Co-parenting with a narcissist for 13 years

[nimblereaper]

Hello

I don't expect to have answers or any easy way out of this, I'm just posting to get this off my chest and hopefully have some constructive discussions with normal minded parents.

My daughter is now 13 and has personally herself decided to go no contact with her narcissistic mother.

I left her 10 years ago and have had a never ending battle with her, but not in the normal sense of her stopping me seeing my daughter, but the complete opposite! All of my daughters life her mother has had no interest in actually being a loving and caring mother, she's just interested in control and everything being how her delusional mind thinks it should be. On paper my daughter still officially lives with her mother but has always physically resided with me for the most part. She's neglected my daughter until it suits her to bother being a parent for a couple of hours.

I'm now settled in an 8 year relationship with two step kids as well, while my daughters mother has achieved nothing in the past ten years except pissing blokes off and using people to satisfy her ego.

Not only has she neglected to be a parent to my daughter for all these years which has lead to my daughter feeing unloved by the woman, but as shes gotten older the mental and emotional abuse has started; now it's at the point where my daughter literally refuses to see her mother or even answer the phone to her, which as you can imagine hits a narcissist in the proverbial balls; but it's her own doing.

It would be nice for her to listen and admit to her faults, but she is so delusional she doesn't have a clue that she's doing anything wrong. It's pretty evident she is if school have reported her to child services twice and she's been seen to be crazy. Yet she still carries on and on and on like she's in control of everything .

It looks like I'm heading back to court again for a no contact order. I have tried so hard to make her see and understand the impact she has no only on my daughter but everyone around her with her self centred mind set, but nothing sinks in.

I'm struggling a lot with watching my daughter suffer at the hands of her own mother, while my partner has been there for her for 8 years non stop, she's a lot closer to her step mum than her real mum; it's very sad and I struggle with it as it's all new to me, my parents have been married 40 years so I've never experienced any break up, neglect, abuse or anything close to what my daughter is going through.

That horrible woman in the background causes us so much stress, I run a business with a number of staff I'm responsible for and all of this is starting to take its toll on the business too, I find it difficult to focus at work which is unlike me, I'm generally very driven and ambitious, but I can say that a narcissist really does drain the life out of you, even from a distance you can hear them!

I understand exactly how she makes my daughter feel as she mentally abused me for years, I was a lot younger then and didn't notice what was happening to me with all the gaslighting, I thought I was going crazy! It's my parents who saved me from it in the end my giving me an ultimatum of leaving her or stop complaining... that gave me a kick up the arse, I need my parents support in life, they've always been there for me.

[Penny Lane]

Hi nimblereaper and welcome! I'm glad you found us but sorry you needed us.

Many of us on this board understand the struggle you describe, and the heartache of watching children deal with a PD parent. You are not alone here. It sounds like you've worked hard to provide the stability and comfort that your daughter lacks from her mom, so kudos for that.

I want to recommend a book that I read called Don't Alienate the Kids! By Bill Eddy. It helps me a lot when I'm feeling down about my husband's ex wife and her impact on the kids. In the book he theorizes that people who are coparenting with a PD have the tools they need to either encourage alienation or build a foundation of resilience. And then he offers specific tools for building resilience: managing emotions, flexible thinking and moderate behavior. This helped me a lot, especially as my stepkids have gotten older and their reactions to their mom's bad behavior have gotten more sophisticated (they're not as old as your daughter, though). It really helps me feel like there's something I can do, some skills we can teach the kids, rather than just focusing on their mom's relentless attacks on us all the time.

Your daughter is at a very important point. You've gotten her this far and that's great! I hope this board can help you guide her through this tough time. It sounds like it's been really hard on you, and that's understandable - this is very hard stuff! I'm glad you're here where other people get it.

I look forward to hearing more from you on these boards, if you want to share about how it's going.