Speaker 1: One of the things that I hear from clients a lot, particularly when they're dealing with some level of narcissism in their ex is about the lies, right? This is something that we all struggle with. And, you know, a lot of times, especially with somebody who is having those narcissistic tendencies, everybody around you seems to believe them, right? Because they're usually very charismatic. They're usually able to, uh, manipulate easily, right? And so they kind of have this skill set to where everybody around them tends to believe them. And so when you're in front of the court or a child expert or anybody of that nature, I think this is a big concern for a lot of clients. And they say, why does this happen? Why does this person be able to is able to get away with these lies and saying all of these lies when there's no foundation for any of it? And is there anything I can do to expose it? The good news is yes, yes, there is. And so I'm going to share with you some of the ways that you can help to expose these lies and kind of bring them more to the forefront, particularly when you're dealing with experts and people in the court system. Now, when we start to analyze this, you always have to start with what do you have control of? Okay. So we know we can't make the narcissist stop lying, right? Or the high, whatever the high conflict type of problem person that you're dealing with, you can't make them stop lying. You don't have the control to do that. So the best that you can do is try to be able to expose the lies for what they are. But we have to go back to, okay, we don't have control of the narcissist or how they're going to lie. So what do we have control of? Well, what you have control of is you. So what I find is when people are trying to expose these lies, they get really focused on the other person. They get focused on that high conflict person that's doing the lying and they start using a lot of mental energy to figure out, okay, how do I, you know, stop them, poke holes in what they're saying? What can I do to them? How do I change them? How do I get these things not to happen and all that kind of stuff. But really you have to start by focusing on you because where this starts to come apart is not necessarily in what the narcissist is doing, but in how you're reacting to what they're doing. What happens with so many of my clients and you know, moms in particular, right, we're bad for this. I'll just say it because I'm kind of there in the boat with you and you know, I had a lot of this when I first went through this almost 20 years ago now. But what happens is our reaction is so strong to this narcissistic personality because one, we've lived with it for so long, right? We've been under this abuse and manipulation and control and bullying and all the different aspects of what go into this type of relationship. And so we've been under this for so long that we're very reactive to it and we're almost programmed to be reactive to it because you've been in this relationship, these patterns have repeated over and over again. And so you become, it becomes ingrained in you to have this type of reaction to this person. And what happens is we get very emotional. We get almost hysterical. Some people do get what I would call hysterical and if in a way, if you back up and look at that, it makes sense, right? These are our children. Like what's more important for most parents than their children? Nothing. I would say you ask parents and hopefully at least 95% of them would say, nothing's more important to me than my children. And so, you know, obviously we're going to have an emotional hot button, you know, mama bear, as we're, as women in particular are called a lot of the times, we're going to have that kind of emotional reaction to things that is going to threaten our relationship with our children or threaten our parenting or our care or our protection of our children. And so I've had several cases where at the very first instance, you know, dad was pushing buttons and mine, and this can be either, I don't mean to be biased in any way. This is just obviously what I see more of. But, um, you know, dad's pushing buttons, mom is reacting to it. And then mom sort of labeled as the crazy one in court, you know? And I think when it's reversed and mom is the narcissist, I think dad's men in general are better at not having as much of an emotional reaction. I think men have an easier time controlling their emotions for the most part. Um, you know, that's not obviously a hundred percent across the board, but for the most part, I think men are a little bit more able to detach emotionally than women are. We're very emotional, nurturing, connecting creatures. And so that emotional aspect of it is very hard to disconnect from. And so you've been in this emotional relationship with this person and then they're pushing buttons and they're threatening, you know, your relationship and your ability to parent and your connection with your kids and then shock, shock, you react. I don't think that's abnormal, but I will tell you that unfortunately that doesn't play well in front of the court. They will usually shoot themselves in the foot over the long haul. The problem is we have to have the patience to step back and let them do that. That's kind of how the system works. And so if you can step back and just let them shoot themselves in the foot, then eventually you'll get the outcome you're looking for. And the reason that that happens I think is because most of the time that person is either doing it for, uh, because of you, because of the real, you know, like the narcissist is still trying to control you, still trying to manipulate you, or they're worried about how they're going to appear to other people. Well, I can't not have time with my children because then other people won't think I'm a good parent and we all know I'm a fantastic parent, right? Cause I can't see myself any other way. And so you have to understand that their reasoning sometimes feeds into other issues that has more to do about themselves. That's the nature of narcissism is it has more to do with themselves and their own reflection of themselves than it does to do with the children. The next piece that I think is really critical that people overlook a lot, um, that you can modify in order to deal with the lies is your communication with them. So again, so often what happens is they'll say something like, let's say you have, let's say you're using a parenting app or even if you're using email or text messages or whatever, and they'll say something and it's not true. And so what people do a lot, what I see clients do a lot is they'll want to go in and give the whole explanation of why this statement wasn't true. And so, you know, you get two or three, four paragraphs. If you're writing that much in the volume of what you're communicating, I can already tell you you're writing too much. And again, what happens is even if these pieces become submitted as evidence, there's so much volume there that the court's like, Oh, I don't want to read these people's back and forth and blah, blah, blah, and blah, blah, blah. And I don't agree. And me, and me neither. You know, just the blah, blah, back and forth that people do that is very, very typical that the court sees all day, every day, day in, day out. And they're just like, Oh my goodness, can't these people get along? So a lot of times when somebody says something, I don't even, I will tell client a lot of times don't even respond to that. If there's no question in there and it's all just attacking you and those types of things, you don't even respond. Now, if there's something in there that's a really heavy allegation, like, you know, you, you know, you beat our child and they came back with bruises all over them. Then I would probably respond to that and say, you know, that's not true. And that would be the end of it because if it's not true, absent them having evidence that it's true, you don't really need to do anything. And also a lot of times it's not even that the other person who's the high conflict person is really intending to use this in court or do any of those things. They just want to manipulate you with it. This has always worked in the past. I've always been able to tell you things and gaslight you and do all that stuff. And it's worked. And you become defensive because you know, you obviously almost believe it yourself because you get so defensive about it. And this is how I manipulate you. And so you have to really be able to kind of understand that dynamic and start not having the responses that you've had in the past where you're responding with two, three, four paragraphs. You always have to be handling your situation in a way with kind of the court in the back of your mind, right? Because we don't know when this is going to come up. We don't know what the other person's going to bring in. And so we always have to be behaving as if we're getting ready to go to court. The third thing that comes up with regards to modifying your own behavior is how you handle hiccups in the road. And again, I think this is one of those issues in the gap that's difficult because when you're not in court and you don't have that kind of thing going on, you know, and then something happens, it's like is your knee jerk reaction to call child welfare? Is your knee jerk reaction to call the police? Is your knee jerk reaction to go file an emergency hearing? You know, and is that the right decision? You know, the problem with those kinds of knee jerk reactions is many times we're trying to kill a gnat with a sledgehammer, right? If your kids are being driven drunk in the car, okay, you need to go file an emergency hearing. You know, if your kid was, you know, 15 minutes late, dropped off, okay, we're not filing an emergency hearing over that. If your kid was, you know, late to school that day or, you know, it has to be some sort of imminent, what the court perceives as imminent danger, usually for them to give some sort of emergency order. And so, but I find that what happens is when these unexpected disagreements or bumps in the road happen between the parties, usually, you know, one person will kind of overreact. And again, this goes back to your emotional interaction with this person. So many times I see people fly off the handle and, you know, call child welfare for everything. Well, next thing you know, you've got six child welfare reports that came from you about the other parent. And then the court's going, okay, well, all of these ended up unfounded. There were no issues. The other parents, you know, called six times, you know, because they got emotional or whatever. And now you start to make yourself look like the bad person, you know, or if the other person's doing that, they're starting to make you look like the good person. So that's good. You can, you can take advantage of that part of it. But really it all comes down to how do you disengage from the conflict when those bumps in the road occur. And that can be really difficult to do when you're dealing with somebody that's a narcissist, because they're going to try to suck you in. They're going to try to blame you. They're going to try to do all of those typical things that they normally do. And your job is to not react, not argue with them in your communication and not, you know, call CPS or the police or whatever, unless that's an appropriate action to take in this circumstance. And so being able to, again, control that emotional reaction. Modification of your own behavior isn't easy. I know you'd rather me just whip out my magic wand and fix your narcissist for you. But the thing that I'm going to tell you is, I have clients over and over that are absolutely shocked by how much it shifts the narcissist's behavior when they shift their own behavior. Because what happens is you shift what you're doing. You're not reacting to them in the same way that you used to. And all of a sudden they go, okay, what's happening? I don't know what to do. Why is this person not behaving in the way that they're supposed to when I manipulate them? Right? That's usually very confusing. And Thomas used to call this like a judo move. You just want to kind of get out of the way and let them fall. Right? Because when you stop doing what you've historically been doing, they've got to change what they're doing. I mean, you know, law of nature says they've got to change what they're doing. You're not going to get the same reaction if you do something different. And so that can take a lot of practice. And the more education you have around it, the more support that you have around it, the better and better you will get at it. And eventually things will happen and you'll know exactly what the right thing to do is. And when you get there, that's where you start to get a place of peace, of stress-free, of everything that other person does, not being a punch in the gut for you. And that's really my goal is to help you get to that place where you can have peace regardless of what your co-parent is doing. Because when your happiness and your joy and all of those things are dictated by the other person, then you don't have control over that. Right? Then you're at their whim, which is the exact place we're trying not to be if we're getting out of that relationship. So if we want to break free from that relationship, we've got to train and condition ourselves to get to a point to where those things don't affect us and don't bother us. And it is possible. Trust me, I've seen it happen over and over and over again with clients. It is possible. So don't give up hope, educate yourself, support, get support around you and learn how to modify your behaviors in the form of your reactions, your communication and handling the bumps in the road so that you can achieve that peace for yourself and for your kids. All right, thanks for joining me. 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