Use Non-Attachment with a Narcissist!

How Non-Attachment Helps Us Moms Suffer Less…and Allows Children to Step into Their Strengths and Survive the Narcissist

By Grace Wroldson, author of

Book 1: Co-Parenting with a Narcissist: 7 Self-Rules to Stay Sane
Book 2: How To Fight a Narcissist In Family Court and Win
Book 3: Co-parenting with a Sociopath: Survival and Sanity Guide
Book 4: How To Survive a Custody Battle with a Narcissist: When the Family Courts Force You to Co-Parent
Book 5: (NEW) Tame the Narcissist!: 10 Keys for Better Co-parenting to Create Peace and Protection Using Strategy & Skillful-Means
Book 6: (NEWEST) Wisdom for Ending the Co-Parenting War & a Custody Battle with a Narcissist: So You Can Heal and Be Able to Help Your Child

Are you required to co-parent with a narcissist?

In a custody battle with a narcissistic ex?

Want to stop some of your suffering?

Sur-Thriver Tip: Non-attachment gives us the chance to calm down!

I wish that I could tell my fellow moms in this awful situation that everything is going to be okay. Most times, I struggle to find words of encouragement for them as they face a narcissist and the typical abuse their children often suffer. What I can say for sure is that moms who use tools (like non-attachment) tend to suffer less, and children often do learn to cope and survive the narcissistic abuse. What matters is that we moms psychologically hold on because it can help our kids hold on, too.

Detachment can help us mom-survivors get out of what I call “energetic-entanglements” with the narcissist. Learning to let go can help us (and our children) be able to live life. Often, holding on sometimes keeps us stuck and in a state of suffering. Practicing non-attachment (with certain things), can free up our energy for the things that truly matter, like our mental health and our children’s mental health. Whereas non-attachment might be a new principle you set with yourself, detachment is a tool you can use that has very immediate energetic results. Everyone can feel it when we let go of something in our mind, especially our children!

When attachment harms and goes wrong . . .

Without judging this condition or the people who suffer from it, think for a moment about the opposite of non-attachment. Visualize extreme attachment. Have you ever seen a hoarder’s house? People suffering from the inability to let things go. They tend to be compulsive in the desire to collect things. Out of fear, depression, and other conditions, those afflicted have extreme difficulty discarding things. They have strong compulsions and urges to save everything. Left unchecked or untreated, it can turn into a disorder where they really struggle to get rid of possessions, which leads to excessive accumulation. This causes health hazards and more in their homes. Just seeing a case of hoarding in-person can haunt you. In hoarding houses, living spaces are completely unusable, and the whole situation creates more stress and tends to significantly impair their lives. Generally, outside help and interventions are needed to save the dear soul from too much attachment. For us to have peace and serenity in our homes, there needs to be the ability to let things go. We must take out the trash—often. We need cleanliness and balance in our lives. We learn to keep what is helpful/useful/needed and let go of things.

What is non-attachment?

“Non-attachment is the practice of engaging with life, people, and things without clinging to desires, outcomes, or self-concepts, which fosters inner freedom and peace. It doesn’t mean indifference but rather recognizing the impermanence of all things, allowing one to care deeply with more wisdom and less fear. By letting go of the need to control outcomes and accepting things as they are, non-attachment helps minimize suffering caused by clinging to specific expectations or fears.” – AI Google Search

With an aim of creating harmony and balance, our sanity and truth can lead the way, using all these higher-level tools and skills when dealing with a narcissist (who is our co-parent and/or opposing legal party). As I explained in my previous book, the use of non-resistance helps us be able to step out of black-and-white, all-or-nothing thinking that can lead to many long battles and wars. Over time, many of us come to realize there might be a “3rd way” for us to endure co-parenting with a narcissist and stop the custody battles—when we bravely step into the gray areas (where the narcissist likes to play games) and look around at our options. It can become extremely tiresome to always have to use our lawyer to deal with an ex, and financially devastating for most moms due to legal fees. Many of us seek alternative approaches, and that’s what I offer moms who need guidance, wisdom, and hope. These principles and practices come from ancient wisdom traditions and are highly effective when dealing with a personality-disordered person. Why? Because they don’t rely on the narcissist changing, but rather rely on us changing perception and using skills, tools, and strategies.

Note: I didn’t make these tools/skills up that I share with moms, but rather found them in my search for solutions and put them into practice.

What we can give our children
As loving, caring moms, we want to give our children both “roots and wings.” We want our unconditional love and our stability (our sanity) to be a foundation that they can build a childhood on, and something they can count on as being bigger than the narcissist!

Like I say in all 6 of my books for moms, one of the most helpful things I told my child was that, “I was going through this with her.” To her, this meant that I wasn’t leaving her behind (even though I left her dad) and that she was going to have to deal with her dad alone. This gave her invisible strength and hope. I didn’t deny how awful he was in certain regards (no gaslighting, minimizing, or dismissing her), but I also didn’t feed the negativity towards her father (watch out for creating a chronic complainer/blamer). To make things a bit more bearable, I learned to validate her, listen (and say “Thank you for telling me” *without over-reacting), and extend her some love and compassion. I had to modulate my responses to hearing about things I would consider child abuse and neglect, but things that I knew didn’t rise to the level CPS or the Family Courts cared about. (Like… things that would make me look like a micromanaging crazy mom and jeopardize my credibility.) I had to tame myself first—meaning my trauma, triggers, and emotions, like anger. She had to feel like she could come to me and I was able to handle (with my support team) what she was dealing with—when with her dad.

Non-attachment may be the hardest to practice for moms who are bonded with their children. What is true is that attaching to outcomes, people, places, and things can and does make one suffer. Detaching with love can be the wisest and easiest tool to use. Detachment isn’t stopping all psychological connection to children who need us to be emotionally available to them, but rather letting go of the way we would have liked to see their childhood be. It’s an acceptance of what is—even if we don’t like it. We accept that this is what we are dealing with. It’s facing reality and letting go of any pride, anger, dreams, and fantasies of the family we wished we’d had. It’s sometimes letting go of a path we would have liked our child to take, whether that be a certain sport or activity that doesn’t interest them.

Often, we have to remind ourselves that our children are not 100% us, nor are they 100% the narcissist. I am not a psychologist, but we definitely need to make that separation in our minds for everyone’s mental health. Their lives are theirs—even if they look like miniature versions of us or remind us so much of ourselves. We need to allow them to be the unique person they are as they grow into their individual lives.

The bottom line is: change is inevitable. Our children are growing. We can’t attach them to their childhood as they become adults. The power and rights stripped from us by family courts, or that we have given up to keep the peace… they earn as they move into adulthood.

Many of us moms make the mistake of holding onto things only to drag ourselves along. What’s worse is when we drag our children along to things we ought to let go of. Letting go is truly a skill and a practice. I have seen where letting go frees up energy and grants everyone freedom. Clinging, clutching, changing to a specific goal, thing, or idea is like a prison that we keep ourselves and others locked in. I have a few examples of this from years of coaching moms in custody battles, but let me tell you mine first.

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