Narcissistic Spouse Turn Adult Children Against Other Parent

So today we're going to be talking about what happens when narcissistic spouses use your children as pawns against you.

The topic of parental alienation and spousal disregard in my opinion is a very important topic.

If you love someone who is high on the narcissistic spectrum,

If you love someone who is actually has been diagnosed with NPD and you have children,

It is not uncommon for them to make your children a target.

They will use almost any tactic in the book to distort reality and to control your children's perception of you for their gain.

What is the gain?

Narcissistic supply.

When we are dealing with people who have high narcissistic traits,

We're dealing with people who are in it to win it.

They see the divorce proceeding as an opportunity to take the ball and go home.

So if you have children,

Then it's not uncommon for them to begin to tell your children stories about you that are completely false or they are distorted or they're skewed to make you look bad.

In my coaching practice,

I often hear clients tell me these horrific stories about how they were loving fathers,

They were loving mothers,

And once the divorce got underway,

The children seemed to go against them and forgot all the good that they ever offered their children,

Forgot all of the amazing outings that they had,

Forgot all of the ways in which they actually bonded.

And it wasn't until the divorce got underway that the children's attitude towards one of the parents began to change.

And really distressful because if you're not a narcissist,

Then you're not trying to turn your children against your partner.

Even if you think your partner has high narcissistic traits,

You are trying to mitigate how they feel.

You're not trying to exploit the situation to your advantage.

You know that it is to your children's advantage to have contact with both of you.

And the last thing that you want to do is make it difficult for your children to love both of you since they are both of you.

So someone who is relatively healthy,

Who is going through a divorce is going to understand that it's important that the children are involved in their partner's life.

Even if they don't like their partner,

It's important that their children are involved in their partner's life.

Now there's a caveat here obviously if we're talking about some type of situation in which the children should not be with the partner,

Especially if we're talking about young children who can't speak on behalf of themselves,

Then that's a different situation completely.

It is not uncommon to go through a divorce and have a partner who had very little time for their children suddenly begin to have time for their children.

I remember in my own divorce where my ex showed up one day with a motorcycle for my son right after he had a huge argument with my son.

It was just a few weeks later where poof,

Now there's a motorcycle on my lawn.

My son didn't know how to ride a motorcycle.

I was very against him having a motorcycle.

But this is what he did to position himself as the parent who wanted to cater to his needs,

Make his dreams come true.

And things were said like,

Well,

Your mother doesn't want you to have nice things because she never had nice things.

And don't be upset with your mom because she doesn't want you to have nice things.

It's not her fault that she didn't grow up with nice things.

Don't be upset that your mom won't spend money on things like a motorcycle or a new scooter with a motor on it or a new computer or a new cell phone.

It's not her fault that she grew up the way that she did.

You have to forgive her.

So the message was delivered with a very careful razor type language where he was,

On the surface it made it seem like he cared about my children and maybe even me.

But the message really was that mom doesn't love you.

Mom doesn't spend money on you.

And look at me,

I'm spending money on you because I care about you.

And when children are young,

They want things.

And they're very susceptible to what their parents are saying.

And so if you have a child who has felt ignored and denied by,

Let's say,

Their father or their mother,

And suddenly this person shows up bearing gifts,

It's going to be very difficult for a child who has felt neglected and abandoned to refuse these gifts.

It would take a very strong willed child to be able to see what was really going on,

To be able to hear the manipulation and the narcissists' language to better understand the situation for what it is.

When we're dealing with a spouse that is trying to ruin our relationship with our children,

There are things that we want to remember.

One of the hallmarks is discrediting you as a person,

Just making it really hard for your children to find any value in you.

So they will discredit you in any way possible.

They will make any purchase about you being selfish.

They will make any boundary that you set with your children about you being a narcissist.

And they will take advantage of the situation and then give the children what it is you refuse to give them.

That's all part of them wanting to assure that they have complete control over how your children perceive you and perceive them.

Their aim is to distort your children's perception of you to their own gain.

And like I said,

It doesn't come out aggressively most of the time.

It comes out very passive aggressively.

It comes out sounding like they're taking care of you.

It comes out like they care about how your children perceive you.

Like I said earlier,

Oh,

It's not your mother's fault.

She's always been a troubled woman.

She doesn't get along with anyone.

She always makes it about her feelings.

Of course she can't understand why you have this need.

Of course she doesn't want you to buy a car because she never had a car when she was growing up.

It's not her fault.

But she's realized that she's punishing you and denying you these things because she never had them.

So imagine being a child in this situation and hearing the person who's delivering a car to your front door with a big red bow on it,

Especially someone who has never been to a soccer game,

Who has never shown up for school play,

Someone who's never taken interest in your homework,

Someone who never got up in the middle of the night to feed you,

Someone who never changed a diaper,

Someone who never went to a doctor's appointment,

Someone who didn't go to teach your parent meetings.

You forget all that when you're a kid.

But when you're 16,

17 years old,

You start to remember you have deep wants and you're thinking differently.

And so you don't really take into account all the amazing things that your mother or your father did for you when you were little,

Like the real stuff,

Being in the trenches,

Making sure that you got chicken soup when you had a runny nose,

Or making sure that there was someone to pick you up because it was raining outside and you were stuck at work,

Or staying home from work,

Making sure that you're home from work to make sure that these kids are getting what they need.

All of these innumerable responsibilities as a parent that make you a good parent that children forget about over time will actually be washed away when they begin to have their own egoic needs.

Our narcissists who will use the divorce as a way to exploit them to discredit you.

And why?

Why would one partner discredit the next partner?

Because like I said,

Narcissists are in it to win it.

They want to take the ball and they want to go home.

And if getting your children to believe them by discrediting you hurts you,

Then that's what they're in it for.

They know it's going to hurt you.

They know that your children not speaking to you is going to hurt you.

And they also don't want your children to see what you see.

This is a big one.

While we stay acquiescing as we subjugate,

As we try to figure out how to be good enough for these people,

As we disown how we feel,

As we stay in therapy,

As we have these conversations to 4 a.

M.

In the morning,

As we keep trying to figure out how to make this person happy,

As we keep regulating ourselves according to these unnecessary,

Ridiculous situations,

And that's part of what we do wrong,

We just keep adapting to situations in which we should not tolerate.

But we don't realize it.

Especially if we come from an ACOA background,

Especially if we are unrecovered adult children of alcoholics ourselves,

If there has been some type of an addiction in our family,

We're not used to saying,

Hey,

Knock it off,

That hurts.

We are not used to setting a boundary.

We don't know what it is to like,

What's normal,

What's not normal.

So we're constantly adjusting ourselves to this crazy making,

To this instability,

To the rage of the person that we're living with,

To the condescending comments.

We're trying to figure out how to make things better because that's the way we lived as children.

And so if that is part of our history,

When the relationship goes south and our spouses take this position,

We are blindsided.

We can't make heads or tails of what just happened.

We just assume I can't live with this person,

He or she can't live with me,

The relationship's over,

And you never see it coming when they come for your kids.

And depending on the age of your children,

I personally think it's sometimes easier to manipulate older children than younger children because older children want things.

Older children have needs.

They have needs for housing.

They have needs for cars.

They have needs for cell phones.

They have needs for clothes.

And so we live in a very materialistic society.

And when the narcissist comes along and says,

Hey,

I'll take care of housing for you.

Hey,

I'll make sure you have all your financial needs are taken care of.

What the adult children don't realize is that if you're dealing with a narcissistic parent,

It won't be the case all the time.

But if you are,

Dear one,

If you're dealing with a narcissistic parent,

You have to see if this parent is creating a dependency upon you,

Then you are going to be robbed of your autonomy.

Then what ends up happening is now this parent is buying your loyalty against their spouse.

So this could be your natural mother.

It could be your natural father.

It could be a stepmother or stepfather.

But when a narcissistic spouse comes along or a narcissistic parent comes along and they create this dependency upon you from money,

It's going to be very hard for you to let that go and for you to see things clearly because your need now is going to be threatened.

And if you're dealing with a narcissistic parent,

That's exactly what they wanted to happen.

The sad thing is that your relationship with the other parent is now in jeopardy and you don't even realize it happened.

If you are the alienated parent,

What you will be experiencing is tremendous criticism from your adult children.

They will criticize you up and down.

They are being brainwashed from the narcissistic parent who has now distorted reality,

Who is now saying,

Oh,

Remember when your father did that?

Well,

That's because he only cared about himself.

Or remember when daddy said that you couldn't go to that party?

Well,

That's because daddy was jealous that you actually have friends and daddy never had friends.

Don't blame daddy because he never had friends.

He was just trying to protect you.

So it's a very passive aggressive double meaning message that children are receiving.

But the message is clear.

Daddy did something against me.

Daddy's the bad one and mommy's the good one.

And dads do this too.

Dads who have not had much to do with their children,

Who allowed the wife in the situation to take care of the children,

Wife gets sick of what's going on,

Starts speaking up.

The narcissistic husband is beginning to get aware of what is happening,

Doesn't want to lose the children,

Doesn't want the children to see what the wife sees.

And then what they do is they go into full on attack and they begin to criticize the parent who knows that this other parent is actually a narcissist.

So they hedge the bets.

So they get ahead of it.

So they triangulate.

They start criticizing the parent more and more.

They start to create a dependency upon them more and more.

So the children are more and more dependent upon the more narcissistic parent.

The narcissistic parent begins to invest a whole lot of time in their children in a way that they never have before.

They suddenly have empathy for their children.

You need a babysitter?

Mommy's here.

You need a car ride?

Daddy's here.

You need money to go to Atlanta?

You got money for that too.

Oh,

You want to take a girl's trip to Boca Raton?

Okay,

Here's some money for that too because I care about you.

What's really going on is the adult children are being used,

But they don't see that they're being used.

So if you're the alienated parent,

What's going to be very difficult for you to navigate is this sudden criticism by your children where they're coming at you with this distorted reality and it's going to make you doubt yourself.

You're going to end up with brain fog.

You're going to end up not being able to sleep.

Your heart is going to feel like it's being ripped out.

Your intentions are being brought into question.

You'll wonder if you're the narcissist.

You'll wonder if it was wrong to set that boundary when your daughter wanted to go out in a car with someone that you knew had a drinking problem and had a couple of DUIs.

You'll be ridiculed for setting that boundary.

It'll be twisted into something it's not.

And if you're not careful,

This could be very emotionally damaging to you and you could lose yourself in this process.

Adult children have been known to threaten their parents,

Threaten their parents that they're suddenly criticizing saying,

You know,

The only way that you're going to see me is if you do X,

Y,

And Z.

And so if your adult children are threatening you,

It's something to really pay attention to.

Adult children who are being psychologically brainwashed by a narcissistic parent will threaten to not allow you to see your grandchildren.

And one of the things that we have to pay attention to if you are the actual alienated parent is what benefit is this,

Is my spouse now offering my children?

That's a key.

So if your children are suddenly getting money from the narcissistic spouse,

If they're getting cars,

If they're getting housing,

Babysitting,

Whatever it is,

What source of supply has your narcissistic spouse suddenly become for your children?

Because it's going to be difficult for them to understand what's really going on,

Especially when the narcissistic spouse is now exploiting their needs to their gain.

And so if you're the alienated parent,

I want you to take a couple of minutes and ask yourself,

What's the payoff here?

Because that'll help you sift through this so that you don't feel so lost by it.

Another sign that you'll notice is that when you ask your children,

Like,

Where is this coming from?

What's your justification for calling me a narcissist?

Or what's your justification for not allowing me to see my grandchildren?

Or what's the justification for you suddenly like not talking to me at all?

Like where is this coming from?

Oftentimes the kids don't really have a clear understanding of why they're doing it.

Oftentimes what you'll hear them say is they'll replay a story that you thought was just innocuous,

That you thought was a very innocent story.

And suddenly they painted you the villain in the story.

And that is coming from their narcissistic parent,

The one who is triangulating them against you.

And so what you have to do,

Dear one,

Is you have to hold onto yourself and say to yourself,

This reality is being distorted and it's unfair.

It feels like I'm being attacked.

It doesn't feel like I matter.

It feels like it's all or nothing.

Like my children see no value in me anymore.

We had a wonderful relationship up until the marriage started to fall apart.

And my ex spouse began to tuck the children under his or her wing.

And they started spending time with the narcissistic parent.

That's a big tell.

Because if your children had very little issues with you per se,

Up until the time where the relationship started to fall apart,

They might not be able to see it,

But you might be able to see it.

And you seeing it is going to help you feel less upset by it.

And unfortunately this is par for the course.

When you're dealing with someone who has high narcissism,

This is what they do.

They hurt you through the kids.

They try to take the kids away from you.

If they can't do it physically,

They do it spiritually.

They do it mentally.

They do it emotionally.

It helps them feel better about themselves when your children go no contact with you.

And their reality of you is being distorted by the narcissistic parent.

It makes the narcissistic parent feel more empowered because they have complete control over the way your children see you.

And they're also hedging their bets.

If they can control the way your children see them,

Then you don't have a chance to share your side of the story,

Your side of the divorce,

And why it is that you thought that it was best for you to leave the marriage.

Narcissist does not want to be abandoned,

Nor do they want to be called out by adult children.

Another thing that you'll notice if you are the alienated parent from adult children is that the adult children will never admit that these ideas are actually coming from the other parent.

They'll claim that it's all of their own mind,

That their mother or father had nothing to do with their perception of you,

And they will seem very indignant about their perception or their distorted reality of you.

And I've been through this.

It is so painful.

And when I think back to it,

I could still weep for the young divorced single woman that I was,

Mom at the time that I was,

Trying to keep it together,

Not wanting my children to go against their dad,

And yet being completely shocked when learning that he wanted my children to have nothing to do with me.

And he would say,

The only problem our children will ever have is you.

The best thing for them to do is to get away from you.

That's what our kids need to do.

You're their only problem.

So any problem that the kid had was always going to be my fault,

Even though I was the one that was taking care of them.

I was the one that was making sure that they went to school.

I was the one making sure all of their needs were being met,

And making sure that they did well in school.

And you know the deal.

You know what it takes to raise children these days.

Even though they were as decent human beings as they were,

Anything that went awry in their life would be my fault,

Or I never got the credit for the people that they were either.

A narcissist wants to have the cake,

And they want to eat the cake too.

So while you won't get credit for your children being amazing,

Decent human beings,

You will be blamed if anything goes wrong in their life.

It will never be their fault.

They will never be a part of it.

And they will find a way to distort reality so that your children believe that too.

Another thing that you'll notice is that there's no middle ground.

It's all or nothing.

When you've been alienated by your children,

And there is a narcissistic spouse at the helm of it,

You'll notice that there is no middle ground for you and your adult children.

You don't have a say.

You don't have a right to say,

This is what I think,

And this is what I feel.

They're not interested in listening to what you have to say.

So if you're going through this,

Then you'll notice that your adult children are drinking the Kool-Aid.

It has to be their way,

And they see very little value in you or any value in you at all.

They're completely 100% aligned with your spouse's perception of you.

And you could be the nicest person in the world,

Completely unassuming,

Never see this coming.

And you will be completely shocked at how quickly some children can be turned around when their mother or father is suddenly paying interest in them,

And they are supplying them with a need,

Whether it's housing,

Food,

Money,

Or things.

Another thing that might shock you if you're the parent who is going through this is that your children suddenly speak to you in a way that is so punishing,

And they have no remorse for it.

They talk to you like you're lower than dirt,

And they disrespect you.

They have no understanding or any empathy for how what they're saying affects you.

They have completely aligned with the other parent,

And you'll be shocked at the lack of consideration and the lack of understanding that your children are offering you.

And it will be very painful because you might get caught up in,

Well,

How do I convince them that I'm not this person?

And I think that's the worst thing you can do because that's just you chasing a bone.

And if your children are drinking the Kool-Aid of a narcissistic parent,

Then they are under the narcissistic parent's spell.

They're literally being brainwashed by someone who has found a way to figure out what their needs are,

And then they supply those needs.

So narcissistic parents will love bomb your children.

They will come at it from the angle as if they have empathy for your children,

But they're positioning you as the gremlin.

They're positioning you as the villain.

And they do it with a very sugar-coated tongue.

And it will be difficult for your children to see past the idea that their mother or their father is suddenly supplying them with money,

Suddenly babysitting,

Suddenly taking care of them in ways that they need to be taken care of.

And so now their ego is going to not want to let go of this sudden attention,

This money,

This housing,

Cars,

Whatever it is.

And their ego now is going to have to rationalize and justify why they're cutting you out.

Because you,

Dear one,

No matter how great of a mother or a father you were,

You,

Dear one,

Their alliance to you is a threat to the needs the narcissistic parent is now supplying.

This is going to sound a little nuts,

But try not to take this nonsense personally.

Your children are absolutely under the guise of what is happening,

Brainwashing,

Love bombing,

Toxicity,

Dependency,

And even narcissistic supply,

Activating narcissism in your children.

I'm not saying your children are narcissists.

I'm saying that they are victims of a pawn,

And they are being abused,

And their needs are being exploited.

And the longer this goes on and the more your children,

Adult children,

Depend on the narcissistic spouse,

The more difficult it will be for them to see what's really going on.

While I was going through this,

I very much relied on accept what you can't control.

And I let it go.

And so when my son moved in with my ex-husband,

I began to work on me.

And I prayed a lot for him because I knew that once I was no longer in the equation,

In other words,

Like once I let go and said,

Okay kids,

You're old enough to decide where you sleep,

You're old enough to decide what parent you spend time with,

You're old enough to decide where you go in life,

You're old enough to decide,

I can't control this.

This is what I think and this is what I feel,

And I release you to figure it out.

And as I began to release,

Then I was less a part of this dynamic.

And eventually what happened was the narcissism,

In my opinion,

The narcissism came to the surface and it blew up.

And today my children have nothing to do with their father.

And as sad as that is,

And I believe it is sad,

It took me longer to accept that my children did not want to have him in their life than it did them.

It was harder for me to accept that than it was for them to accept it because I just thought,

Wow,

This is going to be so painful for them moving forward to have like nothing to do with him.

And I think that's a telltale sign.

If you are a parent who is going through this and you know in your heart that you were not that parent,

You were not the one that was trying to turn your children against your spouse.

You were the one,

Even though the marriage collapsed and imploded,

You still saw value in your children having a relationship with your spouse.

You are not the narcissistic parent.

And that's important to really realize because you will be accused of being the narcissistic parent by the narcissistic parent.

It's par for the course and it's very confusing.

What hurts more than losing your children?

Losing your children is like feeling like you're being gutted.

The narcissistic parent doesn't really care.

They don't have empathy for your experience.

They're worried about withholding the mask or holding the mask up.

They're worried about the fantasy in their head that they tell them that they're the better parent,

That they're the great parent,

That they're an amazing parent.

Even though they didn't do much parenting before the divorce,

They're the most amazing parent today.

It helps you to pay attention to what's real and what's not real.

I really hope that anybody who is going through this today takes value out of this because you're not alone.

This happens a lot.

And the more you understand the facts of the matter,

The more you understand who you are,

Then the more you let go of what you can't control,

The less involved you get in this dynamic,

The less you subjugate,

The less you people please,

And the more you hold your own boundary.

As difficult as it is,

You have to hold your own boundary.

I think we have to be wise.

I think we have to take it case by case.

I think we have to know how much of ourselves we're going to invest in a situation that we're powerless to.

And certainly if your adult children are drinking the Kool-Aid of a narcissistic spouse who has now found ways to make them depend on him or depend on her,

This doesn't sound like a situation that is going to help you feel better about yourself,

Especially if your adult children are criticizing you,

They see no value in you,

They've aligned completely with the opposite parent,

And they have forgotten the type of relationship you had before the demise of the marriage.

It doesn't sound like that's going to be very fruitful for you or helpful for you.

So I say,

Dear one,

Maintain boundaries.

Take care of yourself and hope that one day when your children see what's really going on,

You're able to have a mature conversation and help them with boundaries,

The boundaries they're going to need if their relationship with a narcissistic parent goes south.

Namaste.

Until next time.

I really hope this has been helpful for many of you out there.

Until next time.

Bye for now.