child wanted to see his father I took him to see his Dad. The result was that I didn’t get child support payments except for a three year jail stint he did. The jail handled his money for him. He really hated that but what could he do? As for visits it turned out “Dad” was too busy with his endless flow of girlfriends and wives going in and out of his life to be too bothered with seeing his son that much.
I won’t say that the attempts at drama weren’t there from time to time. At one point he and one of his wives decided to move across country. Their plan was to take my son with them, take me to court for custody and make ME pay child support. That way they could live off my child support payments and not work much if at all. I quietly visited my lawyer and we had a plan in place in case they ran off with the child.
It all worked out for the better. The child turned into a great adult with incredible insight into people and their situations.
What do you do if you’re still married to the narc and your teenage child is mimicking all of their narc dad’s bad behaviours back at you? Getting Worse every day.
E.g he’s taking zero accountability for his constant rudeness, blaming me when he’s called out on it, insulting me, put downs, silent treatment, projecting his bad behaviour back at me and sibling and siding with narc dad even when he screams swears and shouts and says horrid spiteful and nasty things to us all every day.
It’s been happening a long time but is increasing.
What do you think this is my child is trying to tell me?
Do you think it’s the universe confirming to me that I need to get him away from his dad’s bad behaviour? (I already know that though, so is this the big push to finally force my hand so I can save my child from becoming a narcissist?), or something else?
He’s literally turning into a little narcissist like his dad, infront of my eyes. I feel powerless to stop it!
That was/is still my biggest fear….so I knew it was going to happen- I just don’t know what I am meant to do with this information. I feel like I’m being pushed.
Do you think it’s just cementing my knowledge of the worse case scenario coming true if I stay? or asking me to actually change something right away – Btw I have tried explaining it to my child and he reacts how his Dad used to when I used to call him out on the same bad behaviour. He won’t take accountability for it, blame shifts it back to me/projects and distracts with something I’ve done in the past that he doesn’t like e.g twists it back to me or onto sibling (so his dad has unfortunately taught him well, sadly 😢).
I’m scared my child is already Lost to it.
I feel like I need to get him infront of a good male role model who doesn’t do this narcissistic behaviour. Now that’s me – (apart from the male bit!) I’m not blowing my own trumpet but I am modelling as many good behaviours as I can. Obviously I am not perfect but I can’t see how my model behaviours can win out over someone’s constant narcissistic bad behaviour?
I’m really scratching my head over this. I just want me and my children to be away from his toxic behaviour – it’s making me ill, I feel so trapped in all the drama negativity and nastiness.
I can’t just ignore the bad behaviour and not call my child out on it or it seems like I am condoning it.
I would love to do NARP but am terrified my Narc husband will find out because he is in control of all our finances and scrutinises every transaction.
Any ideas what my child is trying to tell me? I feel so frustrated and confused at what to do.
Jo: In replying, I am drawing on my own recovery from NA parents, but also from having become a parent to NAs myself, as part of my dealing with them before I began recovering. And, also from having lived with a “foster” family in which a “developing” NA child lurched about. This may not at all be enough background, yet I hear you’re looking for some kind of response here, so here goes.
It sounds like you will have to take more of a stand, coupled with commitment, for yourself and your son. This committed stand (even while in progress) must itself be coupled with self-healing, which is necessarily the very heart of the whole scenario, so the committed stand must create the (not necessarily flaunted) use of NARP, for example. I guess you can use your acquired skills of defensively doing things in hidden ways, but this would seem to undercut the effectiveness of your self-healing and committed stand.
It sounds like your healing is going to have to involve a real desire to resume your own power and the felt faith to own it and use it. You must make these internal-to-external moves as priorities, as parts of your self-healing and resulting self-development. I myself see my own and anybody’s own healing progress as the phased coming into awareness of the significance of self-empowerment, from the start, even if “pre-consciously”. And if the desire for this is not there, then THE DESIRE FOR THE DESIRE FOR IT must be called up fromwithing yourself — and it will, I found. But in my experience none of this will work without the recognition of the redemptive power of the truth as a successfully functional and redemptive force that you and everyone recovering from any kind of sell-out or apparent victim-hood must become truthfully allied to. Steady and gradual is okay, because then the foundation for natural acceleration is laid. Complications may continue to arise, but by these kind of allegiances and commitments, they can continue to be sorted out, learned about and taken responsibility for in increasingly economical and increasingly wiser ways. It looks to me that perhaps the mounting pressures within the present times are in a way “pushing” you and all of us to raise ourselves to our next levels, and will continue to do so. It is personally do-able to make space for a relationship with this “push”, so that we can dance with it. It may also “offer” things that we have to recognize as offerings and receive them, use them. But probably not of the “fake it till you make it” kind. Self-healing, self-maturation and finding the handles of self-effectiveness are, again, key, first and central, all the way. These are simply some of my views now and maybe you can feel them. With increasing truthfulness, one generates new ones of ones own that prove more and more effective, given ones own constant, committed re-evaluation of the truth and untruth in them. Another view (more in line with the pleasure principle rather than with the “chore” of it) is that accessing, applying and enjoying one’s own power more equates with accessing, applying and enjoying oneself (and therefore others) more — regardless of how the pieces might unexpectedly fall into place along the way.
I am capable of generating LOVE, TRUTH, POWER, SUCCESS and PEACE for mySELF and my CHILD regardless of anybody else is or isn’t doing.
Much love and blessings to you Melanie for helping me and us and all best wishes and much trust and power to all Thrivers, we will heal this together,
Goldheart <3
Hey Melanie, from FTG, VIC Australia.
Hope you are doing well in this current lock down situation here.
OH MY GOD! I found this topic on co-parenting so immensely inspiring, specially when you reminded me of how our kids are highly intelligent beings, aligned and intuitive.
Encouraging others to get centred, be still and empowered from within in every present moment of now and how “immensely” transofrative and gracefully flourishing doing that is. Being a empath or just simply a sensitive compassionate person often brings with alot of self doubt, because we can feel so overwhelmed with all the negativity that surrounds us, we think “this is too big for me”, “I wont be able to cope” etc. Every week I look forward to watching your videos and give likes and share with friends. thank you for all your efforts in making these videos, please keep it up. I would like to here more about over comming self-doubt when being a empath or sensitve person. cheers xx
Wow! Great timing on this post. I needed this exact advice right now. It is so difficult when you are smack in the middle of this process of detachment, self healing and self-generating because the abuse is still happening and you are still being triggered. But I know once I hit the other side it will be so much better.
What is most difficult for me is that I want to set clear boundaries with my ex. With anyone else, I could just walk away if those boundaries are repeatedly stepped on, but I have to continue contact with my ex in order to physically exchange our young child. It is so so so hard to have him disrespect me, especially in front of our daughter, and just not react. It just doesn’t feel right when I am practicing having boundaries with people in my life.
How do boundaries work with the thriver program? I know in the long run, once I’ve healed, I will attract people who respect my boundaries, but what about in the mean time?
Hi Theresa,
I’m pleased that this was timely for you.
With NARP http://www.melanietoniaevans.com/narp It releases and reprograms the inner triggers that have been causing you to handle your power away and not be able to set healthy boundaries. I also recommend thoroughly researching my material on “parallel parenting” as this will help you greatly as well.
Also as a gold NARP member, you have access to the NARP private member’s forum http://www.melanietoniaevans.com/member which is an invaluable resource to help you with what you were going through, on a day-to-day and moment to moment basis.
I hope that this is helpful.
Much love to you
Mel 🙏💕💚
Thank you for this! How can I please get more support specifically regarding co-parenting with a narcissist? I am particularly interested in gaining help in navigating his disregard for COVID-19 safety measures that are putting my daughter, mother, and I at risk.
Hi Ruby,
You can google my name + the terms co-parenting and parallel parenting. As well as “our children”.
I hope that many of the resources will be able to help you.
Sending your and your family love and healing
Mel 🙏💕💚
Hello!
Newly started on my healing journey, am indeed “parallel parenting” with a web-site listed in our divorce papers (which are due to be processed by the court any day). I did not outline specifics such as drop off Place within our agreement, but have fought tooth & nail to have it be He drops off/picks up from my home, or we meet at the Church in between our two homes.
I do not want his G/F coming with him – there is a laundry list of reasons, of course his demeaning me while exhorting her is my trigger, and I AM working on that.
In the past months, it has been brought up occasionally, where I simply state No, I will not go to his home, I am more than happy to meet elsewhere if he doesn’t want to come here.
He had to travel, left at 5:00 am, and dropped off my son – I normally meet them outside, but as it was early & our son was in his PJs, he brought him up.
Of course, the only reason he did this was because it was convenient for him to have the GF in the car –
As I’m typing this out, I realize I will eventually have to “get over” his replacing me. It IS a process, and I am working on it. Ten year relationship where when the mask fell, it was ripped off –
What I am so much more concerned about is my sons fear that he knew I didn’t want her here. So Within, So Without –
Is it the letting go that will release the trigger? Yes.
However, this is a ‘rule’ that I set up for myself (& ex) so as to go through this process until I Can have a normal, stable, response.
All that to ask:
Do I tell him I know he brought her? Do I remind him she is NOT welcome at my home? I want to, but (triggered me) does not feel capable of withstanding the onslaught that will inevitable come?
How do you enforce Boundaries?
Know that, the reason they were going out of town was for a funeral of My friend – that he advised me via text message that she had passed away.
Looking for help,
& Thank You!
Kx
Hi Kellian,
my highest suggestion truly is to let go of this trauma. That is so much healthier for you and your child.
I know its excruciating, but I promise you that this trauma can leave your inner being and you can go free from it. Because it is literally impossible to control this situation and the constant breaches of any boundaries you try to implement are only going to keep hurting you.
I’d love you to come into my free webinar http://www.melanietoniaevans.com/freewebinar to learn how this is possible – quickly and powerfully.
I hope that this can help
Mel 🙏💕💚
Thank you so much for responding personally, I will be working on the programme again when our son goes back to Dad’s (in two days).
What is your specific thought on the boundary issue? Of course, he is pushing it because he knows how it degrades me. How do you enforce Healthy Boundaries?
Asking because at this point, it is over something simple.
& the other items that are swirling around are: He’s not registered for the online tool that is listed within our agreement, yet taking our so out of state (for vacation, this weekend, my time with him) without the required notice.
It goes beyond if the GF shows up or not.
Any additional thoughts?
I hesitate to contact my attorney as I believe I’ve worn her out with the detailing the abuse as it comes in.
Thank you again,
Kx
Hi Kelliann,
really the answer to how to enforce boundaries with n’s is complex, because N’s don’t respect boundaries at all.
My information regarding parallel parenting is really helpful for this, and ultimately working with NARP starves a narcissist of your energy and reaction which then makes them stop trying to get narcissistic supply.
Often they stop acting out when there simply is nothing to gain from trying to push your buttons.
Your inner healing truly is your best and most powerful defense.
Sending you strength and healing
Mel 🙏💕💚
Thank You! <3
It’s my pleasure Kelliann,
Much love
Mel 🙏💕💚
My daughter’s father has chosen (at this point) to not be in her life. I live in fear, however, that he will return. Do you have any tips/suggestions for how to handle that fear and the instinct to do everything you can to protect your child?
Hi Elizabeth,
my number one recommendation to let go of fear and trauma, and heal beyond these people to a level where they cant penetrate you and your life again is NARP http://www.melanietoniaevans.com/narp
Far and away that is the choice that is life-changing.
I hope this helps.
Much love to you and your daughter.
Mel 🙏💕💚
Dear Melanie,
I’ve done NARP for over a year now, daily. I’ve been able to make huge progress. I left the narc, got a restraining order and kept no contact without effort. I’ve come such a long way from where I was (this person was extremely dangerous and abusive) and I’m so proud!
But we have a small child and this is an enormous trigger for me. My terror for the safety of our child is overwhelming. We are in the middle of a custody battle and miraculously I got a temporary court order for only supervised visits between the child and the narc. However, this is only temporary and without proof of abuse toward the child, unsupervised overnight visits will be a reality soon. The child is only 3 years old but already manifests disturbing behavior identical to the narc. I have faith that I can deal with this by healing myself, but the thought of having to leave a helpless child with the narc is beyond terrifying. What about my responsibility as a parent? The narc knows they can get to me easily when the safety of the child is concerned and this is what they will use. I’ve been willing to let everything go (friends, my reputation, property), the narc has no hooks on me – except for the child. What can I do?
Thank you for this.
I’ve set reasonable boundaries, eg drop off/ pick up points…. Ex is furious and currently not allow me to see my son. (2 months). Professionals are involved, but typically they are biased towards my ex after being given the smearing, one sided truth-according-to-the-narcissist.
My son had his WhatsApp deleted by the other parent and all communication between us is being monitored. I’ve taken to sending “moon pig” postcards with images of myself and my son on the front. Ex is furious about these and told me my son is putting them in the bin.
I’m sticking to my boundaries and 0 contact unless it’s about my son. Which my ex HATES, and has actually started harassing me to the point the police are now involved.
Oddly, even though I haven’t seen my son for a long time now, I do feel a lot calmer and being able to “box” it, as this time I’m sticking to the boundaries.
1. Drop off/ Pick up is in a public place
2. Ex not allowed in my house
3. Ex cannot take my dogs for a walk / we do not need to do things “as a family”
4. Any contact is limited to things concerning our son.
That’s the very simplistic boundaries. And wow….!
Thank you again for the article and video.
Hi Jack,
great work …
From here all will fall into place.
Keep honoring these boundaries!
Mel 🙏💞🦋