How does shared care (50/50 custody) work with a narcissist?

Short answer: badly. But unfortunately until the courts have more understanding of domestic abuse, and some knowledge of personality disorders, they’re unlikely to stop making orders for parents to share the care of their children.

In an ideal world, shared care can work well for children who are happy to spend the same amount of time with each parent and feel equally comfortable in both homes. The ‘ideal world’ includes parents living close to each other and the school, getting on well with each other and being supportive of each other, e.g. speaking positively to the children about the other parent. These parents work out their arrangements for their children together, over the kitchen table, or in mediation; they don’t need the family court to do it for them.

So you would hope judges may think twice before making such orders but they are made far too often. In a case earlier this year, (F and M and X, Y and Z) a shared care order was avoided when, for some inexplicable reason, the father suddenly agreed to a transfer of residence to the mother.

The first paragraph of the judgement states: ‘This is the saddest of cases illustrating the desperate and lasting damage that can be done to children when their parents separate.’ This gives the wrong and worrying impression that any parents separating can cause their children terrible damage, which is absolutely not the case. I would reword this statement to read: ‘ …… the desperate and lasting damage that can be done to children when one of their parents is a narcissist, whether or not they separate.’

Just four lines in to the judgement we read about the ‘discord between the parents’ which has caused ‘persistent and significant harm’ to the children. Whilst the children clearly have been badly harmed, this was due to their father alienating them from their mother, whom he had driven to drink with his disordered and abusive personality. Time and time again abuse and parental alienation are ‘mistaken’ (I’m being charitable here) by Cafcass and the courts for ‘parental conflict’. If there’s acrimony it’s usually due to one parent trying to protect the children from the abuse of the other.

For these children, this was the fourth ‘final’ hearing in six years. If only the courts would understand that the more litigation there is, the more likely one of the parties is to have a personality disorder, the sooner they would start making better decisions. In addition to the children proceedings there were financial proceedings and criminal proceedings, the father having reported the mother to the police, as well as HMRC. It seems that the judge who dealt with the financial case did see through him though, saying that the father “is a man determined to remain in litigation with the Wife at all costs and he tries to make her life as difficult as possible”.

You’d think it would be obvious that shared care wouldn’t be a good option for children in these circumstances – even if the court can’t decide which of the two parents is causing the chaos – but it’s still suggested, or ordered, in so many cases.

The High Court Judge in the children case said:

Mother’s case is that if the court makes a shared care arrangement Father will very quickly find an excuse to stop contact and reinforce in the children that she is a risk to them. Her concern is that Father will continue to create false memories in the children that she did something wrong. For example, he has told the children that the reason they have not seen her for two years was because she left to concentrate upon her career and did not love them. She describes sending the children many, many letters over that period, almost all of which they did not receive. She greatly fears that the children will grow up with no contact with her or the maternal family which will cause them emotional harm in the long term. In short, she says they will learn from Father how to cause chaos and destruction and harm to other people which will make them unhappy and unpopular individuals.

These are typical behaviours of narcissists that we see over and over, but the Judge described them as “bold submissions on her part but indicate the very great strength of her feeling” so it’s not clear how much of it she really accepted.

If you don’t succeed in persuading the court that the reason you’re there is because of your ex’s abuse, not parental conflict, try turning it around and use their ‘acrimony’ to your advantage. Read the judgement in this case and quote it in yours, for example at paragraph 226 the Judge said about shared care:

I find that the likely detriments of this option far outweigh any likely positives. In the context of such a long protracted history of acrimony and discord between the parents, it seems highly unlikely, if not impossible, that these parents could make such an arrangement work successfully, at least in the medium to long-term. Such regular transition between the households provide simply too many opportunities for things to go wrong in what remains an incredibly fragile, finely balanced and delicate situation. Father needs to demonstrate significant and sustained shift in his actions and behaviour, not just his words and language. That cannot be done quickly, and needs to be tested and proven over time. I therefore do not consider this option to be realistic at this stage of these children’s lives.
The other cases referred to in this judgement may also be helpful to you. Don’t rely on your lawyer (if you have one) to find the relevant cases – find ones which are similar to yours and point them out to your barrister or to the court.

It is hard for a child to keep moving between two households where the rules and values are so very different. They do adapt, but sometimes at huge cost to themselves. There will be one house where they have to be on their best behaviour and high alert, and the other where they can ‘decompress’ and be themselves. This will sometimes result in some awful behaviour while they let off steam, safe in the knowledge that the protective parent won’t punish or reject them. They usually only just recover in time to go back to the narcissist again. Shared care where the children have a whole week with each parent can therefore work better than changing every few days, but isn’t suitable for very young children who can’t cope with being away from their mother for that long. The narcissist will usually cause extra stress to both the child and the other parent by failing to return clothes or computers when they leave, or making or cancelling arrangements in the other parent’s time.

Older children will often be very aware of the differences by the fact that when they’re with the protective parent the other parent will be on the phone to them all the time. But they know that the narcissist does not approve of them being in touch with their other parent during ‘their’ time, and as they can’t be themselves whilst they’re there, it’s often easier for them not to have that contact.

Court Fees

If you’re about to apply for a divorce, you may want to get your application in before 30 September when the court fee is going to rise from £550 to £592.
Other court fees will also go up: the fee for a children application on Form C100 will increase from £215 to £232, and a financial remedy application will go up from £255 to £275. Applications within proceedings will rise from £155 to £167.

It’s easy to procrastinate when you have to deal with the family court, but if you know you have to make an application sooner or later, this may be the incentive you need to do it sooner!

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Judge Evans-Gordon

HHJ Evans Gordon was one of the judges appealed against in the big Court of Appeal case of Re H-N last year. (She was the judge who described the father placing a bag over the mother’s head and telling her this was how she should die, as a joke.)

I’ve been contacted by someone else who is planning to make a complaint and is looking for others who have had allegations of abuse or coercive control not taken seriously by this judge. If you’ve been before her and not had a fair hearing please do get in touch with me….