Complicated Co-parenting Series – Part 4

Blog 4 – What if my Co-Parent is Ill or Toxic? 

Toxic Coparents

Much is written in the parenting self-help literature about Toxic Co-Parents. These authors come from a variety of backgrounds and relay accounts from personal parenting experiences (Tiffy Austin, Adele Moore), clinical experience treating parents and families of divorce (Amy Baker, PhD and Paul R Fine LICSW, Paul Mason, MS, and Randi Kreger) and professionals who are both researching and consulting on high conflict divorce (Margalis Fjelstad and Jean McBride).  But what is a Toxic Co-Parent, really? And more importantly, how do you as a parent know when you need interventions and strategies that are geared to helping parents who are undergoing a high-conflict divorce that threatens your children’s security and emotional health?  

What is a Toxic Co-parent?  

In short, most of these authors use the “Toxic Co-Parent” to refer to what Margalis Fjelstad and McBridge call simply “self-focused” parenting.  Self-focused parenting occurs when one or both parents deal with deficits in logical thought, emotional dysregulation, and egocentric thinking.  These parents struggle to keep their children fully in mind while navigating the complexities of divorce and co-parenting.  This child-centered goal is a mighty task in the midst of so much pain and trauma, yet it is the primary focus to ensure that your children weather the separation and divorce as unscathed as possible.  Parents who are self-focused often have emotional or mental health conditions that obstruct their ability to be “other-focused.”  In self-focused parenting, emotional reactivity and mental deficits cause one or both parents to react from their place of pain rather than their family’s need for peace.  

It is important to note that all parents can lose perspective during the pain of divorce.  Yet, parents who remain self-focused do the most harm.  These parents often have persistent patterns of relating in a disturbed manner to their children or co-parents.  They can’t attune to others’ feelings or perspectives. They can demand attention and simultaneously control and neglect their children. There are many labels and diagnostic categories for people who live and “do relationships’ this way (i.e., borderline personality disorder, narcissism,  histrionic personalities, etc.)  Often, these parents struggle with past trauma or current addictions themselves, which muddy the waters into who is to blame, what they need to heal, and how to relate well and communicate well with others. 

The field has grouped these parents into the label of “toxic,” which has been helpful in offering strategies for coping with and co-parenting. Yet, It’s important to keep in mind that behaviors are toxic, and people are in pain.  Hurting parents can act in harmful, hurtful ways both toward their co-parent and to their children. Yet, thinking about and calling certain people toxic is only helpful when it helps us set boundaries for ourselves. We can have and set boundaries whether we refer to the other person as toxic, damaged, narcissistic, or disturbed. 

Sure, try to think about what type of disturbance your co-parent might be dealing with so you have a map or playbook for communication and interactions with them.  Then let go of the label and just follow the strategies.  It will help you relate to your co-parent from “your best place,” which only enhances your relationship with your child.  Your child needs to carry the best parts of both parents with them into the world, and their developing personalities aren’t ready to internalize those “bad parts” of their parents quite yet.  As much as you can, stay neutral about the negative qualities, which means labeling the negative behaviors without criticizing or blaming your co-parents.  You can take an attitude of responsibility over blame and still hold a boundary for yourself and your children. For example, it isn’t okay for your co-parent to be late or intoxicated.  Yet it is understandable that they would love their child enough to want to see them and your child would be angry, hurt, and still long to see and spend time with their parent.  

So, First, you want to take stock of your co-parenting relationship and decide if you are dealing with a situation that is “toxic” or someone who is “self-focused” as a pattern.  The hallmark feature of a self-focused parent is the fundamental lack of empathy–they miss tuning into others’ needs, struggle to feel others’ feelings, and can’t consider others’ wants (except in relation to their own wants and needs).  This trait is likely out of their awareness or skill set.  Here are some signs to look for to determine if you or your co-parent are operating from a “self-focused” model.  

• Emotions Rule No Matter What: Parents persist in explaining, exploding, or expressing their feelings regardless of the impact on the child or the consequences in the relationship.  
• No Apologies:  Fights happen, problems occur, yet there are never moments of apology or sincerity that happen.  These amends need to be initiated by both parents to reconnect as a family regardless of whether you are divorced or married.  
• Groundhog Day:  Problems occur, and incidents happen, yet there doesn’t seem to be much progress—thus, there is little adult learning going on. As adults and parents, we are tasked with learning from our mistakes and successes in our parenting experiences.  If you or your co-parent struggle to take experiences, both good and bad, and use them for the well-being of your children in the future, then you are likely stuck in some old patterns or problems that keep you self-focused and less effective as a parent.  It might not be your fault that you are stuck (i.e. ADHD, past trauma), yet it is your responsibility to deal with it and grow from it in order to parent well. 
• Lost and Confused:  You or your co-parent might be suffering so much from the divorce or other setbacks (i.e., job loss, alcoholism, death of a loved one) that they struggle to relate to others well or at all.  This mindset can keep you stuck in a state of confusion or lack of self-awareness–Self-awareness is the building block for helping your child develop self-esteem and grow emotionally.  
• Boundaryless:  Self-focused parents often don’t have very good boundaries.  They might not have or enforce many rules in their home because their child’s upset feelings are experienced as an emotional injury or personal insult to their parenting abilities. A child’s negative feelings about losing a privilege might feel too painful for them to cope with the act of setting boundaries.  Self-focused parents might also infringe on others by not respecting their space or their wishes; they can only think of their own needs or wants, whether intentionally or unconsciously.  
• Inflexibility: Self-focused parents might also over-control. They could have a multitude of rules and routines that mostly serve their needs for order or control yet don’t account for others well. These parents are often anxious and set rigid boundaries, adhere to overly strict rules, or maintain entrenched routines to make themselves feel better or have more comfort in a world that feels chaotic to them. 
• Blaming and Critical:  Self-focused parents can mostly see others’ faults and not their strengths or humanity.  They dole out criticisms and comments in an effort (conscious or unconscious) to obscure the negative effects of their behaviors on others or to cover up when they feel helpless and don’t know how to solve a problem. 
• Disrespectful and Unreasonable: Self-focused parents often ignore, discount, or reject others’ feelings or wishes. Many times, it doesn’t even occur to them to consider others’ wants or needs, which can feel like a surprise or assault on them personally. This results in emotional upset or overreaction.  
• Grandiose “Me-Ness:” Self-focused parents amplify their strengths and importance in situations and the lives of others. And, yes, we do hold a primary place in our children’s lives.  Yet, it is developmentally natural for children to wax and wane in their focus on their parents and family and become more focused on their friends, their school lives, and their own goals.  Self-focused parents experience this natural progression as a threat.  
• Tuned Out or Chaotic:  Self-focused parents struggle to use their own feelings as guides for positive attention or nurturing protection. This deficit causes them to tune out and not read others or their world well. These parents often engage in behaviors that create chaos or result in heavy consequences for themselves or those around them. (i.e., excessive spending, alcohol/drug abuse, frantic scheduling).  
• Lack of Problem-Solving Skills: Self-focused parents tackle problems that matter to them the most and cause them the most distress. Yet, they might not notice or attend to problems that greatly impact others. Self-focused parents don’t tune into their relationships well, so they often solve problems without others in mind, which results in poor outcomes or avoidance altogether. 

Second, you want to consider how you and your children have been impacted by a Self-Focused Parent.  When self-focused parents divorce, chaos ensues.  This change in family constellation taps a great deal of loss for everyone.  And, all parents can retreat into or run away from their pain when separating and divorcing. Yet, self-focused parents often live out their pain as a way of life, and they typically don’t get better over time.  And that process often has a huge impact on the children and other family members.  

Families with one or both parents who struggle with these issues often create a home atmosphere that is unpredictable and hostile, which is why many of these families dissolve and end up in high-conflict divorce situations.  There also can be a great deal of denial from the self-focused parent about how their actions impact the other co-parent or what consequences their behaviors create for their children.  Family members of self-focused parents can feel confused and mystified by the behaviors, which has been more recently described as the experience of gaslighting—To gaslight someone means to manipulate another person into doubting their own perceptions, experiences, or understanding of events, according to the American Psychological Association. Apr 6, 2023. The term comes from a 1938 British stage play, Gas Light, and then film in the UK and US (1940 and 1944). 

Third,  take time to understand your parenting partner and prepare for fallout before you separate and divorce if you can.  Because once you have separated, you will be fully immersed in your ex-partner’s pain, which often results in an escalation of the behaviors and dynamics that were problematic during your marriage. Confronting self-focused parents can result in hostility and intimidating reactions.  Sometimes you can see the toxic patterns or behaviors worsen, emerge or erupt when you confront your co-parent about separation or start to work on the issues at hand..  It’s important to prepare and plan for those reactions as much as possible in order to protect and shield your children. Two resources for understanding, managing, and preparing to leave your toxic co-parent are the following:  Margalis Fjelstad’s Stop Caretaking the Borderline or Narcissist: How to End the Drama and Get on with Life, and Paul T Mason and Randi Kreger’s, Stop Walking on Eggshells, 3rd Edition: Taking Back Your Life Back When Someone You Care About Has Borderline Personality Disorder.  These books help you think about yourself, your own self-care, your negative patterns in the harmful relationship, and how to move beyond this damaging relationship to help your children and yourself move toward better health.  

Fourth, spend time understanding what the difference between typical Co-Parenting, Parallel Parenting, and Solo (or what I call Silo Parenting) is.  You will get lots of advice while moving through your divorce from your difficult co-parent.  Advice from your married friends, those who have divorced, professionals who adhere to ideals and offer best practices for managing your co-parenting, and many others.  Ideally, you will come in contact with professionals who understand the nuanced challenges of dealing with a self-focused co-parent, and you will get better counsel there. 

Co-parenting is defined by the Oxford Dictionary as sharing the duties of raising (a child) (used especially for parents who are separated or not in a relationship). Bradley Craig outlines Co-Parenting is a process in which two individual parents can adhere to certain rules, maintain healthy boundaries, understand feelings vs actions, understand (and move through) grief, maintain self-care and a parenting alliance, communicate healthfully (i.e family-friendly, “I” statements, use of email/text/in person methods well), stay primarily child-focused in negotiations and conversations.  This style is the ideal. Yet, it is sometimes not the reality for Co-Parents who are living in or playing out the pain of the divorce. Some parents need to start with a different, more “boundaried” relationship with their co-parent until they have recovered more fully or understand their co-parent’s traits better. 

Parallel Parenting is a parenting method for parents who have high conflict and can’t manage the skills inherent in co-parenting ( parenting together).  These parents can choose this method as a way to reduce conflict and restore their relationship with their children.  Parallel parenting is a method of shared parenting in which parents interact as little as possible with each other while maintaining their relationships with their children (WebMd). 

Solo (Silo) Parenting–Sometimes, divorce results in one parent choosing or having to take on the role of a single parent, either consciously or involuntarily. They could have a co-parent who is absent, unwell, or harmful to their child. It’s up to the parent who is well enough to take on the majority of the parenting responsibilities in order to help their children grow fully.  This realization can be a hard one for parents who don’t want to divorce–It can also feel unfair and difficult if you are recovering from abuse from your co-parent.  Yet, if you are the healthiest parent available to your children, then your task is to heal and help your children heal.  

This reality can also be a choice that a parent makes to provide their child with as much solidarity and security as possible in the presence of a very unwell co-parent. For instance, a healthier co-parent might decide to own all of the parenting tasks and responsibilities for care so as to reduce the conflict and harm that their child has to experience.  

What’s important to realize is that sometimes harmful co-parents still have legal access to their children and visitation rights even if they aren’t fulfilling their parenting duties.  Yes, parents should try to protect their children from abuse and harm from another parent by making reports to child protective services and local police if applicable. Yet, sometimes the system doesn’t respond, or the harm is more obscure and less easy to document with authorities and through the court system. 

So, who is left to protect your children?  You ARE!  That means that you are the child’s sole parenting support.  I think it is helpful to think about your parenting role now as one of a solo (or silo) parent where you set up and execute all the systems of care for your child and then manage your co-parent as they come in and out of your child’s life almost as if they were an ill or troubled family member visiting the family.  For instance, you might allow for your ill family member to send cards, have short visits, and make phone calls—yet you would assess how the person is doing, prepare your child for the visit, and make sure that certain safety measures were in place for the visit. 

Fifth, you must heal from what harm you have undergone in order to help your child and your family. If you stay stuck in your anger and pain, you will only keep holding your children hostage in the hurtful aspects of the divorce rather than moving forward to discover what benefits are there for you and your family. It’s important to understand that nobody can tell you exactly how to deal with your complicated co-parenting relationship.  You will have to devise this system yourself from your very own recovery and learning, with your unique child in mind, and from your experiences with your ex-partner. So yes, spend time reading the books that outline ideals, “how to,’s” and suggested strategies:  CoParenting with a Toxic Ex: Tips and strategies to set boundaries, cope with parental alienation, and manage conflicts without losing your mind (Tiffany Austin), and Co-Parenting with a Toxic Ex: What to do when your ex-spouse tried to turn the kids against you (Amy Baker and Paul R Fine). Take the information in these books to craft your own strategies and systems that fit your family situation.  

For instance, if you can’t manage the conflict between you and your co-parent, then you should loosen the goal of trying to co-parent consistently between homes when it comes to common issues (i.e., screen time, chores, homework, privileges, etc).  Sure, it’s great to have consistent rules and routines between homes. Yet, it is even better to have two parents who aren’t in constant conflict with each other. If you can’t keep the conflict down when trying to arrange consistent rules between the homes, then let go of that goal and reclaim your power as a parent—-Reclaim what you feel is best for your child in your home, and share with your child that rules don’t have to be the same in both homes. You will set the rules in your home, and your co-parent will manage the rules in their home. This shift would be from one of the goals of Co-Parenting to Parallel Parenting. 

Sixth, keep your eye on promoting resilience in your children and within your own life.  Margalis Fjelstad writes compassionately and clearly about living with, separating from, loving, and growing beyond a person’s toxic relationship patterns. She shares the story of her mother’s borderline personality disorder, which propelled her toward a career in studying and treating those with personality disorders.  In short, she explains that Resilient People do the following in their lives:  solve problems, rely on a strong moral compass and sense of humor, ask for help, manage emotions (even bad, disappointing ones), connect with others, and trust their independence and solutions.   She’s wise to note that many events disrupt a person’s capacity for developing and maintaining resilience, which include problems in attachment, trauma, early childhood adversity, and poor caregiving or parental deficits. She fails to note that mental health problems can provide a genetic environment that offers experiences that can also disrupt or erode a person’s resilience.  

Most humans are born with the capacity for resilience until the factors listed above get in the way of normal development.  This process is true for both you and your children.  Fjelstad outlines how parents can adopt a mindset of “good enough parenting” and arrange a home environment that promotes recovery and resilience even after divorce. If you’re only going to read one book about parenting with a disturbed co-parent, I would suggest this one to provide you with a framework to manage all the “do’s” and “don’ts” you will get from literature, professionals, and others.