Children are often caught in the middle in the face of a divorce or separation. Kids love both of their parents and become confused and afraid when they don’t get along.
But what happens when one parent is a narcissist who is adept at gaslighting and manipulation? This article will focus on parental alienation and narcissism.
Parental Alienation
As you may remember from my last post, parental alienation is doing or saying things by one parent to their children against the other, damaging their relationship with the alienated parent.
The damaging parent might cause their children to fear, reject, or even hate the targeted parent as they are painted a picture that is ugly and full of lies.
There are many ways to manipulate children into despising their other parent, including isolating them away from the victim parent, undermining the other parent’s authority, asking their children for information that is negative against the other parent, and emotionally manipulating the children. By far, the most damaging thing done to children is to deny the targeted parent access to them.
Often, the offending parent displays narcissism while pitting the children and their other parent against each other to control and manipulate all involved.
Narcissists and Their Behavior in Divorce
The words narcissist and narcissism are improperly used in our society today to describe someone who doesn’t want to go along with plans or to classify someone in other ultimately silly ways. However, narcissism is nothing to laugh about as it is a severe condition where the narcissist manipulates and bullies people to do what they want.
Another way to describe narcissism is that it is extreme self-involvement by a person to a degree that makes them ignore the needs of those around them. Narcissists understand their behavior but refuse to change.
Narcissism is a trait, but sometimes, it is included as part of a more considerable personality disorder called narcissistic personality disorder on a spectrum. There are some common traits of narcissists, including the following.
A sense of entitlement. Narcissists believe that they are superior to others and deserve special treatment. They also think others should obey their wishes and that the general rules of society don’t apply to them.
When a narcissist faces a divorce, they feel they no longer have control over their ex-spouse, so they exert pressure on them by using the children as weapons, attempting to convince them their other parent is bad.
Manipulating. Narcissists use manipulation and controlling behavior. They draw in their victims by first trying to please and impress you, but soon, their needs will come first. Narcissists try to keep their victims close to maintain control, and they will exploit others to gain something they want.
Divorce means that their ex-spouse has escaped their manipulative grasp, and they think they should be punished. To exert control over their ex, narcissists will use their children as pawns to frustrate and harm them. Narcissists are supreme manipulators and will not stop alienating the other parent, tearing their children apart.
Lack of empathy for others. Narcissists are unwilling or unable to empathize with other people, choosing instead to ignore their wants, needs, and feelings. Their lack of empathy makes narcissists not take responsibility for their actions.
Children of narcissists, especially in a divorce situation, find the controlling parent using them to get back at the other parent and ignoring the fact that their children need love and understanding during such a tough time.
Narcissists believe they are wholly justified in destroying their ex and their children and do not take responsibility for their behaviors.
Tools Narcissistic Parents Use
Unfortunately for children, having a narcissistic parent in a divorce situation harms them and is a form of child abuse. The offending narcissistic parent may utilize a variety of tools to harm their ex using their children.
Triangulation is a standard manipulative tool that occurs when the offending parent vents to the children, causing them to bear the weight of the conflict, and sometimes uses the children to spy on the other parent. Being constantly told nasty things about the other parent and spying on them sets the children up for abandonment and attachment problems.
Another tool a narcissistic parent may employ includes gaslighting, where the offending parent distorts and denies reality while also making the children feel the need to defend the other parent. When the children do try to defend the other parent, the narcissistic parent will manipulate them back into their fold. The conflict the children feel is overwhelming.
There are as many tools that a narcissistic parent will use as there are children whose growth is stunted by their behavior.
Ending Our Time Together
To recap, narcissistic parental alienation happens when a parent with narcissistic traits maliciously alienates their children from their other parent. The offending parent accomplishes parental alienation by attacking the other parent’s character in front of their children.
Unfortunately, the vicious behavior by the narcissistic parent often leads to the children disliking and rejecting the other parent who is innocent of the things the offending parent said.
The available evidence suggests that parental alienation occurs in very tense separations and divorces, particularly if there is a bitter child custody battle. Unfortunately for the children, the offending parent uses cruel and callous words and behaviors, harming not only their intended target, the other parent but also the children.
Clearly, children who are raised where there is parental alienation often form mental health problems such as depression, anxiety disorders, and other serious conditions. Their physical health may also be affected as they may turn to food for comfort and gain significant amounts of weight, or conversely, refuse to eat and become anorexic. These conditions are only the tip of the iceberg for the number of physical and mental problems children in this situation face.
No matter how the situation unfolds, parental alienation is a severe and illegal form of child abuse that significantly harms the children involved.
Pride
CPTSD Foundation wishes to invite you to our Pride Program, which is offered weekly on Circle. In Pride, we discuss important topics related to complex trauma and how it has affected our lives. The program is led by a fantastic person who understands the issues facing the LGBTQIA+ community.
Come as you are, take what you like, and leave the rest.
The program is offered every Thursday at 7 pm Eastern time through the Circle app. If you are interested, you can find information here. If you are interested, don’t hesitate to contact the support team of CPTSD Foundation and sign up.
We look forward to seeing you there.
Trauma-Informed Partner Support
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This program provides that safe place of encouragement, support, information, and validation that supportive partners and helpers need. You are safe here, among others who understand the challenges of helping a survivor navigate daily life.
Learn more about this unique program that focuses on encouraging and equipping you, the supportive partner, as you help care for the survivor in your life and yourself.
My name is Shirley Davis and I am a freelance writer with over 40-years- experience writing short stories and poetry. Living as I do among the corn and bean fields of Illinois (USA), working from home using the Internet has become the best way to communicate with the world. My interests are wide and varied. I love any kind of science and read several research papers per week to satisfy my curiosity. I have earned an Associate Degree in Psychology and enjoy writing books on the subjects that most interest me.
Shirley – this is a beautifully written article. I am someone suffering from C-PTSD and currently going through a divorce. My partner is also someone who has suffered an abusive relationship at the hands of an extreme narcissist. We have been long time friends and when my marriage ended violently with the arrest of my ex, my now partner came to my aid and found the courage to leave their abusive relationship. We both have children from our marriages and I have been very lucky that my children have not experienced any parental alienation and have bonded quite closely with my partner. My partner hasn’t been so lucky and their children have not been receptive to me at all. We have been together over a year and they refuse to even meet me.
One thing I see being very much overlooked in articles about parental alienation is instances where adult or nearly adult children are involved. My partner’s children are between 16 and 23 years old. Their mother, the narcissist in this equation, has done horrible things to them. She robbed my partner of the opportunity to tell them that he was filing for divorce, she robbed him of the opportunity to tell them he was in a relationship with another woman, and she engages with the children as if they are her friends rather than her children. She has done scary things to the kids like refusing to eat, lying about their father, and forcing them to confront their dad with ultimatums (like refusing to speak to/see him if he doesn’t go back to his ex). I just want to point out that it’s not just young kids who can fall victim to alienation. There are true master manipulators out there who are so good at playing victim that they can manipulate adult children into alienating their other parent even in scenarios like mine where the mother was very uninvolved in their lives outside of what was convenient for her or what allowed her to have a friendship-like relationship with the children.
I wish I had advice to those out there who are going through this, but the best thing I can offer to those who are either supporting a partner who’s being alienated or are the person being alienated is to stay even and consistent with the children. Love them, be there for them even when it’s hard. Never feel like you need to share with them more than is necessary and even though it can feel impossible not to, NEVER engage in activities that alienate the alienator. If you are able to get your adult children to participate in group/family counseling, I highly advise this. Sadly there is not much that can be done legally when it comes to divorce, adult children, and alienation, but there are things that you can do to support your own mental health. Finally, be sure to communicate with your partner the emotions you’re feeling and if you are a supporting partner, try to remind your alienated partner at least weekly that it’s okay for them to feel all the things they need to feel while going through this. I write letters to my alienated partner’s children that don’t get sent. I share them with my partner whenever he is feeling alone because it’s a good way to show that I not only am trying to connect to his grief, but I am observing the way it’s impacting him. Stay strong everyone!
Thank you so much for this article. It has been so helpful to absorb these words and find a form of kinship because of shared experience – being on the receiving end of parental alienation can feel very lonely.
I would like to add a perspective from my own experience. It is not only ex-partners who can engender parental alienation. Any important caregiving figure can have this influence.
For me, after escaping an extremely abusive relationship with a malignant narcissist who then spent a decade undermining the relationship with my daughter, over time it became clear my parents were following the a very similar pattern. Although they were more subtle, not as dramatic or obvious in their abuse, and may have justified this as ‘benevolence’, for instance ‘don’t tell your mother how you feel, she has enough to cope with, come to us’, their distortions were nonetheless devastating and consolidated messages about me not being competent or capable as a parent. It validated the wedge between us, was designed simply to make them feel good and ultimately strained the trust I had with my daughter.
I eventually came to realise that one of my parents is a narcissist and other is a co-dependent enabler. My experience of their emotionally immature patterns in childhood set me up to be vulnerable from narcissistic abuse from others.
She and I were victims of the needs of others. Parental alienation can be overtly toxic or covert, dressed in a cloak of care, and can come from anyone with influence.