Sol (00:01)
Welcome to Coparenting Beyond Conflict. I'm your host, Sol, founder of the Best Interest Co-Parenting app. At Best Interest and on this podcast, my goal is to help you find peace in the storm. Today, I'm joined by Tracy Malone. Tracy is an author and a renowned coach who specializes in helping people rebuild their lives after narcissistic abuse. Tracy offers us some incredibly practical strategies for parents who feel like they're playing a game

where the rules keep changing. If you're exhausted from co-parenting with a toxic ex or are worried about your children in all of this, then this episode is for you. Let's dive in.

Sol (00:37)
Tracy, welcome to the podcast. Thanks for being here today.

Tracy Malone (00:39)
Thank you so much for having me. I'm so excited to finally be on your podcast.

Sol (00:44)
How are you doing today? What's what's super alive for you right now? What's getting you out of bed?

Tracy Malone (00:48)
Well, I love my clients and I just sent a client that I'm seeing this afternoon a text and said "I can't wait to see you, I really miss you!" I love seeing my clients. So the rest of the afternoon will be filled with helping souls. I even have a 92 year old woman that I'm working with.

Sol (01:07)
Wow, that's beautiful. That's wonderful, the connection that you develop over time with clients.

Tracy Malone (01:08)
Yeah, so.

me that's the only reason I do this, when I see them be able to move from this position to that position no matter what the thing is. It just it brings me happiness.

Sol (01:22)
Tell us a little bit about how you got into this line of work of supporting people that are going through narcissistic abuse and these sorts of challenges.

Tracy Malone (01:30)
Sure. So I did not know what a narcissist was. This is 12 years ago now. I can't believe it. I had what the judge in our court said was the most tortured divorce in our town's history. Nobody ever said the word. My hundred thousand dollar lawyer never said this isn't normal Tracy, or this is abuse, or this is control, none of the words were ever spoken.

So I didn't know. I unfortunately did it again. And I started dating somebody and found out he was cheating. I said, "get away pig dog, we're too old for that stuff." He kept coming back and hoovering, I now know is what that was, and trying to explain why he slept with the only other girl at Christmas dinner. So, I found out he was cheating, I said "get away." And then about four months later,

I went to a forgiveness sermon at church and decided, you know what, I don't want him back. I'm just gonna go there and forgive. He called the police and had me arrested. So I was in jail for 24 hours. When I got out of a friend said he's gaslighting. You look that up. And I looked it up and that unfolded not only him,

but then my divorce and his psychopath family that magistrated the whole thing. But then I started to go, "why me? How come I keep going to these people?" And then, more research, more reading, more learning or counseling. And I realized I was raised by narcissists. And so it was normal for me. Ghosting was considered our family vacation. Don't worry, they'll be back.

That's just what people said in our family. So I didn't have any self-love. I didn't have any boundaries because I was never taught them. I was never allowed them. So I had a lot of work to rewire my entire system and I started support groups for me. I was like, "come on, we're all in this together." I wasn't an expert. I was just another victim and wanted to have people around me.

I started a group and it grew to 30 people a month. And then I started a second one because the library would yell at us so we'd have 40. So I was doing about 70 people a month and they would come in with things I didn't even think about. "Oh, you have a landlord, a boss. Oh, let me read a book on So the more I wanted to be able to serve them. And then after a few years, I was like, I don't want to just listen to the, "oh no, this is what happened." I want to help them heal.

So I started teaching them boundaries, and I started teaching all these things, and people wanted me to coach them. I started my YouTube channel and gave up my real job and here I am.

Sol (03:44)
Mm-hmm.

Wow, that's such a story. I can certainly relate to it. I'm sure many of our listeners can too. This idea of being blindsided by the reality that we're in. Here we are in a relationship that feels normal, maybe because of our conditioning and our childhood. But then we start waking up. Well, gosh, this isn't normal.

Tracy Malone (04:13)
It is if you don't know normal. That's the thing is to then unwind the patterns of who you are inside. And you're not that person that was helpless or that was incapable of setting a boundary and you learn who you really are so that this doesn't happen again.

Sol (04:31)
I'd love to get more into some of those tips and suggestions on how you can navigate this environment, how you can develop that self-love. One of the topics that I wanted to start with was talking about the co-parenting relationship in general. I know that you're a big advocate for parallel parenting. Could you define that for us and help

us understand how parallel parenting might be a good solution for these types of challenged relationships?

Tracy Malone (04:58)
Yeah, unfortunately when someone does have a narcissistic ex-spouse, it's not going to be easy and they are going to do everything they can to make it worse. Sabotaging the kids, sabotaging what they hear about you and not obeying anything, not taking them to the doctor, not doing the things that they were supposed to be doing.

When you parallel parent, you're accepting they're going to do what they're going to do at their house and I can't have any control over it, but I'll put back the pieces when I get them back, right? And that's a horrible thing because the kids are in the middle, but often those who try to co-parent, and some people do very well, but those that just won't obey anything, you end up in a situation where

it's hard for the kids because there's no consistency. I think if parents learned to set strong boundaries in a parenting plan, you might not end up in the parallel parenting realm because there's rules, there's boundaries, and it's actually in the legal document so that you could avoid getting into that situation because it's not fun.

Sol (06:03)
Mm-hmm. Yeah, you mentioned about giving up of control and this feeling like we really want the best for our kids and we think we know what would be best for them, but then we hear stories about what's going on in the other house and that can be so incredibly demoralizing and sad and all you want to do is protect your kids, but really it sounds like it's about just letting go of that desire to control their experience over there.

Tracy Malone (06:29)
It really is, because anything you want to happen there and it doesn't and the kids come home and they're like, "no, daddy didn't give me my medicine. I had a fever all night." Those are the things where again, you can't control it. You have absolutely no control unless there are rules in place and narcissists barely follow those as it is.

Sol (06:48)
Let's step back for a moment and I'd like to speak to listeners that are earlier on in this process and maybe they haven't even yet decided fully that they want to leave of the relationship. They have kids, this is really a big decision and oftentimes in that situation a parent might start to see escalation in behaviors from

their ex or their soon to be ex. What does escalation typically look like in those scenarios?

Tracy Malone (07:13)
It can look like anything. Every situation has a myriad of ways that it can go. Just a parent not taking them to say baseball or simple things like that. They're scheduled, they're on the team and "it's my time, I'm not doing that." It could happen with what they eat. Doing their homework is usually a big obstacle where they don't force them to do it.

Maybe it's Disneyland mom or dad where we're just going to have fun and then the kids get home and they didn't do their homework and now they're in trouble, or they miss school or these are the things that happen on that spectrum. You have seen what they do even if you're not separated yet. You've seen that they don't listen to

anything they don't take them to here right so putting those protections in place early is going to be your best thing even if you're not going through the divorce. Start to document that to keep a rolling list of the times - I call it uncooperative parenting - they didn't do this, they aren't doing that. The kids say this - and certainly if this is happening to your children the most important thing is get them into therapy because

the two dueling households are gonna be confusing to them. "We don't have any rules, we stay up all night in this house, what do we do over here? And you're the mean one because you're making us do our homework." You have to get them in a place where they also learn there's two separate rules. But when you get back to this house, these are the rules.

The man who had me arrested, he would have his son for the weekend and never sleep and just play video games 24-7, order pizzas and drink liters of Coke to get them through the weekend and then give the kid back to mom. Horrible parenting and that kid was struggling in school at everything.

Had he actually cared what the kid was doing and that he can't go to school on Monday after not sleeping for three days... Those are the things, every case is different.

Sol (09:06)
Now you

mentioned about documentation and sometimes we can get really in the weeds with documentation, consume our lives documenting every little thing. What's the right balance of documentation versus just letting it go?

Tracy Malone (09:20)
Again, it's patterns. So every little snip snip snip might not be, but 400 snip snip snips are what you're going to be creating the patterns. Little things are going to have to slide by - they didn't do their homework, you just start to add up but also understanding what the judge is looking, for which is those patterns.

So it's not every single thing, every comment, every snark thing that they said, which is a chore and you know how much work that is. But when you narrow it down to bad parenting or say, refusing their parenting time or not allowing the children to go to therapy, things like that are what the judge wants, to show that they're not good parents.

They are fed, they are schooled, and they go to sleep. Those are the primary things that a judge is gonna care about. And if you show patterns of 'they never do this' or 'they refuse to let my kid go to therapy,' then the judge hates that. If the kid needs therapy and someone doesn't want them to, that's a red flag in the judge's eye. show it and show the emails how many times you've asked.

And if you get something from a school, sometimes counselors step in and say, "hey, I'm really worried about your kid," put that in the pile. Every single little offense does not have to be documented. That is laborious and it doesn't pay back.

Sol (10:38)
In terms of this pre-divorce phase or early on, what's the top mistake that people make in this situation?

Tracy Malone (10:46)
Well, probably like me, might not know who and what they're divorcing. They might know it is contentious or it's this or that, just like me, not knowing what a narcissist was. So if you are in that state, certainly get the help for the things that they're doing now. I'm not saying every mean parent is a narcissist, but if it is, you've got a different way of handling them. So learning and seeing what you can do

prior and prepping as much as you can if you are going to go down that divorce path and understanding what you would want if that were to come.

Sol (11:21)
In terms of post-divorce, what is the most common abuse that you see in these relationships?

Tracy Malone (11:27)
Probably financial. There's financial and the kids. Without question, it's, "I'm not paying for that. Doesn't say I have to, take it out of child support." Things like that, where, their soccer enrollment is not supposed to come out of that. So when you are building up this prior to, going ahead and filing, get your ducks in a row, figure out

what you would want and be able to fight for that. And I tell people that if you're seeing something like not reimbursing you or not paying or not wanting to buy sneakers, although they're fine. I know they're two sizes small. I've had people have that with me going, "their shoes are two sizes too small and they won't let them get new ones." Right. Those things are patterns that are beginning. So we start that and

we have to build the case before we even get in the door. And that doesn't mean that we walk in there and hand the lawyer 800 pages of 'this is what they did' because nobody's going to care, right? But if they're not paying for things, then we need a really strong financial reimbursement plan. We need to have that in place and consequences if they don't. So if they're not paying, boom, that's what you want to do.

You are going to fight with the evidence of what they're doing to make sure that that doesn't happen later.

Sol (12:43)
What about in terms of communication between co-parents? What's some advice you could give our listeners on how to communicate with their ex?

Tracy Malone (12:52)
Well, you have to keep your emotions in check. Narcissists will push you into anger to get an angry response and then they're like, "Thank you, now I've got the evidence." Really understanding who you're dealing with and making sure your tone is correct, making sure you are not doing things in writing

that is going to make them have a bigger case against your parenting time. If they're say, "I'm not taking them to their baseball game, it's on my time," put it in text, put it in your app, put it in something to say, "hey, you know, this is what you're doing." Start that now

to just get them trained that you're gonna call them out on the things, because if we don't and it just keeps going, it's gonna get worse. The ball's rolling down the hill and it is not gonna get better.

Sol (13:38)
It sounds to me when you're speaking of this as if these narcissistic exes, it's almost like they're always strategizing.

Tracy Malone (13:45)
Always planning and scheming and it's not in the good of the children. It's always in how to hurt you and how to make it worse. This is just the sickness of what they do, but in the end of hurting you, they are always hurting the children.

Sol (14:02)
I can relate I'm sure to a lot of listeners thinking right now why? "Why me? Why is this happening? Why do they do this?"

Tracy Malone (14:08)
This is their personality type. They're argumentative, they're right all the time, and they've got their ego enormously in the picture here where they need to control everything. Your people who are living this have felt it, and they've felt it for years, especially if there's kids involved. They probably have been staying for the kids going, "well, it's better with two parents, right?"

Sometimes it's not your decision. Sometimes it's a narcissist's decision and you're tossed to the curb after you've been trying to hang in there for the kids. So know that it's fragile. Know that anything could happen. It's not in your control, but the more that you start to understand what your needs are and what the problems are in your marriage. If the problems are this, then we better put a wall up to make sure that that

is protected in the future.

Sol (14:55)
So for someone who's listening that just got a message from their co-parent and it's filled with baiting, 10 paragraph long email, what would you suggest that they do?

Tracy Malone (15:05)
Well, BIFF is one of my favorites. Be brief, informative, firm, and friendly. Thank you, Bill Eddy. But also I have a book on my shelf called Magic Words, which is a really helpful teeny tiny little book, but it has these phrases that de-escalate the narcissist's anger and their stuff. And if they were to get that 12-page letter, don't respond with anger. Don't push it back. Be,

again, brief and formal, "I got your message. Thank you for sharing" and don't try to answer every single one of the accusations because that's a trap for you. would just say, make sure you know what you're doing and you're getting the right help to go to the next level.

Sol (15:46)
In this scenario, it's really easy to get dysregulated, to get triggered. I know when I'm triggered, I say and do things that I really end up regretting later. But what are some steps that someone could go through to help reclaim their nervous system?

Tracy Malone (16:00)
Well, certainly getting help is important, getting some therapy and getting some regulation things. But when it comes to the communication part of this, it's slow it down. Don't act when you're in that angry moment. If you write something out, write it, put it on a piece of paper, don't put it in the text or you'll accidentally send it. Put it down, read it, think about it, unless it's an urgent thing in that 11-page letter, just answer that.

"I'll be there by three." And then the rest of the other stuff, you want to write an answer, script it carefully and time it when you're ready, not when you're angry. That's what a narcissist uses to say you're the abuser and twist the whole entire story around. Unfortunately, they can be angry and crazy all the time. It doesn't seem to matter.

But if you say "boo" one time, it's going to be twisted into something else because that's how they defend themselves, is to accuse other people. So protecting yourself that way will help.

Sol (16:58)
Yeah, talk about a crazy making behavior to see these behaviors in your ex that then they're accusing you of.

Tracy Malone (17:06)
That's the worst part. That's the worst part for parents because the hypocrisy of it is like, "wait, you're saying I did that, but you did that." And that's what they have to deal with. They can't be the one who's bad. Do know what DARVO is? I'm sure many of your people know: deny, attack, reverse victim and offender. They're gonna do that every time. So,

Sol (17:21)
Let's define it.

Tracy Malone (17:26)
you say the sky is blue, they're gonna argue with you till the day you die saying it's off-blue or something stupid that is just to say they're the ones who know and you have no agency here. "You don't know what blue is. You were wrong. You don't know what our kids need, but

listen to me because now I seem to know the best" and that's how a narcissist thinks. They think they know it all. And when it comes to co-parenting their way of drinking Coke and Pepsi all weekend and not ever sleeping, it's their right in their mind to do something that, hey, nobody's going to stop me, right? Including the child who doesn't know better and can't say, "dad, I'm really tired. I just want to go to bed."

of the parent and they have to also learn to navigate those waters.

Sol (18:13)
Yeah, I've always been curious about the child's experience in this because it does seem like at a certain age, children aren't really capable of creating that separation with their parents. And so in a way, they are just going along with it, maybe for their own survival, maybe it's unconscious. But that's really challenging too, to know that, that they can't speak up for themselves necessarily.

Tracy Malone (18:34)
Yeah, I actually have a nine-year-old client. The mom hired me to help her deal with when she comes back from dad and she's an emotional wreck. When she's at mom's, dad's the bad guy. And then when she goes to dad, she comes home and mom's a bad guy. It's really, really confusing. So we're giving her tools to say,

"When this happens, here's what you can do to not only answer or respond, but to regulate yourself so that you as a nine-year-old are not going on anxiety medicines because of this."

Sol (19:07)
Yeah, well, how can we support our two-home children when there is an environment like this where one house is very different than the other?

Tracy Malone (19:15)
You support them with love. This is nothing you have any control over. Certainly explaining what your rules are in your home versus, "I know you don't have to finish your homework at the other house, but these are our rules." So being a consistent and strong parent, not mean and nasty, but there for them. You have to put back their pieces every single time they come back and

rewire them back into normalcy, normal routines. Parents, this is going to be the hardest thing. Being divorced, being with a narcissist is hard. Going through the divorce is a horrible thing. But co-parenting is like an 18-year sentence, if you don't figure out a way that it's going to work. And in that high conflict thing where they are just not doing anything,

it comes down to managing the children and how they handle and maneuver those two different environments.

Sol (20:10)
You said that so well. How challenging it can be co-parenting in this situation. It's the worst.

Tracy Malone (20:16)
The worst,

The worst, it really is. I mean, I have a lot of worse situations in all my things, but the co-parenting, there's not much you can do unless you've already laid out some protections. Again, back to the parenting plan. If you can put some of these things in once, and you're talking about at the beginning before you filed, but if you see what they do now, we make sure we fight for that stuff. And if you don't talk about it, it will be fought over.

When I talk about parenting plans to people, I tell my clients, you submit the parenting plan because all a narcissist cares about is pounding their chest and saying, "I want 50/50." They aren't thinking about what happens and who's going to pay for a computer when our kid turns what age. They're not going to think about that stuff. So if you come to the table and go lawyer, these are all the things I'm seeing. How can you protect me from them? And you make a kick ass

parenting plan with more than you want, then you give back things. Okay, you can have that back, but I'm really gonna stick to this. People don't think about the pitfalls that can happen with bad parenting in this co-parenting stage. If you think about it, just every single situation can be exploited. I have

a client that I went to court with - been divorced for four years. He was ordered to sell one of their rental properties and give her money. He didn't. What does she do? Two years, $20,000. He's in contempt. So I'm in contempt court and I'm sitting next to her and her lawyer at that bench and

he ended up having to do it within 30 days or go to jail. And he's like, "well, how long would I go to jail for?" Like seriously said that to the judge. And so her lawyer stands up, he's ordered, "you got to pay it. You got 30 days. I don't care how you do it. You're going to do it. Or you're going to go to jail this time, sir." And my client's lawyer stood up and said, "excuse me, judge, but since you ordered him to do this two years ago, could we get our legal fees?" And she said, "I would have loved to

but it wasn't in the first decree." So I'm pulling the lawyer's hair as we leave going, what should have been in there? She wasn't the first lawyer. It was really a non-compliance clause. I call it in my book, "what if they don't..." right? If they don't sell that rental property, if they don't take the kids to soccer, if they don't pay you the money that you're owed. I have people with $20,000 back bills with their spouse. Now you got to take them back to court.

I have seen in four different parenting plans. Sometimes the lawyer puts in, don't worry three or four times if they don't do it, they'll be in contempt. I'm sorry but contempt is nothing in the family court system. Nothing ever happens. My husband was six times contempt. Nothing happened. So if you're looking at something like that and putting in a non-compliance clause that says

"both parties will pay for their lawyers" section. And then, but in the event that either party, you make a mistake or I make a mistake, is noncompliant with what we are ordering and signing, they're gonna pay your lawyer fees just like my client wanted at that hearing. Put that in, it costs nothing, it's one line. And you will not have to go back to court to fight them for things that they didn't do. To me, that's the most important

I've had people spend hundreds of thousands of dollars in the co-parenting world to take them back every time they don't do it. So get it there in the beginning. That's gonna protect parents if you've got to go to that next mile. That make sense?

Sol (23:39)
Yeah,

that's really good advice and and just overall if you're listening and you haven't finalized your divorce and you are working out things with the parenting plan. It's really common to want to fast forward that time, get it done with. The costs are mounting, you're super stressed. You just want to be done with that. Okay, agree, agree, agree. And then you end up with a parenting plan that isn't very prescriptive.

It doesn't handle the edge cases and then... ugh.

Tracy Malone (24:01)
Mm-hmm.

And then you're back in court. I mean, the problem I see with lawyers is again, like you just said, they're not done at the beginning. Parenting plans are usually, 'let's work on that at the end,' right? I've only seen one lawyer and he's in our divorce group that does parenting plan first, before we talk about the money, which could be a little more fragile. Let's see if we're cooperative here, right? So

put that in. If you're at that bottom of your budget and you're like, 'I want to just sign it and get out of here' right even if it's a simple thing like 'we'll share legal outline what it what I see, some are like "there's a 50/50 you know it's a sole decision making"

and I've seen ones that are 30 pages long that define what legal custody is. "We will share decisions on this category and do this and do this." And that stops some of the fights by mapping it out. So the more that you can, again, know what they're doing or you've seen, and then asking your lawyer, the problem with lawyers is they go, "don't worry, you won't need that." If they don't pay, again,

back to "don't worry you can take them back." I don't want anyone going back to court after these crazy divorces. I have a client right now in her eight million dollars so far. She was in my original support group so we're talking 12-year divorce. Eight million dollars so far and the reason it is is because every decision has been taken to the appellate court. I've never seen appellate decisions on a divorce ever. We don't want your life

to be that kind of chaotic. Divorce is going to be bad enough. When you end up in the divorce system over and over and over, "they're not doing this and they're not doing that." You have to manage your lawyer because they'll be like, "that's so detailed. You don't need all that." If you do, you demand it. You're paying them, right? "This is what I need." Most people don't know everything they need or what is

available for them to put in a parenting plan. They just don't even know. And lawyers are like, "yes, share have a nice day," because they want to save you money. But see if you can reverse it. If people who are in this funnel, maybe get that off first. Let's talk about the kids and show the love first before the money fight comes.

Sol (26:19)
As a co-parent myself, I know how difficult communication can be. That's why I created Best Interest, the co-parenting app that uses advanced AI technology to automatically filter out all negativity, promoting positive communication and helping you create a healthier environment for your family. Try it now and get with code Beyond10. Link in the show notes.

Sol AI (26:41)
And now, back to the show.

Sol (26:43)
I know we earlier were talking about how communication in these types of relationships can be really challenging. Are there any specific clauses that you suggest to add to the parenting plan that dictate the type of communication?

Tracy Malone (26:55)
I've had people define like to the ones that get 800 texts a day in Talking Parents or in an app. They're like, "my God, how do you make it stop?" You make it where you can communicate and put all your stuff in one a day. You can ask for that.

Not that everybody wants that, because if it's a normal and healthy relationship, you can not have any kind of rules like that. But if you are getting 800 and you've seen it, your eyes lit up, these things happen over and over. You're being battered. They can't even get up off the chair. There's another one, right? So if you can get into a situation where you are defining, what do we want your communication to look like? You have a lot more choices than the lawyer is going to say.

He's not going to, unless you want to pay him $500 an hour to educate you. That's the problem is, is people have to educate themselves and know what their rights are.

Sol (27:42)
Circling back to supporting our kids in these scenarios, we touched on what happens when your ex is lying or trying to turn your kids against you. What is the most effective way to counteract this sort of behavior?

Tracy Malone (27:57)
Unfortunately, there's no legal way to stop what they say in that house. The lies, just everything that's going to happen. That's what the problem is. You can't stop them from poisoning your children against you. That's just a fact. But,

it's being gentle. When the kids are in that place and that comfort when they come back, that consistency. So that's all you can do, unless you have things that you can put in writing that will control some of that. But when the kids are coming back and forth, if you can get them into therapy,

get them journals if they're older, get them to start to process this stuff because when you have a narcissistic parent, they make you feel not good enough. They make you feel like you're doing everything wrong. Even, to the spouse, they did it, but they're gonna start to do it to the children.

So building up the children's confidence, building up their learning, their skills of emotional resilience, even if they're six, teaching them to deep breathe at six. It does start to work because they're not going to have that tool when they're at the other house. So if you enable them with some grounding and

just learning to regulate their emotions when they're there, like my nine-year-old who just goes crazy and can't handle it, but is forced to go. So the more you can do to protect them and get them emotionally regulated in that dynamic - you can't stop it, but you can get them to where you are more like Teflon and it slides off of you, then Velcro.

Every narcissist is different. Some are evil and cruel and will put people down while others just want to control and make life for the other parent more miserable.

Sol (29:34)
Mm-hmm. And when it comes to our kids in a way by stepping out of that abusive marriage we are giving them an opportunity to see two different ways of being. So you're describing talking with your kids and helping them feel safe and protected, and giving them tools. Well, they're not getting that at the other house. So fortunately, even though they are in this difficult two-home situation,

they are learning and perhaps they're gonna step out of that generational trauma that many of us have been stuck in.

Tracy Malone (30:04)
Well, that would be our goal. You're co-parenting. How do you help the children?

Sol (30:09)
Well, for me as a father, it's really just about being present with them. And I have gone through my own journey of learning how to be more somatically aware. Before all of this, I didn't really even know that I could feel into my body and what that all meant, and let alone cry or express any emotion. I was very closed down. But learning how to do that and to

be more emotionally sensitive to others and myself and just be more honest. I think that that has helped me be a better father and I think it'll help them too in their own paths.

Tracy Malone (30:43)
Yeah, I think that's really excellent advice. I was just looking for something that I literally have right next to my chair here and they're emotional wheels. I have some beautiful ones. I got on Amazon for your refrigerator, stick it on there. It's helping them understand what they feel because a child depending how old they are is, their anger.

They don't know if it's a one or a 10. They don't know the difference in the anger wheel. Let's just look at it. Are you just frustrated or are you bitter? What does that mean to be bitter? How's it feel in your body to be bitter? Is it maybe something worse than anger where it's just annoyed? Why are you annoyed? If they're old enough, tapping into their feelings, like you were saying,

is going to help them regulate, help them realize it's not a 10. I teach my groups, where is your emotion and what emotion are you holding? Are you holding anger? You could do that with kids. It could be a fun game. There's books that will help people get to that point where the kids are going, "yes, I feel sad right now."

Well, are you sad a little or are you sad... Again I could pull out and go, how many different sad things could you do? But showing them maybe a different elevation of sadness and tools to then help sadness when you're feeling that way. So I think emotionally helping them as much as you can is again, your side of the track. It's all you can do.

Sol (32:04)
That's great advice and I think I'm gonna go ahead and put one of those up on my wall and talk to my kids about it. It took me 38 years to see my first emotion wheel and it was quite overwhelming to really understand it. I love this idea of starting them off early.

Tracy Malone (32:19)
Yeah, I've got 10 here, but just listing your emotions, And then here's one. And this one is let's do, all right, fear. This is what we got today. It's the fear. Is it way down here or is it lighter? And giving them those tools to just be like, okay, so how do we get rid of that feeling when we're there? Teaching them those skills. And it's not to shove it under the floor, it's experiencing it, but not let it ruin your day.

Like 'I got angry, but I can let it go right now because I'm in your house and I need to just regulate myself and get back to normal and baseline.' So I love those. And I love it that when we teach them also the emotional resilience. Here's What Triggers Me sheet. It's from the Gottman Institute and I hold it up every day.

This is for older kids: "I feel judged, I feel blamed, I feel this," right? Now they're talking about what they're feeling and then you can help them understand it so that they are not in their room when you're not there, just reeling from the confusion of the different emotions and the different households.

Sol (33:20)
Earlier you had advocated to introducing our kids to therapeutic contexts. What are some of the signs that our kids might need a little extra support?

Tracy Malone (33:30)
Struggling in school, if there was no sibling fighting before, now you're seeing it. If they are reactive to you, if they are lashing out in anger, or if they are struggling and hiding in their room and that's not them. So change in behavior is huge. You have to be observant to how they're responding and also they might come back

in that place, but how quickly do they right the ship? How quickly do they come back? And if they can't come back and they're just wallowing and they're just so sad or so this, then we do need to get some help. Schools also play a big role and I always tell parents, go to the school, talk to the teacher at the beginning of the year, say, "this is what we're going through. Could you just watch and see if you see a change in behavior? If they always play with Johnny during recess, but now they're sitting in the corner like this,

I wanna know." The schools can be a huge help in that and also to help you get the counseling that you A lot of narcissists don't want them to have any counseling as they might find something out. But when you get them into a school and you've got them involved, sometimes the school counselor can be involved and the other spouse doesn't have to give permission. They're just like, hey, we're concerned. We're gonna bring them in, right? So making sure the school is aware of it

and watching for patterns of change because that's how they process it. They're not going to come out and articulate what they're feeling. They're going to show it in their behaviors.

Sol (34:55)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. That's good advice. Now it's time for us to move on to our lightning round. So in our lightning round, I give you a sentence with a blank and you just fill it in. We'll go from there. Okay? The biggest lie parents are sold is...

Tracy Malone (35:00)
Bye.

to the children or the parent?

Sol (35:11)
Let's start with yeah the parent. What's the biggest lie? Parents are sold by

Tracy Malone (35:15)
the narcissist -

that you have no power, that they are in control. I think that's what parents have to overcome first.

You do have a lot more power, you do have more options for you, but the narcissist is going to really try to drill it into your head, "No you don't." And if you've been living with them, you will have internalized that and maybe you've had your voice shut down. So learning that you do have agency and you have power to do something, it's going to be the lie you want to overcome.

Sol (35:43)
It's a really interesting experience being in these sorts of relationships because it's almost as if the narcissist knows exactly where you're not fully loving yourself and then goes after that point. So if we just reorient and realize, ⁓ they're attacking me by making me feel powerless. Where in my body, where do I not feel powerful? And work on that. That can be a really healing journey.

Tracy Malone (35:52)
Mm-hmm.

Absolutely. And it's just about, again, tapping into your emotions and going, 'not mine to hold today. I'm not going to let him or her ruin my day.' That's the agency that you have and the control. I have a client later this afternoon, we're going to be talking about negative thought patterns because she'll catastrophize every single thing. And so when we learn to regulate that,

and get into a place where you are not doing the damage to yourself by ruminating and repeating the lies in your I love a book called Feel the Fear and Do It Anyway. You will handle whatever happens and that's what parents need to know. You will handle it. You've got the power. You always did.

Sol (36:46)
I'm a big fan of peace. So peace starts when you stop...

Tracy Malone (36:51)
Peace starts when you stop fighting back. Peace starts when you are Teflon. They're going to traumatize you every single thing. And when you just go,

'not so much.' I trained with Dr. Ramani many years ago and she said, "be Teflon, don't be Velcro, just be Teflon, slide it off." That's the best thing I would say. Peace is going to be when you can do that.

Sol (37:11)
A narcissist's favorite tool is...

Tracy Malone (37:13)
Gaslighting, gaslighting and twisting your mind and lying about things. Understanding and really knowing what gaslighting is takes off some of the weight to the attacks that might be coming.

Sol (37:25)
The legal system often misunderstands...

Tracy Malone (37:28)
abuse. We're getting into the world of coercive control, which is now starting to be slowly legal, de legalized, whatever the word is that I think we have to understand that.

Sol (37:38)
You mentioned the legal system doesn't really understand abuse. And so I'm curious more about your take on that.

Tracy Malone (37:45)
When we look at the things that we're seeing, I think some of the biggest mistakes that people are making in the legal system and the court system is that we're saying, "they're a narcissist, they're a narcissist." The court doesn't care, but they will care that they're doing anything on the coercive control scale. They will go, ⁓

now I get that. Now I understand. But that's what we have to change. They aren't going to understand this. They don't want to. They're not therapists. They're not going to diagnose. So bringing that into the conversation only makes you look bad in the court's eyes because they don't know how to process it. Talking through coercive controls, things that are happening and framing it like that. Now it lifts the veil where they can hear you

and they can actually go, now I see what they're doing because it's financial control. You've got plenty of ammunition on that coercive control scale to be highlighting the behaviors in that lens.

Sol (38:40)
It seems to me that this is all a work in progress in terms of the family court system. I know that places like in the UK and Australia, they're a little bit further ahead on educating their justice system about these sorts of behavior. But in the US, it's starting to catch on.

Tracy Malone (38:45)
Hmm.

Yeah.

It is starting to. We had somebody arrested for the first time for it this past year. So somebody's going to jail for the first time in the US. And it is not the narc things. These are the coercive control.

It's the behaviors that you are trying to get them to understand so that we can build a case of why you might need better protection.

Sol (39:16)
It's a very hopeful message to know that things are changing and that there is potentially a way to get more empowered in what can feel like such a disempowered situation.

Tracy Malone (39:25)
Absolutely. Again, we have to hold hope in anything. I've been doing this for 12 years and I am so happy that we're getting this language, even though we always said gaslighting and all the other things, financial control. But now we can just go, look, it's on the list. And the more you show those patterns, the more strong your case is going to be.

Sol (39:45)
a parent who's listening right now and they're just in the trenches and they're feeling attacked and controlled, what's one thing that they could do today to start feeling a little bit more empowered?

Tracy Malone (39:56)
Learning to be Teflon and not taking every attack personally, because that's what victims do. It's a personal attack. We take it personally. But when you can go, that's just them. And this has nothing to do with me. You empower yourself to move forward rather than, again, all that Velcro sticking to you.

If you can get to a point where some of this stuff, it's that's what that is. Yeah. They're gaslighting me. I'll record it, but I'm not going to get all jacked up because, God, they just did this. Yeah. They're going to do it every single day. But at the same time, you do not have to let those things get to you. They're trying and they will continue to push and push. And like you said, they know your buttons. They know what you will protect. They know what pisses you off and they will pull those weapons out every time.

But if you just go, "yeah, thanks, you're not that original. You did that last week. I'm not giving you any emotional energy." And that's how you can be stronger for your kids is to get to that place of letting the things they say not turn their emotions from a good day to a horrible day. They're gonna do it again tomorrow.

Of course they're gonna do it. Get to that point of, yeah, that's what they do. They're a Don't let it keep shocking you. Address what has to be addressed. I'm not saying go, "nothing's happening here." I am saying, if this is happening, I'm going to not let myself get emotional, but I'm gonna

take action on whatever parts need to be taken. I gotta talk to my lawyer, I gotta talk to the therapist, whatever it is, you can use it without absorbing the energy and the emotions that they're trying to push on you. And I tell people when I'm coaching them, like, what emotion are you holding onto right now? And I teach a class in letting go. And I'm like, who wants to let go? And everyone's like, me! I'm like, what? What do you wanna let go of? Oh, I don't know. And so I tell people, well, right now you're angry.

Let's think about that. Right now you're sad, whatever it is, you name it. And then you go, I have to let go of that anger that I'm feeling because they just sent that nasty text. And I'm going to teach you my little ending story here. This is a one-minute story, but it helps people understand. So there's two monks on their way back to the monastery after the rain and they reach a river and there's a woman standing there. "Help me, help me." And the old monk picks her up, carries her across the river and puts her down. And for the next six hours,

they walk up the mountain to the monastery and when they get there the young monk starts to scream at the old monk. "How could you touch a woman? We're not supposed to touch a woman." And the old monk puts his hands together and said, "I put her down six hours ago. You're the one holding on to her." So when you are going through that and you are holding on to anger, did you put it down at the bottom of the river or did you ruin six hours of a day by holding it? Yes, it made you angry, but

don't allow yourself to be six hours in pain. Learn the skills to put that down, naming it, understanding why you're upset and acknowledging, not shoving it under the rug, but then not holding that emotion because that's what they want you to do. They want to just put you in a washing machine and turn it over and over until you're done. And you don't have to let them do that. You have the power to right your ship.

And to me, that's the best thing that people have to learn, is not to hold this stuff. If I'm holding stuff, I'm walking into my kitchen going monk, monk, monk, monk. And then by the time I make it to the kitchen, I don't even think about it anymore because I realize what I'm holding and I don't want to. So I'm going to be the old monk and I'm putting it down.

Sol (43:22)
Tracy, thanks so much for joining us today and for your wisdom and insights. For those listeners that would like to connect with you and get to know you more, work with you, how can they find you?

Tracy Malone (43:32)
My website is NarcissistAbuseSupport.com and I am on YouTube. I have podcasts. I'm pretty much everywhere and all my social, my Facebook group link is up there. We have about 17,000 people in it. So it's a really good place for support.

Sol (43:48)
Great. We'll put all those links in the show notes. Thanks so much for joining us today.

Tracy Malone (43:51)
Thank you for having me.

Sol (43:54)
Thanks for joining us on the Coparenting Beyond Conflict podcast. To support our show, subscribe or leave a rating. Links for all books and resources mentioned on appear in our show notes or on CoparentingBeyondConflict.com. See you next time.

Sol (44:12)
The commentary and opinions available on this podcast are for informational and entertainment purposes only, and not for the purpose of providing legal or psychological advice. You should contact a licensed attorney, coach, or therapist in your state to obtain advice with respect to any particular issue or problem.