🦚 Is your ex a narcissist? Avoid this trust trap

“Daddy made eggs benedict for breakfast yesterday.”

These words, coming from my youngest, made me grin. I knew why their father had done this. It was early on in our divorce and even though I’d blocked him on Facebook, he still managed to spy on my account. A few days before, I’d posted a picture of eggs benedict I’d made, with a perfect poached egg.

Then he went on, and I wasn’t grinning any more.

“He made it with toast bread. But the bread was moldy. And when I told [his brother] that there was mold on the bread, daddy yelled at me, ‘Stop telling stories! You guys are always telling lies about me!’ So, I picked off the moldy part and hid it under the edge of my plate and after breakfast, I stuck it in the trash under other stuff, so daddy wouldn’t see I’d thrown it away.”

A week or so later, I was back in court for one of the ongoing court dates in our divorce that never seemed to go anywhere. During the day, my ex came up to me in the hallway and asked why I didn’t want him to have joint custody.

I wish I could rewind what came next

I looked at him and said, “Because you don’t have the ability or the will to parent properly. The other day, when [our son] told you that the bread was moldy, you screamed at him, and he was so scared he had to hide the bit of bread he threw away.”

Yes, I can feel all your faces scrunching up as you cringe, and I can see all your palms going to your foreheads. It was not a wise move.

Right after I’d walked out on my husband, one of my best friends had taken me aside at a party and told me how it had made her feel when her parents had constantly badmouthed her after their divorce. I promised her I wouldn’t do that to my own kids. And I did my best not to. 99% of the time I succeeded. When they came home and told me all the names he called me, my friends, and my mother, I said, “Daddy’s upset with me for leaving, so that’s why he’s saying that.”

But I also made a lot of mistakes.

This was one of those mistakes

First of all, I was risking retaliation. Poking the bear might have felt satisfying, but with a coercive controller, it's like tossing gasoline on a fire. Also, by telling him this, I was shooting my legal strategy in the foot. I was showing all my cards to him, That kind of fact was best left for the court itself. It wouldn’t have been the first time my (very sweet) lawyer said to me, “I’d rather you hadn’t done that.”

I was also risking my own emotional stability by trading barbs with my ex and letting myself get caught up in his drama. Every time I engaged like this, I was cutting holes in my safety net. I needed rock-solid boundaries, not a back-and-forth that put me back in the danger zone.

Most importantly, though, I was letting our children down

When your kids confide in you about the chaos with your ex, it’s like getting handed a live grenade. Sure, your instinct might be to lob it right back at your ex, like I did, but hold up—there’s a bigger picture here. Passing on every little thing they tell you can blow up in your face quicker than your New Year’s resolution to hit the gym daily.

Kids aren’t dumb. They’re watching how you handle intel they pass onto you. If they sense that sharing their stories leads to more drama or gets them caught in the crossfire, they’ll clam up. You don’t want that. You want them to see you as their safe harbor, the one place they can let it all out without fear of it turning into courtroom fodder.

Walking this tightrope calls for the finesse of a diplomat and the patience of a saint. You need to reassure them that their voices matter and that you’re there to listen without turning every conversation into ammunition. How? By focusing on building trust and showing them that their safety and emotional well-being are your top priorities.

Take what they say seriously, but keep it close to your chest unless it’s absolutely necessary to act. Document the important stuff for your own records, but don’t immediately escalate it. Let your kids know you’re on their side, working quietly behind the scenes to ensure their world stays as stable as possible.

Be your kids’ rock, not their megaphone

When you manage that balance, you empower them to keep talking and, most importantly, to keep trusting. And that, my friend, is how you win the long game.

So, going back, with the knowledge and hindsight that I have now, what would I have said to my ex in the courtroom hallway, knowing (as I did even then) that he was a coercive controller and nothing I said was going to make him a better parent?

Want to know how I can help you?

Are you struggling to communicate with a narcissistic ex while keeping your kids' trust intact? Are you constantly getting drawn into draining back-and-forth lobbies that suck the energy out of you? Book a free 30-minute discovery session with me through Calendly. Let’s work together to create a communication strategy that protects your children and empowers you. Don't wait—secure your spot today!

If you want to find out more about how I can help you, then…

Resources

When the podcast episode I was listening to ended while I was driving earlier this week, my feed decided that I needed to listen to this episode of the Mel Robbins podcast. And it was spot on (what, was it following me writing this newsletter, talking about regret?)

In this must-listen episode (according to my podcast feed and now according to me) Mel talks about the feeling of shame that comes with regret, a feeling she knows well after her own disastrous decision to get breast implants at the age of 47.

She talks about how, when you’ve made a huge mistake, your shame keeps you trapped in this mistake because you actually hate the decision that you made. And how to stop beating yourself up and move on from it.

We all need to hear this. Because if there’s one thing I know about victims of narcissistic relationships, it’s that we’re world-class experts at beating ourselves up for our mistakes and staying trapped in our shame. Just click on the image above to listen on Spotify.

BTW, the episode following that one (the latest as of the time of writing) is an interview with Dr. Ramani. So, I know you’re going to want to listen to that too.