Damage Control: Coparenting with a Narcissist
"The only way you can co parent with a person with NPD is let them do what they do and you pick up the pieces and show complete and unconditional love when they don't have the child." -anon.
“I don’t know what to pick.” says my nine year old daughter. “You believe in God and daddy doesn’t. Some of my friends believe in God and I just don’t know what side to pick.”
“You don’t have to pick.” I say, thinking we’re having a casual conversation about spirituality, as we often do in the car for some reason. “Some people think you do. Some people try to get you to believe what they do. I think it’s up to each person to decide, and that it has nothing to do with choosing a side- you get to make it up completely by yourself.”
“I said I liked a song, and my friend said, ‘That song is about God!’ Does she think I shouldn’t like it because I don’t know if I believe in God?”
“Hmmm. Maybe she was surprised you like it, maybe it wasn’t about God at all.”
“Oh. Maybe.”
Later on, I’m putting her to bed. She’s still mulling this all over. I say, “It seems like this is really weighing on you tonight.”
“Yea, it’s really bothering me.”
“Well, you have your whole life to decide! Most people that choose what they believe when they are kids are really only deciding to do what their parents do anyway. Most kids aren’t making their own choice like you- that is hard. That’s why you can let yourself have years of time to think it over.”
I studied my daughter’s face. And then it clicked. Oh. This isn’t a God thing. This is a mom vs. dad thing. “Does it feel like you’re picking a side between which parent you think is right?”
Her face crumpled. She rolled to her belly and cradled her pillow in close, exploded into tears. “Yeeysss…it feels like I have to pick mom or dad and that feels really hard and I don’t like it.”
“Oh. Oh yes. That is really hard.” I pull her in close and hug her little body and feel the weight of this emanating into my skin. I’m in the habit of letting her cry. We talk about how important it is to let out all feelings, right now, just when you feel them pierce through you.
She softens a bit, looks up at me with glassy eyes. “I don’t want to choose.”
“You never have to choose that. I know that daddy loves you with all of his heart and I do too. And I know that you love him with all of you and you love me with all of you too. I’ve felt it. That’s how love is. No matter what. But also, you can decide what you believe and it has nothing to do with either of us. Choosing what you believe in doesn’t mean you love one of us more. I love you not for who you are, or what you believe, but I love you anyway. You should talk to daddy about it too, I bet you he will tell you the same thing.”
I feel her stiffen a little bit. I wait. “Daddy says I’m a crybaby. I don’t like that he says that.”
The hackles start to raise on the back of my neck. This gives me pause; I don’t quite know the best way to handle these conversations. I want to give her just the right balance of truth and love. “Tell me about that.”
Through tears, she stammers, “When we were on vacation he called me a crybaby at the table and these girls were looking at me.”
They had just gotten back from their vacation, just him and her. “Oh. What was making you cry?”
“He was making me eat vegetables, and I HATE vegetables, it was squash and I HATE cooked squash. He said I couldn’t leave until I ate them. And then I was crying and he told me to stop. I said I just needed a minute to cry and let it out and he said OK but then he said I was a crybaby. These girls were looking at me at the other table.”
I was sifting through my memory of all of the times he handed me his shame during our marriage. I know how deep his well of shame is, and how terrible it feels when he hands it to others.
“Oh baby, that feels terrible. That’s not OK to call you a name. Did you tell him you didn’t like that he called you that?”
“No. I told him before. I told him not to call me a crybaby, and he said OK that he wouldn’t. He asked me if there was anything he could do to be a better parent and I told him to not call me that and he said OK. But then he didn’t stop doing it.” She begins to wail. I hug her close. “I told him that before. I told him not to do that over and over and he doesn’t stop.”
“Oh. That feels so bad.” I cringe as I hear myself say, “I know how that feels. It’s really a very terrible feeling when someone says they’re going to stop doing something and they keep doing it.”
When we were married I would tell him he hurt my feelings and he would find a way to twist my words to make me the one to blame. If I wasn’t so lazy, he wouldn’t have to treat me that way. If I would just learn to listen, he wouldn’t have to yell at me. If I wasn’t so selfish, he wouldn’t have to be so angry because he has to pick up my slack.
Oh, girl, I understand alright. But this is just the beginning. This is real time, a 9 year old child building an internal case file of trauma, packing it away in her heart. My heart is breaking. My heart is breaking on behalf of hers. It hurts that this is her father- this is her life. It kills me to watch him behave towards her the same way he did towards me, but I walk a very careful line here. It hurts to know that this will likely play out over and over again. It hurts that anyone has to be treated this way, especially a child. But for me, the worst is the truth I have to withhold. If I called him out like I want to it would become lost; it’s her lesson to learn and I have to let her feel the pain, so long as she’s safe, in order for her to move in the direction she needs to in life.
I can be safe for her. I can hug her and let her cry and hear everything that hurts, validate and empathize. I can watch closely and make sure he’s not crossing a certain line. But I can’t save her from things like this. In this case, I can’t even tell her to do anything much about it other than talk to him and her therapist.
When you divorce a narcissist, you are making a choice between something terrible and something worse. You get to leave, but your kids don’t. You get to shut off the abuse, but your kids have to deal with it until they are legally allowed to choose for themselves. You don’t get to be there anymore to shield them from it. At least it’s not what it was when you were there, but is this truly any better? Most of the time, they don’t even understand what’s happening, which is terrible to witness. You’re just left wondering how much of the narc’s behavior do they internalize as normal, do they adapt to, do they forgive over and over? You can’t possibly know everything that happens over there anymore. And you don’t want to pry and become obsessed with asking, provoking the child to shut down.
My job becomes precarious and itchy. I’m always wondering if she’s OK and safe. I can do nothing but be the best parent I can be on my watch and just pray that she’ll learn whatever uncomfortable lesson she’s here to learn in a way that creates just the right amount of resiliency and strength without too much damage.
It’s certainly testing my faith and skill. It’s pushing me down my own healing path to make damn sure I don’t vomit my own triggers all over her. It’s deepening my own faith and trust that the universe knows what it’s doing. That same faith was there for me in the throws of our ugly split, kept me on the right side of the dirt, and won me everything I needed. I know it won’t fail her.
I can’t tell you how, but I still trust.