In 2009, I was 35 years old, a half million dollars in debt, a mother of a six year old little girl, and I had just filed for divorce. I did not know that I was divorcing a narcissist. I didn’t even know what a covert narcissist was. What I did know was that no matter how devastating it was to file for divorce, lose all my money, and to cause my daughter the unimaginable heartbreak of shattering our family… staying would have been even worse.
Co-parenting with a covert narcissist isn’t easy, and if you don’t know how to navigate the challenges you risk not only your own well-being but also the emotional health and future of your children. So today, I’m going to share what I learned about how to protect your kids, how to maintain your sanity, and how to get the best possible outcome when you’re coparenting with a covert narcissist.
Covert narcissism is difficult to recognize and prove, making it hard to rely on the legal system for protection. This means, even if you have full custody, you'll still need to support your child through the long-lasting emotional impacts of this abuse.
How To Protect Your Child When You’re Co-Parenting with a Narcissist
So how do you protect your kids when you’re co-parenting with someone who doesn’t have their best interest at heart?
During the tough months following our divorce, my daughter deeply felt the loss of our old life, especially at night. To help her process her emotions, I found her a coloring book designed for children coping with divorce. Each page asked a question, asking her to express her feelings through drawings. We made this our nightly routine, sitting together at the kitchen table after dinner. I'd journal while she colored, and then we'd share our creations.
Night after night, we’d learn about different feelings, giving words to them, stories to them, and spending time side by side not only helped her. It helped me too. I needed words to be able to use with her. I needed a way to communicate with her about her feelings to help arm her with knowledge that would help protect her.
She’s now twenty-one years old, and we still have these types of conversations. From those early years, she learned how to speak about what she was feeling, she learned how to share her experience. She also learned that I cared about her feelings, I wanted to hear about them, I wanted to understand them. They mattered to me. They still do.
A narcissistic parent often devalues emotion. To protect your children, it's crucial to balance that, by helping them build emotional intelligence. Working alongside them, you can teach them to understand their emotions and show them that their feelings are valued and important.
Now, I’m not gonna lie, this isn’t easy. In fact, just reliving these memories so that I could make this blog still brings me to tears. These were some of the hardest, loneliest, scariest times of my life.
Maintaining Sanity In Motherhood After Divorcing a Covert Narcissist
Which brings me to the next topic: with so much of your time and energy being spent caring for your children, how do you maintain any sense of sanity?
I think the worst mistake I made throughout my marriage was spending so much time wishing. Wishing that he’d contribute financially. Wishing that he’d help out around the house. Wishing that he’d care more. Wishing that he’d spend more time with our daughter. Wishing for him to be a better parent.
So, the bad news was: divorcing him didn’t change anything. He didn’t become more active, more involved, more helpful. In fact, he became even less. But when I stopped wishing for him to be different, then I could see the truth behind his behavior. And then, I could make a plan.
He didn’t want to help financially when we were married. That didn’t change after divorce. He didn’t want to help out around the house, or with parenting duties, that didn’t change after divorce. In fact, it became incredibly transparent and easy for me to see the truth around his actions. And it helped me understand my own path to sanity was this:
Make him irrelevant.
Now let me tell ya, it’s not easy to do this, and you’ve got to be willing to work your butt off… but it works and it absolutely saved me, and saved my daughter.
I chose to become independent of him, living as if he were a stranger. I shifted my focus from wishing things about him to taking action myself—becoming a stronger provider, householder, and mother. My energy went into creating a nurturing home and a fulfilling life for my daughter and me.
So, here's the heart of it: By making him irrelevant, I wasn't just moving past my ex—I was stepping into my own power. This is crucial in a co-parenting situation with a covert narcissist, because expecting them to change or hoping for support will ultimately lead to chronic disappointment and frustration. It also keeps you stuck in their toxic web.
Every ounce of energy that I’d once spent on wishful thinking became fuel for building a life where my daughter and I could thrive. It was about more than just getting by; it was about building strength, about writing our own story on our terms. This shift is what not only kept me sane but also ultimately helped me become a better mother.
Before I move onto how to get the best possible outcome when you’re co-parenting with a covert narcissist, I first want to define what I mean by the best possible outcome.
The Best Possible Outcome: Co-Parengint with a Narcissist
It’s been almost 15 years since my divorce, my daughter is 21 and living her best life. We are close, we respect each other, we trust each other. To me, this is the best possible outcome.
To raise an empowered child, to build trust with them, to build mutual respect with them. To be the best parent you can be. To provide for them and to protect them. To have your own intimate, vulnerable, and real relationship with them. And to also allow them the space to figure out their own relationship with the other parent.
This was not easy, there were so many times I wanted to step in, say something, protect her, keep her father from manipulating her, guilting her, creating more pain. What I learned was that by keeping an open channel between the two of us, just me and my daughter, and by maintaining our own authentic and transparent relationship, our relationship became an anchor for her.
It became a point of contrast. She’d notice how she felt in one house as compared to the other house. She’d notice how she was treated in one house compared to the other house. But honestly, it wasn’t until she was an adult living her own life, feeling empowered, paying her own bills that it finally all clicked for her. That was when she realized that it wasn’t that hard to care for someone, to provide for them, to help them out. That is when she went to therapy and heard the truth about her father for the first time.
Looking back on these 15 years, what really sticks out to me is this: the heart of our success, the true 'best outcome,' was all about keeping that honest, real connection with my daughter. That was our lifeline through everything.
It wasn’t about shielding her from every upset—it was about being her steady point, her constant. We built a bond based on trust, respect, and true understanding, and that made all the difference. It gave her the tools to see things for what they were, to grow up strong, aware, and capable of handling her own.
Seeing her now, independent and thriving, I know that our open, authentic relationship wasn’t just a comfort; it was vital. It showed her what healthy relationships look like and taught her she’s more than capable of creating them in her own life.
But here’s the deal: No matter how much I loved her, and how much I wanted to help her, we would never have gotten here together, if I hadn’t done my own work first.
Co-Parenting with a Narcissist: How To Create The Best Life Post Divorce
There’s no way to gracefully navigate coparenting with a narcissist when you haven’t done the work to recover from your own history with narcissistic abuse. This means you must heal yourself first.
In this blog, I share the 3-step method that I’ve used to help thousands of people take back their lives, find their voice, and build self-worth so that not only protect themselves from narcissists but actively repel them. You can use this tool for yourself and teach it to your kids.
And the greatest part about this tool is that you already use it, you just need to apply it in a different way—3 Steps to Heal from Narcissistic Abuse.