12/26/2025
The divorce papers are signed. You're supposed to be free. Except you're not free at all because you share children with someone who treats co-parenting like a battlefield, who uses your kids as weapons, who turns every custody exchange into psychological warfare. You thought leaving would end the manipulation, the gaslighting, the constant feeling that you're losing your mind. But now you're trapped in a different kind of hell where you can't fully escape because your children tie you to this person forever.
Every text is a minefield. Every interaction leaves you exhausted, second-guessing yourself, wondering if you're the crazy one after all. And the worst part? You have to keep subjecting your kids to someone you divorced specifically to protect yourself from.
Nobody prepared you for this. That divorcing a narcissist doesn't end the abuse, it just changes the delivery system. Now they weaponize custody schedules, parental alienation, false allegations. They charm therapists and lawyers while you look unstable because you're reacting to their calculated provocations. They play victim so convincingly that people wonder why you're still angry when the marriage is over. And you can't explain it without sounding bitter or impossible, because narcissistic abuse doesn't leave visible scars. It leaves you questioning reality, exhausted from defending yourself, terrified of what they're telling your children when you're not there.
Here's what I learned reading Isabella:
1. You're not co-parenting. You're parallel parenting.
Co-parenting requires two emotionally healthy adults. That's not your situation. Francis teaches parallel parenting: minimal contact, businesslike communication, rigid boundaries. You parent your way during your time. They parent theirs. You stop trying to coordinate because every attempt gives them ammunition. It's not ideal. But it's survivable.
2. Every interaction is potential evidence. Document everything.
Narcissists lie, manipulate, create false narratives. Your defense is documentation. Screenshot texts. Keep emails. Record exchanges if legal. Not for litigation necessarily, but because when they twist reality, you need proof of what actually happened. Your memory isn't enough when they're rewriting history.
3. Gray rock is your survival strategy.
Narcissists feed on emotional reactions. They provoke intentionally because your anger gives them supply. Francis teaches gray rock: become boring. Respond to practical questions only. No emotion. No life details. No reactions. Just facts about the children. It feels cold. But it's the only way to stop feeding the cycle.
4. Your children need you healthy more than martyred.
You cannot protect them from their other parent during custody time. This is the hardest truth. But you can be the stable, safe parent they return to. Francis insists: your job isn't fixing everything. It's being the healthy parent. Modeling emotional regulation. Creating a calm home they can recover in. Being the one who doesn't use them as weapons.
5. Healing happens despite them, not because of them.
They won't change, apologize, or acknowledge harm. Francis is clear: your healing cannot depend on their transformation. Your recovery has to happen in spite of them, around them, without their participation. That means therapy, boundaries, building a life where they occupy as little space as possible.
Francis writes with practical wisdom that knows inspirational platitudes don't help when you're dealing with someone who uses your children to hurt you. This is for anyone trapped sharing custody with someone who treats parenting like warfare. For anyone who needs permission to stop trying to co-parent cooperatively and start protecting yourself the only way that works: strategic disengagement, rigid boundaries, and understanding that you're not dealing with a co-parent but an ongoing threat you have to manage until your kids are grown. It's not the divorce you hoped for. But it's the one you have. And Francis will show you how to survive it without losing yourself.
BOOK: https://amzn.to/4q2Tdp5
