Co parenting with a narcissist seems impossible. I know I’ve been there. If your husband or ex is narcissistic, here are 7 ways your he might try to undermine you and your kids, along with 7 ways to overcome it.

To find out how bad it is, see which of the 19 different emotional abuse tactics he uses. Take our free emotional abuse quiz.

The 7 Ways A Narcissist Will Undermine Co-Parenting

• Gaslighting: Narcissistic men are good at making you doubt yourself. They might say you’re overreacting when you’re not. They may say your helicopter parenting when you’re not. Be on the lookout for how he tries to undermine your self confidence.


• Using The Kids To Hurt You: A narcissistic ex may manipulate the kids to hurt you. Or they may want to go into chaos, and so they undermine the children’s medical care, extra curricular activities, or school work.


• Playing the victim: Narcissistic men might twist things to make themselves look like the victim. They may exaggerate situations to get sympathy from others and make you seem like the bad one.


• Undermining your authority: They might try to take control by making decisions without asking you. Or tell your children that you’re not smart or not a good parent.


• Using money as leverage: A narcissistic ex could use money to control you by withholding child support or making unfair demands.


• Seeking revenge: Narcissistic men may hold grudges and act out of spite.


• Lack of empathy: A narcissistic husband or ex won’t understand or care about your feelings. This will make co-parenting with a narcissistic parent really hard.

How Do Stay Sane When CO-Parenting With A Narcissistic Parent

Co-parenting with a narcissistic parent requires a strategic and mindful approach. Here are seven ways to make the process more tolerable:

1. Know Communication Won’t Help When Co-Parenting With A Narcissist

Since communication is just another way for the narcissist to manipulate us, at Betrayal Trauma Recovery we’ve learned that we can’t count on communication to resolve anything. It helps when you know that communication won’t do anything to stop him from causing chaos. Instead, use effective boundaries that don’t need to be “communicated”, like the ones we teach in The Living Free Workshop.

2. Learn About Strategic Boundaries

To learn how to set boundaries strategically, consider enrolling in The BTR.ORG Living Free Workshop.

“I’d been to so many therapists. They just kept telling me to “set boundaries”. What a joke. It never worked. But then I enrolled in The Living Free Workshop at Betrayal Trauma Recovery, and holy cow do these ladies know what they’re doing. I could tell immediately they’d been through it. And figured out safety from these dudes. Thanks so much BTR!!!”

3. Use a Parenting App when co-parenting with a narcissist

Parenting apps can help, because everything is documented. There are calendars and info banks to use to limit communication as much as possible.

4. How Do You Co Parent with a Narcissist When He Undermines Everything? Prioritize Self-Care

Taking care of your own physical and emotional well-being is crucial when co-parenting with a narcissistic parent. Engage in activities that bring you joy and relaxation, and seek support from friends, family, or an online support group for women.

5. Focus on Your Children’s Well-being

Keep your focus on what’s best for your children. Avoid hurting your children by promoting their narcissistic dad’s behavior as “love”. Instead, say, “I’m so sorry. I felt that way too. He hurt me too. I’m sorry he doesn’t seem capable enough to love someone as lovable as you.”

6. Develop a Support Network

Surround yourself with a supportive network of friends, family, and professionals who understand your situation and can offer guidance and encouragement. If you need support, here’s our daily group session schedule.

7. When Co-Parenting With A Narcissistic parent, Stay Informed

Educate yourself about narcissistic behavior and its impact on co-parenting. Listen to The FREE Betrayal Trauma Recovery Podcast to hear other women’s stories and how they coped.

transcript: 7 Ways To Make Co-Parenting With A Narcissist Tolerable

Anne: Tammy Guns is here today. She’s going to share her story. She started her career in auditing and accounting for two big four public accounting firms. Then she served in leadership roles in large scale healthcare organizations before her career as a certified divorce financial analyst. Her expertise extends beyond the advisory realm as a trusted expert witness in courtrooms, offering invaluable insights, utilizing forensic accounting.

She has also served on two boards of directors and completed Deloitte’s certification program for women board readiness. We will talk about co-parenting with a narcissist. Welcome, Tammy.

Tammy: Thank you for having me. I’m excited to talk with you today.

Anne: You mentioned that your personal story is part of what interested you in becoming a certified divorce financial analyst. So can we start there?

Tammy: Yes, well, you can only connect the dots backwards. And when I look back to my dating of him. There were so many signs that showed he was a narcissist, but I was so young.

My wonderful father was incredibly involved in our lives. I’m one of four children. When I met my ex husband, I did not believe a man could not be a good husband and a good father, because I had such an amazing example of one. I was right out of college when I met him. I was just captured. He’s good looking, charismatic. He’s super intelligent. He was a football player in college. I’m like, of course, he’ll be a good dad, of course he’ll be a good husband, because that’s what I had as an example, and I was looking for all the wrong things.

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“I Couldn’t Have Known”: What I Wish I Knew Before co-parenting with a narcissistic parent

Tammy: Today, I’d have a phone conversation with him and realize absolutely what a narcissist he is. And co-parenting with a narcissist can feel impossible.

Anne: Well, we don’t know. It’s not our fault. I think even if you learned about narcissism, until the mask comes off, you still wouldn’t know that they were a narcissist. We don’t even have the context for it. You might see the red flags. But because of your context, you think, oh, he’s tired or stressed out. So to say, people saw red flags and then ignored them. I would say people saw the red flags, and the context they had for them was not that context.

Anne: Knowing what you know now, what would you do differently? It’s like, would you do anything different? When you knew what you knew then. And the answer is always I couldn’t do anything different.

Tammy: Correct, I couldn’t. So I was married for about 17 years when my then husband came home and basically said to me, “I’m done being married to you. I know how much you love the children, so you can have them.” It was pretty traumatic to have the rug pulled out from underneath me.

So I ended up going on the journey of a divorce, certainly not understanding anything that was going to happen. In today’s environment, it’s more of a 50/50 situation. But, I went from being a stay at home mom to going back into the workforce, as well as having the children a hundred percent by myself. I do have four college degrees, so I was in the workforce for a while, but at the time I was a stay at home mother.

He Didn’t Want To Be Responsible For The Children, But He Still Wanted Control

Anne: Wow, that is very unique. I don’t hear that every day, where you got them 100 percent of the time. So many women, at least who listen to this podcast or who are co-parenting with a narcissist, are fighting these narcissists or abusers in court for years. So that is like a miracle. Was that happening with many people back then?

Tammy: Even back then, dads had the kiddos every other weekend, probably one night during the week for dinner, like a Wednesday night. What happened in my particular situation is that my ex went through a midlife crisis. He started dating a 25 year old girl who reported directly to him at work. His midlife crisis was, not only do I not want to be married, I also don’t want the responsibility of caring for children. He wanted to travel the world with her, do all sorts of fun things, and of course children get in the way.

At the time, I was incredibly scared. How will I