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My 6-year-old son's father (who exhibits many BPD and NPD traits) allows his mother with dementia to drive our son in her car. He knows I oppose this. I have stated why clearly. I've asked him to put our son's safety and best interest first. He takes my request as a deeply personal assault on his decision making abilities and will reply with a litany of his work related success via text. He then will claim I am the only person who derides his abilities and proceed to call me names (I am "truly pathetic" and "the most poisonous person in his life."

We were married for nearly 18 years and these years were characterized by intense love bombing and proclamations that I was his soul mate to horrible bouts of verbal abuse and days of silence punishment.  I am very grateful to be free of this roller coaster but I am very concerned for my son's emotional well being and now, physical safety, in his father's care.

Any advice is appreciated.

Sometimes with my NPD/BPD ex I found it was helpful to build his confidence in other ways, to sort of elevate his overall sense of competence when it came to parenting.

People with BPD/NPD can have a profound sense of incompetence.

Is there anything your ex does that you can validate (or, if his narcissism is strong, is there anything you can praise)?

My ex introduced our son to Charlie Chaplin movies, so I would say, "S10 really loved watching Chaplin movies with you, so much that he wants to be Chaplin for Halloween. He hasn't stopped talking about his time watching movies with you since he got home."

Didn't mean I got a high five in return. In fact, often it was, "Of course he liked what I picked. You never do anything worthwhile with him, you're too busy being a two-headed demon."

 

I think BPD/NPD psycho-dynamics lead to worse choices when they feel incompetent so I tried to do the reverse when I had the emotional strength to do so.

Finding behaviors to validate can be challenging when you feel scared. I saw it more like an overall threshold to aim for -- looking for small signs of what was ok, and commenting on those behaviors. Kind of like you would when a little kid does the right thing, even if it isn't done to spec.

If she is an unsafe driver, can you report her to your state's DPS?  They'll investigate and see if her driver's license needs to be yanked.

You could also file a CPS report over that.  It's an escalation, but if you're truly concerned about your child's safety, that is an option.