Co-parenting is hard enough when neither parent has special mental health concerns. When one of them has narcissism, the situation can become much more complicated. This is because the person with the condition isn’t able to focus on what the children need and will focus on their own desires and needs instead. Since they aren’t able to think about how their decisions affect others, they may make decisions that aren’t in the children’s best interests.
If you’re facing this type of situation, you’re going to need to think very carefully about how to handle the issues that might arise. A narcissist will usually do things that they know will upset just to get that reaction out of you so they can feel powerful.
You probably know the tactics they prefer to use so you can think about what types of solutions you have for those. For example, you might opt to communicate solely through your lawyer or a monitored parenting app. This takes away their ability to see your reaction and gives you time to think about how to reply to their antics.
When kids are involved, the narcissist may try to use the kids as leverage for whatever goals they may have. This situation may require that you have a parenting plan that clearly outlines everything about the children. The more detail in the plan, the less of a chance there is that something will come up later that will lead to a disagreement.
Don’t be afraid to head back to court as necessary to get the parenting plan modified. In most cases, there isn’t any feasible way to negotiate with a narcissistic person. This means that court battles might be your only option, so discuss this with your attorney.