Let’s say you’re still in your relationship and you’re dead unhappy. Little by little, you get more and more evidence that your husband and father of your children is one of the mean ones. Your thoughts are circling more and more around the question of whether it would not be better to separate.

You read up on the subject of narcissism and have more and more “aha” moments.

And as your insights grow, the image of the mountain rising out of the fog in front of you becomes clearer.

Phew. It’s so big! How am I going to manage with two small children?

You don’t have to feel alone at all! While it’s very likely that your family and friends will be overwhelmed by your separation, there are a number of communities out there on social media that can offer you advice and help.

I run the Mighty Moms group on Facebook myself, where several thousand moms with a toxic ex are already finding help with their day-to-day lives. The group is free, but I also don’t admit every woman who wants in.

So if you’re intensely thinking about breaking up right now, it’s normal to soak up all the information about what to expect like a sponge.

But there’s a problem when you come to a mom’s group that’s buzzing with everyday problems and court issues, mean things from your ex, and all the difficulties that come with the post-breakup journey.

Especially if you are still unsure whether you should separate at all:

Because you realize, with all the stories you learn, the whole dimension you entered the moment you got involved with a toxic man: That it is no walk in the rose garden to have children together with such a man.

God knows!

And already you may be starting to flinch. Is the current misery in everyday life with the bossy, nasty guy the better alternative to eternal court cases?

Whether the children shouldn’t stay in the nice house in the better part of town – the father is hardly ever there anyway and doesn’t give a damn and lets you do what you want anyway. You already know that he is cheating on you through and through – but you might even be quite happy about it, then you don’t have to “do it” yourself.

In addition, you read all the stories of mothers who have lost their children.

These hit the community like a bomb. Such news makes worst-case scenarios come true – and what mother wants to lose her child?

You don’t see that it’s not the majority, but a handful of mothers among thousands who have to experience something like this – but you immediately adopt their story as the inevitable fate of every mother who separates from a toxic ex and who doesn’t miss the opportunity to make all kinds of threats from the very beginning to avoid a separation.

​Remember: Even the greatest misery can be a very cozy comfort zone

Because the bleak everyday life is familiar. Everything that is familiar has already been experienced and is “safe” in a paradoxical way.

Even the toxic Ex can represent a dislocated security – the security of a roof over one’s head. The security of a certain social status. True, also the “security” of a major temper tantrum – but you’ve learned to deal with that somehow, too. Right?

Yes, it’s bad. Yes, it is. But it worked yesterday. Somehow. It’s okay. Maybe I will separate next year? Then the child is in kindergarten / in school / in training and out of the woods.

You already have strange, inexplicable illnesses – either the ground regularly pulls out from under your feet (dizziness), the situation gets under your skin (eczema), you break your head (migraine) or even worse – but you do not yet bring this into a context with what your innermost is trying to tell you all the time:

„Schau mich an! So will ich nicht leben!“

If you belong to the circle of empathetic mothers, then you tend to think: “I have to grit my teeth now! After all, this is no longer about me – but about my child! I don’t want to destroy his childhood if I separate.”

If that’s the case, can I ask you a question?

Do you know even one young adult who came from a desolate, mean family, decomposed full of passive aggression, and who was grateful for the mother sacrificing herself in a martyr-like way so that everyone could stay in the poisonous cauldron?

Or the other way around: how many daughters are there who admire their mother, who at times drew a clear line and left her power-hungry controlling venomous husband, even if it was much more difficult then than now with all the offers of help? They know: Whatever should happen to me in my relationships – what my mom managed, I can manage too?

What it’s like beyond the comfort zone

Well – that’s just the great unknown.

You don’t know that (yet) – unless you have psychic abilities. You may instinctively sense in which aspects the Ex will go full blast, but you won’t know.

But if you can’t know yet, then also please do not blindly trust the stories of the other, already separated mothers and accept them as irrevocable truths for you!

This is very important now, sweetheart:

Your journey after a toxic relationship is a highly individual one altogether!

You won’t automatically have to spend the next 12 years in court as one or two “veterans” in the mothers’ group report.

The children will not automatically have to move in with the father – whether they want to (because they have been manipulated) or not (because they are still so small).

The father doesn’t get all the rights he wants shoved down his throat.

Always make this clear to yourself:

Every mother in a narcissist forum or separation group has a very specific lawyer, a very specific judge in a very specific county, a very specific guardian ad litem, a very specific opposing counsel, a very specific case worker in charge at the youth welfare office in a very specific community, and last but not least, a very specific ex with a very individual personality disorder.

Quite a few different factors, don’t you think?

How many of these factors do you think will apply to you 1:1?

Will the time after the separation be easy? 

Nah, of course not, provided you actually have a toxic man with a suspected narcissistic personality disorder on your side!

Of course cases as described above occur – especially if you offer highly specific forums and groups like me, such cases come together in one place.

But they are still tragic individual cases in the mass of separations that occur every year! Therefore, they might stand out just so.

Please never underestimate the power of your thoughts

I can assure you: If you focus on the worst that could happen after the separation, then you will also make correspondingly fearful decisions that will lead exactly there.

If, on the other hand, you focus on your possibilities and do the inner work that has been waiting for you for a long time, then it becomes a huge opportunity for a wonderful life for you – and your child!

Your chance for a better, more worthy life than the one you are leading right now can only be found beyond your marriage and the closeness to this man!

You lead a better life when you have better emotions. The emotions get better when you come into clarity and act authentically and with mindfulness towards yourself.

A wonderful cycle – and you alone have it in your hands to get there!

I’m happy to help you with that – be it with my private coaching or with my Mighty Moms Club, which you can join as a member twice a year, if the free impulses in the Facebook group are not enough for you.

P.S.: The overwhelming majority of moms affected with a toxic Ex ended up not regretting breaking up with the man, even though they went through incredible things in the aftermath.

On the contrary, they became their best selves.