Parenting with a Narcissist

…I take the time to stop, and look at the long road I have traveled. And I thank God that I am no longer where I have been.

There are days when you can take a deep breath and in the stillness of that moment, you are grateful. And you know you are going to make it…even with the high price you paid, you know you will make it. In fact, you already have.

Because you have awareness and determination, and you know you will never go back there again.

There are days you stop and just can’t stop that small smile from creeping across your face. No malice, just a quiet thank you.

Today is such a day.

So, are you nodding your head in recognition? Heard this before?

You’re a target of sudden rage – either over something totally unexpected or totally out of proportion to what you would think. And then after they’ve ripped you a new one or two and you’re lying all over the floor in pieces, they look at you and say, “It’s okay…I’m not mad.”

As if they had a right to assault you, as if they were entitled to unload on you and aren’t you relieved, you who are left there bleeding, that they aren’t actually mad at you?

And they feel better. And they’re all nice again as if nothing had happened. And don’t you DARE ask them to acknowledge what they just did to you and make them feel bad again, because they are all that matters.

You are supposed to, EXPECTED to, understand this.

And you know what’s so pathetic? It’s thinking about how I must have sounded as I tried to understand my raging narcissist, as I pleaded with him asking him why he was so angry, or assuring him I didn’t mean this or that or whatever he was raging about at the moment – so bewildered, emotionally on my knees begging him to stop, to understand…because I really thought he didn’t understand, that if he just knew, if he only realized what I really meant or that what he was perceiving wasn’t accurate, he wouldn’t be so angry.

Because after all, he really did love me, you know, and he would never intentionally assault me in this way if he only knew, so he mustn’t know…because he really cared.

But he didn’t care and it wasn’t about facts or a particular issue or anything like that at all. It was about agendas, his agendas. And for whatever reason or whatever direction the wind happened to be blowing, he simply needed to punish. That was the bottom line.

And he could be so calm afterward, because he got the release he wanted. And of course, he wasn’t mad then. He felt better. And true to a Narcissist, this point of reference – him – is all that matters.

The irony of this doesn’t escape me, nor does it escape my daughter. When I was with him and every time afterward, when I witnessed this play out with my daughter, even in minor incidents, whenever he said “I’m not mad” after he just yelled at her, I always said, “Yes, you are. You raised your voice, you spoke angry words.” And then (when I was with him) I’d explain to my daughter what he was upset about and why.

So he didn’t get too mad that I just contradicted him, because I was, after all, speaking on his behalf and he always liked it when he thought I was sticking up for him. But at least, I did have the wherewithal to not participate in denying her reality and experience of it.

Now, I just correct the lie he just told without explaining why he was mad, because 1) I don’t care 2) It was probably stupid and I retired from the “defending stupidity department” 3) He can speak for himself for crying out loud.

But the fact is, I’m just not around him all that much any more, so I have less opportunity to observe this abusive behavior – and it is abuse.

My daughter will; however, relay incidents that happen when she’s alone with him – and I want her to – and I will, again, validate her perception. Together we’ll analyze his behavior, his words and I’ll ask if these things convey an angry response to her or not, and when she says yes, I will tell her that’s how it sounds to me, too.

And I will reinforce the importance of not only paying attention to the visual clues you get, but also to what’s going on inside of her. To pay attention to the emotional responses she’s feeling. Does she feel like she’s being assaulted? Then pay attention to that, and do not let someone automatically redefine your reality for you to suit them.

Clarification is one thing. Sometimes, we are mistaken, BUT we take the whole thing into account. Not just the word of one person. Not just because they say so. It has to measure up to everything else we take in and what we know.

Because it’s NOT okay, to say you’re not mad when you are – especially, when you unload that anger on someone. People who respect one another, tell each other the truth about what they’re feeling and own their actions.

That’s another thing I tell her. I always make sure, in defining an unhealthy situation, to provide her with a healthy example. General lessons are easily transferred to specific ones. I make the general statement, and she draws her inference to her father.

I will say this at least a million times as long as this blog exists. Validation is the key to sanity and empowerment.

You can’t give your child a new parent, but you can give your child an honest perspective on what she is experiencing. You can empower her with knowledge and validation. Next to assuring your child’s physical safety, this will be your single most important job.

It’s okay – he IS mad, and you can tell yourself the truth, even if he can’t.

That’s what a commenter wrote in a comment. This is true for my child, too.

And when he doesn’t feel like it, he doesn’t. It’s as simple…and as selfish as that. Doesn’t matter if he said he would. Doesn’t matter if there’s things that need to be discussed. It’s only what he feels like.

So, my problem has always been with him interfering with my child’s education. Wanting her to fill up his time, meet his needs regardless of whether it negatively impacted her education or not. But he has a girlfriend now. Has for a while. And that’s helped my daughter’s education a bit.

But now, his behavior has taken even another twist. He’s either pissed at me (something did occur a couple weeks back, that to a normal person would have been no big thing, but to him, was a great offense…and yes, it had to do with me respecting myself and setting some boundaries).

Or maybe he’s simply having his needs met elsewhere to the point where his daughter and her concerns are totally irrelevant right now. Maybe it’s both.

So, what does this new twist look like? Well, it looks like just bailing out. We needed to discuss art arrangements, since he told me he did not want to drive her to them while she was taking dance lessons. He said we’d talk about this on a Monday.

But Monday, he did not return my calls and I did not hear from him for the entire week until it was his turn to have her at the end of the week. By then I had to cancel them, because obviously the discussion was closed, and we’d need his driving participation to make it work.

What was strange, is that the entire week passed without a word from him. Usually, he’d either be telling me he wanted to have her, her schooling be damned, or that he had something else planned, like a poker party, so he couldn’t have her. But he’d, at least, show some semblance of respect, if you could call it that, for my own schedule.

The following week we were to discuss what to do for her birthday. I called him at work, like he told me to only earlier that day, to find out that he had called out. And again, for the rest of the week did not hear from him, even though I called several times to his work and his house – no pick up or just busy signals at work, and answering machine at his house.

And once again, I had to make the plans myself.

And once again, another week, and no contact at all. Today he is supposed to get her, because the last time we spoke, he said he wanted to. But that was another thing we were going to discuss, because I did not know what she had on her calendar when he told me that. But we never had that conversation for him to find out.

So what do I do? For me, not having to deal with him is nice. But what do I do with my schedule? Do I keep everything open? I don’t even know if he still wants her today or not.

Quite frankly, I love not hearing from him. Our interactions are usually toxic anyway. Either he will be nice and then just take it back later, like narcissists do, or he will have this attitude from the get go. I don’t need that. But it’s not only inconvenient to have no input into her schedule, it’s also mean to her.

I would not mind if he came out right and said all decisions are up to me and not to expect anything – input or anything.

But it’s not like that. It’s the “Let’s talk about this…let’s plan this”, and then just skipping out. It’s annoying. It’s mean. It’s disrespectful and it’s meant to punish.

It’s his royal “F” you, with no consideration for how that might affect her. Because during this time, not only has he not called me to discuss her, he as not called her.

What else is new? He treats her as if she were unimportant. But to a narcissist, she is. Everyone is. It’s not personal. But that doesn’t make it any less mean or painful to a child…

…You know what I just thought?.

I better be careful. This behavior just might be to incite me to complain, giving him the excuse to go off on me. Because he really can’t fight me about how I offended him, because even though his narcissistic ego takes great offense, even he can recognize how silly it is if he spoke it out loud. So he attempts to set me up.

Paranoid?

Experience. He’s done this before.

And I, naively, taking things on face value, always walked into the trap, committing the egregious crime of communicating my feelings for clarification and understanding. And I, always, got clobbered.

I better be careful. Non-engagement is my best defense. I can complain here. I will be detached with him. It’s the cardinal rule in dealing with narcissists.

Do NOT engage them. It feeds them. It’s what they want.

“…It’s where I can be myself.”

This is what she said to me yesterday. I can see the gratefulness in her, see it on her face, hear it in her voice. It’s almost like a sigh of relief that she can’t wait to breathe as soon as her father walks away and leaves her with me.

Home should be a place of safety. And safety doesn’t just mean safe from physical harm or from the harshness of the outside world, but safe to be yourself.

A place where you can talk without censorship or walk from room to room with a confident stride. Not tiptoeing delicately as on eggshells.

Children of narcissists don’t have that. If you are still with your narcissist, as the more stable parent, you will be hard pressed to provide that – not impossible, but just very hard. Because a narcissist will drain the life out of you, and the longer you stay, the less of your real self you will have. You can’t provide the space for authenticity for your child, that you can’t maintain for yourself.

If you’re separated or divorced, then you have a better chance to provide that for your child. You have time and space for healing. Okay, maybe not all the time or all the space. Your narcissist will attempt to intrude over and over again. If there’s any constant in the universe, it’s that one.

But you will have something…and you can make that something grow As you get stronger, so will your child.

Home is not only the physical structure to my daughter, but me. I’m home. I’m her safe haven. I’m the place where she can be herself. And if there was ever incentive to protect myself from – ie disengage myself – from the Narcissist Ex, it’s this – to have the capacity, the ability to provide that sense of safety where she can be real.

The bottom line is last night, my daughter could relax into her skin, because she was home now. She was with me.

This is Part 3. Here is Part 1 and Part 2.

This is not easy. But it is essential. You cannot let your experience, your knowledge go to waste. And you cannot not respect your child’s relationship with her dad, so you don’t just blurt things out. You don’t say things in anger or to make a point.

This isn’t about what you want her to know. It’s about validating what she is already finding out.

What and how you say it is a tender matter that you must decide carefully, taking into consideration her age, her level of maturity, the level of trust and confidence between you and the place of discussion.

Riding along in a car, listening to the radio and such, if your child say, “Dad doesn’t love me”, your response might be “Why do you say that?” This would most likely be an invitation from her to talk. Not necessarily a time to face her worst fears.

If your child says, “He doesn’t love me”, in an intimate setting within an already active sharing, where she has given permission to delve deeper, your response might be, ““I believe he thinks he does…but no, honey, this isn’t love. How he’s treating you isn’t love. How he’s making you feel isn’t love.”

Depending on her age and emotional maturity and the trust and confidence between you, you might feel it right to add: “In all the ways that makes love truly love, no…he doesn’t (love you). But it’s not you. He isn’t able to love anyone…including himself.”

The second part may not seem like such a big distinction from the first, but it is. The first is a more general statement about the nature of love with the space for your child to draw more personal conclusions when they are ready – like, tell me but don’t tell me - and the second is specific and personal – no, he doesn’t (love you).

Whatever you do, whatever you say, it must be the truth – whether it is of a more general nature or specifically personal. Your child depends on you to do that.

You cannot stop her from crying. But you can empower her. You can give her the tools to survive now and the tools to protect herself from future narcissists.

Her father will give her PLENTY of opportunity to see what a narcissist looks like, smells like, sounds like and acts like. It’s up to you to make sure you take those painful opportunities and turn them into educational ones that will serve her.

From that space, from the knowledge she receives, she will be able to accept what good he does have to offer, take it for what it is and not confuse it as what love is.

You will spare her a future life of hell with the other narcissists, just waiting in the wings to take her father’s place.