Anyone with children left someone with narcissistic tendencies?

[shoowop]

How did it turn out? How has it been co parenting?

What do you mean by narcissistic tendencies. Could you elaborate? With a full blown narc I take it coparenting can be hell as DC are used as pawns. And you're making it easier for the narc to manipulate them. If it's just 'tendencies' maybe therapy can actually help? That would be much much better for the children if an option at all. If this avenue doesn't work you need to protect yourself and the DC first and foremost x

They are adults now but their dad had narcissistic tendencies, left when they were little. Didn’t co parent at all after he left, just left it all to me. Still I encouraged a relationship with the kids because they wanted one.

They have an incredible stepdad now but they are both extremely anxious people and the older one has problems with self worth. Hard to know to what extent it has affected them.

@nzNZnz I wouldn't say he's a full blown narc, but I believe his Dad is and so he's learnt a lot of things from him. Silent treatment, constant gaslighting, using my past and vulnerabilities against me, criticism etc. Therapy would only help if he was self aware enough to identify his problems, but he's confident I'm the issue. Tried couples counselling before and he was playing the nice guy and I did all the talking. It's not a problem to put me and the children first and to leave but I think he would make things very very ugly and I'd just be exchanging one set of problems for another

I haven't co-parented, he was too busy being fabulous and has successfully alienated dd(14) so she doesn't see him, ds (16) still visits but on his terms and of course, if it's convenient. They know. He's made it clear to them on many occasions that they are not his priority, which of course make my life much easier, because he doesn't have time!

My ex-wife is diagnosed NPD, and there was no co-parenting. Just extremely difficult and cumbersome parallel parenting with exorbitant legal bills just to get the most basic things done.

Yes. I cant recommend leaving highly enough.

[quote shoowop]@nzNZnz I wouldn't say he's a full blown narc, but I believe his Dad is and so he's learnt a lot of things from him. Silent treatment, constant gaslighting, using my past and vulnerabilities against me, criticism etc. Therapy would only help if he was self aware enough to identify his problems, but he's confident I'm the issue. Tried couples counselling before and he was playing the nice guy and I did all the talking. It's not a problem to put me and the children first and to leave but I think he would make things very very ugly and I'd just be exchanging one set of problems for another[/quote]
That sounds tough indeed. I think counselling/therapy can help and be fruitful as long as there is some self-reflection on his part- some awareness of past issues and willingness to work through them. If that's not given, I'd say it's more important to protect the DC from his ongoing influence.

Or 'test' his level of narcissism by having a serious conversation about it and suggesting therapy or else you leave? If an unrecoverable narc, you will continue to get all the blame and gaslighting. If not a full blown narc, surely this would be a warning to him that it is serious and he would agree to therapy (individually, for him).

Yes and he is still attempting to control both of us more than 10 years later. DD is 18 now and wants nothing to do with him. It took me a long time to disengage and give him the grey rock treatment, something I very much regret as I wasted a lot of years trying to reason with him.

@chocolatesaltyballs22 has he made your life very difficult for those ten years? Is your life substantially better/happier since leaving or did you find yourself still dealing with his issues but just in a different way?

I quickly went to not engaging mode. Told him he needs to pay his way ( doesn't happen) and confirm pick up time eow to see DC. He skipped off into his new life with ow and pretty much dropped the kids. The. Got mad when the eldest refused to see him when he graced them with a visit. Four years on their is a new girl friend in the scene who has children of her own and he is being super dad to impress her no doubt.

We don't engage about anything other than pick up times. I ask for money every so often. Sometimes it materialises. He has nothing to do with anything else. School hobbies appointments etc is all down to me. That suits me. He hated it at first. But leaves me alone now.

Oh and the kids are much happier. More settled and feel safe and secure at home. My eldest said his dad leaving was the best thing that ever happened. He was ten when he left.

[quote shoowop]@chocolatesaltyballs22 has he made your life very difficult for those ten years? Is your life substantially better/happier since leaving or did you find yourself still dealing with his issues but just in a different way?[/quote]
Oh I still dealt with his shit for a long time and yes he tried to make my life difficult. Do not regret leaving one bit, just regret not playing his games after I'd left. I'm remarried and much happier. Daughter is happier when she doesn't see him. He makes her feel like shit and zaps her confidence.

It's been unbelievable hell.

Every narcissistic trait got ramped up to whole new levels. The gaslighting left me speechless, I spent 1000s on lawyers trying to get things straight.

When he couldn't control me any longer, he turned it onto our eldest daughter. She's been through trauma therapy because of it.

Karma's caught up with him as he had a life changing incident recently, but when he recovers I fully expect the abuse to continue.

In short, they don't give up. They also feed off drama. You need to manage all communications very very carefully.

OMG @PartridgeFeather I could have written that. My daughter's has to have counselling too. Except mine hasn't has the karma catch up with him yet unfortunately.

It's not great. He frequently forgets he has kids and seemingly delights in telling me how free he is now, apart from me still 'getting paid' off of having his kids, his life is bliss.

The kids were in free fall and are still not settled a year later.

When eldest was diagnosed with SN his actual response was

"Jesus Christ do I even exist? I told you and the school he just needs actual parenting which you're not capable of, yet you all went ahead and got him labelled anyway, every fucker just ignores me completely. Why do I bother?"

For context me and the SN staff at school fought hard for 2/3years to get DS assessed. He has ADHD, ASD, Dyspraxia. He lived with us throughout and knew DS was miserable, lonely, and overwhelmed everyday. He came to meetings once.

But now DS was only diagnosed to spite him.

It's petty but I have to choke on that shit and similar just to stay dignified, frequently and it grinds at me tbh.
Sorry for ranting

Yes I have. Not diagnosed but deffo some kind of persanality disorder.
It was totally disaster. An awareness of having something wrong with them can actually make things worse, well it did in my situation!
Very large legal bills, heavy involvement with social services and cafcass. Finally a no contact order was granted by the courts. One of the stipulations of the court was for him to have a psychological assessment, so they clearly recognised there was something wrong too!

My husband did and she made his life and the life of his daughter hell. As well as mine. Thankfully the DD is an adult now so we don't need to have anything to do with the mother.

My exH is a narcissist and I attempted to compare to with him after I left. It was pretty much a disaster and sadly my DS was in therapy for years as a young adult. But if I hadn’t tried coparenting, my ex would never have stopped trying to manipulate and control anyway so I don’t know what the alternative would have been. He now does the same with DS which is hard to observe. All I can do is try and be here for DS and ‘stay the adult’ (again).

Coparent not compare

He talked a lot of talk about fighting me/taking me to court but that didn't actually happen.

Actually he cancelled contact 2/3 of the time or more, often last minute, and very quickly got together with new girlfriends and got embroiled in all their drama, often using it as an excuse for why he couldn't see DS. Had a baby with one of them then split up with her, mother couldn't look after the child so social services asked if he wanted custody and he said no. The child was taken into care/adopted, no contact

He then went on to have another child with someone else I think they are still together but I try to avoid finding out TBH. The only reason I know this is because I'm still FB friends with some of his family members so they can keep up with DS.

So DS has 2 half siblings which he has no relationship with.

XP has not seen him since he was 2 and never sent so much as a Christmas card let alone child maintenance.

Contact was stressful while it was happening because of all this stuff I was hearing on the grapevine - GF being alcoholic/into drugs (he had alcohol problems himself) and weird friends that seemed completely inappropriate, DS would come back stinking of smoke and chip fat, with loads of junk food/drink wrappers in his bag (which wound me up because he was only 13 months old!) And I was concerned they were being shouty/smacking etc and DS couldn't tell me. He would often be unsettled when he came home and several times he vomited after contact even though he wasn't ill.

But it didn't last very long. Less than a year. I never pushed/chased for maintenance because I didn't want him to start up contact again TBH, it was unsettling for DS when he would cancel last minute and I didn't think he'd owe us very much money so I didn't want him to feel he had any right to tell us what to spend it on. In hindsight (11 years later!) I kind of wish I had gone after maintenance because it would have added up to a lot! But we've managed fine, and probably it was worth it for him not to feel he had power over me.

I asked a few years ago whether he'd consent to DS changing his surname. He refused. DS needed to travel on an emergency passport 3 years ago so I had to contact XP again to get his written permission for the consulate. He agreed to that one.