Handling The Narcissistic Parent's Lies And False Accusations

Narcissistic coparents, as well as Borderlines and other similarly disordered individuals, have a nasty habit of making up lies, fictitious events, and false allegations. Those of us who have dealt with such people know that there is no end to what they will cook up and pretend to be real.

This episode focuses in on getting very clear on the facts, clear on your own character, and discusses the importance of being impeccable with your word.  Once those spaces have been managed, anything that they narcissist can throw at you has been tended by your self-awareness and character. 

Transcript

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This is unapologetic parenting podcast dedicated to candidly and unapologetically discussing parenting, divorce and co parenting. We take on the topics most people don't want to talk about and offer support and solutions to help you be a better parent, co parent and human being. Now without further ado, let's get right to it. Welcome back to unapologetic parenting. I'm your host Carl Knickerbocker. And in this episode, we're talking about best ways to disengage from things like lies, false accusations, guilt, trips, manipulations, all sorts of various controlling behaviors by the ex. So for those of us who deal with high conflict, exes, exes that are in that cluster B specialness, narcissistic, borderline all those things, we are very, very, very well acquainted with just the number of lies manipulations, gaslighting attempts, just completely made up crap that these people can do in order to try to manipulate, get us to engage, get us to come back into some sort of dialogue and conflict. So we can go back into those old patterns of them being able to exert some sort of power and control. It's just crazy stuff. So the big question is, you know, how do we get out of crazy? How do we disengage from this crazy behavior? One of the big ways to overcome lies, and false accusations, of course, is to be very, very clear in yourself in who you are. And so one part is becoming very, very fastidious on data collecting. So you become very clear on what exactly was said, What exactly did I do? Who exactly said what, what are the facts, and you learn to just stick to the facts, not the feelings, not the impressions, not the stories, that we surround facts, when we try to assume and project motivations and everything else into a situation or onto the facts, just the facts themselves, you get very, very clear and very factual, on exactly who did what, what was said. And that's it and you leave it at them. on another level, we get very, very precise in who we are in terms of impeccability. So we step up our own behavior, and make sure that we are keeping our word we are always doing what we say we're going to do, we are always where we say we're going to be, we always show up when and how we say we're going to show up, we avoid situations that look bad. We keep ourselves in situations that allow us to look good, we don't take unnecessary, stupid risk. So if there are these accusations coming at us for some sort of wrongdoing, or trying to paint us in a negative light or trying to make us look like bad parents, then we make sure that in everything we do, we don't go down any path that really is a questionable path. We don't expose the kids to any sort of situation that is unsavory or sheds a negative light on us. We don't lie ourselves, we don't return false hood with false hoods, we make sure that we are people of our word, in all situations day in day out all the time, we step ourselves up. And what happens is we start gaining that confidence within ourselves where we say, all right, I am impeccable, I am keeping my word. When I say something, I mean it, I mean what I say, if I say I'm going to be here or there, or I'm going to do this or that, then that's where I am. And that's what I do. And when you start collecting data, and you start noticing, alright, here are the facts of all these situations, then that allows you to start spotting the lies in the other parent, it makes it so much easier for those lies to just pop out in stark contrast against yourself and your character and against the backdrop of well cultivated collections of data. And so you know, who said but you know, that you are doing what you're saying. And you know, that you have been doing and will continue doing what you say. And you are doing things right and on this high impeccable level and you know, from the data collection exactly who was where and who did what. And that's it. So when those lies start popping up, you just you can spot them and go oh, well there's crazy behavior. There goes crazy again. That's Yep, that's what those cluster B people do. Yep, that's what so and so does. And I know in myself, that that is a false hood. I know in myself that I've got the data collected, that refutes all of those lies. And I know that I've got the character developed and consistent. And people who know me who know that my character is consistent, and I'm working to be impeccable, and all the things that I do. And so when the lies get thrown at you, or the false accusations get thrown at you, you can just say, you know, I've already tended that. So instead of engaging a crazy person, to try to get a crazy person who believes their own lies, and really, probably can't differentiate between the fictions in their head and reality, instead of going down the crazy path, you're able to say, you know what, I've already tended this, I've already managed this, this is a crazy person, they are lying, because that's what they do. And here they go again, and you can just say, Yep, there goes again, I have been able to track that. And I see that that is your pattern of behavior. And that's consistent with who you have been for the last years, decades, however long. And I'm just going to choose to disengage that, I'm going to choose to disengage it because I've already done the work. I've tended it by keeping myself straight and collecting accurate data and facts. And I'm going to choose to disengage it because I know that it's not going to lead to anything good to engage it. So you are setting yourself up for failure, and a whole lot of misery and worst treatment down the road. If you think that you have to counter argue every crazy thing that these people throw at you. That's what they want you to do. They want your attention, they want you to give them more and more and more feedback and attention and information, they want you to give them everything that they can then turn to use against you. Because I'm sure you noticed this by now that the more you argue with them, the more information you throw their direction, the worse they get. And they start taking anything you say in twisting it around using that against you too. And all you end up doing is going down this awful spiral that leads nowhere good, it just gives them all sorts of other stuff to jack with. So the best course of action is, don't even go down that path. Don't even go down that path, to try to convince them of something that they'll never be convinced of. They can't be convinced they're nuts. So leave it be you've done the work, you know who said what you know who you are, you know what the truth is, leave it at that you've got evidence and record of it through your data collection, your character is going to speak for itself, and let them go believe whatever their crazy thing is that they're going to believe. Another big way to handle this. And this ties in with everything I just said is when you're dealing with somebody who throws false accusations and lies consistently and try to bait you in with that. That's where you insist on all or all communication to be in writing. So not on your texting, not in your email, preferably one of these apps that just kind of locks everything in and they can't tamper with it. One of these communication apps that are out there for co parents, and just allow them to lie up a storm. If they want to send lies if they want to send false accusations, fine. Let them do that. It just makes a record of it, then you do not respond to any of the false accusations in it. And of course, they're gonna say, Well, you didn't respond that must be true and be like, All right, let the crazy person think what they will, they can go ahead and you know, assume anything they want, I'm not going to change their mind, they're already making a world of assumptions about me that are completely wrong. So what's one more go have your crazy phone over there and assume anything and everything you want. If there's something you have to respond to within the note, just go ahead and respond to the factual thing that actually pertains to the children and do so in a very sterile way. Just Alright, three o'clock drop off. Such and such location, the end or whatever you have to say the minimum amount that you have to say in order to attend it. Better still, you just start a whole new string and not even have your response connected to that previous thing. Just put in a separate note so they're not getting the satisfaction of seeing it go back and forth. It's they have to open That's a whole other envelope and all their lies are now gone because they're under a different string, you could do that to the point is, allow them to write whatever they want in writing, don't allow them to speak to you don't allow them to say their lies, don't allow them to text, their lies, block them on all those things. And when they write them, just look at them and say, Oh, look at that crazy person knows how to type words, this person wrote words that are not factual that person is writing things that are crazy. I don't have to play that game. I don't have to respond to that. I know what the truth is, I know who I am. I know what the facts are, they're never going to be able to be convinced of that. They probably don't have the capacity to appreciate that. So that's not my job. Too bad. So sad for them. I'm going to go and do something else. And then you excuse yourself either to go do something else and go along your merry way. Or you respond to the factual thing that you actually have to respond to within whatever garbage he wrote. And then you leave it at that and you let all the rest go because you know who you are. You know what the truth is, and you know that they're nuts and in that is a lot of freedom.