Co-parenting with a narcissist

The simple answer to this question is……… You can’t! This is one of the most common questions I get asked by loving parents who have children with a toxic ex-partner. Co-parenting can be difficult and requires work when there are two NON-disordered parents trying to establish a new life for themselves and their children. But when one of those parents is a narcissist then all bets are off. Co-parenting with a narcissist is impossible.

The narcissistic parent will use any attempt to coparent with them, as an opportunity to secure narcissistic supply from you by gaslighting you, sabotaging your plans, making you beg to get what you need for the children, or just not responding to you at all when you try to communicate. They will in essence COUNTER PARENT everything you try to do for them. The narcissist views their children as their property, and you are viewed as a thief trying to steal what belongs to them.

When you are surviving without the narcissist, and goodness forbid actually healing and moving on, you are committing the most unfathomable sin as far as the narcissist is concerned. You are deeming them insignificant in your life. You don’t want them anymore! You have unknowingly inflicted the most painful narcissistic injury or wound to their ego. That punishment will be to annihilate any chance of you having a harmonious existence with your children, by ensuring chaos prevails at any given opportunity.

Nova will support you with strategies to minimise contact between you and the narcissist, and discuss ‘parallel parenting” strategies to parent your children with minimal interference from the narcissist.