Welcome to Divorce Dialogues. I'm Catherine Miller. Divorce Dialogues brings expert guests to the airways to talk through your divorce questions and fill in the gray areas of that separating. From thinking about divorce, to how to behave during divorce, to what to do after, this is Divorce Dialogues.
Welcome to Dialogue on Divorce. I'm Catherine Miller, I'm the founder of the Miller Law Group and director of the Center for Understanding and Conflict, and I am on a mission to change how people divorce and help them divorce with dignity. And my guest today is, again, a repeat guest, Bill Eddy. He's a lawyer, therapist, mediator, and president of High Conflict Institute.
He's developed a high conflict personality theory and has become an international expert on managing disputes involving high conflict personalities and personality disorders. Bill is also a prolific author, has written a number of books and articles, and recently has written two new books, one, Dating Radar, Why Your Brain Says Yes to the One Who Will Make Your Life Hell, and two, Five Types of People Who Can Ruin Your Life Identifying and Dealing with Narcissists, Sociopaths, and other high conflict personalities. Welcome, Bill. It's a pleasure to have you back on the show.
Thank you so much, Catherine. I'm glad to be back, too. You know, and last time when you were on the show, we talked a lot about dealing with divorcing, you know, high conflict divorces and difficult personality disorders and dealing with divorcing, and it sounds like these last two books are sort of more forward-thinking, how to avoid getting into relationships with people who are maybe on the other side of a high conflict relationship, how to avoid getting into another similar kind of relationship. Is that true?
Yes, and very much both of these books are really more about forward-thinking, as you said, and kind of seeing what you might be getting into. So, for example, Dating Radar really talks about kind of three aspects of how people get hooked when they shouldn't in dating a potentially high-conflict person. And what are some of those ways? Well, first of all is to know some of the basic patterns, and we've identified in the book four of the basic high-conflict personality patterns that tend to be prone to becoming high-conflict, and by that we mean four things which you can often see as warning signs, and that's a lot of all-or-nothing thinking, unmanaged emotions, extreme behaviors, and preoccupation with blaming others.
So if you're dating somebody, and they say, oh, that person doesn't deserve to live, someone that would think that way, I just wish they would die, something like that. But they're talking about somebody else. But put that in your mind, go, uh-oh, this person has some extreme thinking, some all-or-nothing thinking. You know, maybe you're watching a movie or the news or something like that.
Or maybe they just scream or, you know, like punch the wall or something like that, and then they say, oh, I was just tired. But the thing is, what we've seen is that that's not behavior that most people do, and that's a predictive behavior for what you might run into in the future. So it's good to kind of be aware of these patterns that people have. I should mention my colleague, Megan Hunter, co-author on the book.
We did a survey online, and we looked at what some of the ways that high-conflict people jam your radar, that they actually distract you with charm, with what we call fake compatibility. They look like they're interested in what you're interested in, but they're just mirroring you. They won't be interested in that. And also intense sexuality, the preoccupation with that.
And so that's some of it. And then some of it's just how we fool ourselves, that we kind of tell ourselves these kind of cultural messages that say, oh, time and love will make everything okay. So these kind of know people's patterns, know how they jam your radar, and know yourself and some of these kind of culturally naive beliefs. You know, oftentimes there's sort of conventional wisdom that, you know, when people, they just remarry the same person.
Obviously not the same same person, but a similar type person. Do you think that's true? I think that's true if people don't reflect on what happened. And I was actually at a conference recently talking about marriage therapy, and the marriage therapists are saying, we often marry the parent that we have the most unresolved business with.
And it's an interesting concept. I'm not sure it's always the case, but I think it probably is the case more than we realize. So if people don't finish their business with the person they're getting divorced from now, and hopefully doing it in a collaborative way with assistance of people like yourself, but if they don't kind of finish whatever business was there, just an individual counseling, what's in their head, then they're likely to repeat that business going forward. And sometimes it goes back to childhood.
People just keep carrying it one relationship to the next. I once, as a divorce mediator, did a divorce where the wife had been married twice and the husband had been married four times. And in the middle of saying, no, this was couples counseling. Let me back up with that, because I did couples counseling as well as mediation.
And the guy says, you know, I'm starting to wonder if there's something I need to work on. And I said, keep that thought. I think we can work with that. Yeah, I mean, love is a powerful drug.
I mean, perhaps the most powerful one that is out there. And I think that when people are under the influence of love or infatuation in the early stages, you know, maybe there's a sexuality to it also, they somehow are blind to so many things, you know, including their own foibles. Is there something that people can do to sort of, I don't know, love-proof themselves? Well, first of all, I want to say that you're absolutely right, that love is kind of like a drug.
And one of the things in researching the book, Dating Radar, we looked at three different kind of chemicals in the brain that get released around falling in love and then having sex releases these dopamine, oxytocin, and oh my goodness, I'm forgetting the third one. But dopamine is a very rewarding drug with sex. And oxytocin is kind of a love drug. It's what mothers and infants have.
It's what new couples have. The problem is, biologically, we're kind of wired to fall in love and have sex and make babies as fast as possible because who knows where the next meal is coming from, when the next war will happen. That's part of our kind of biological history is you don't really take your time with this kind of stuff. But we need to.
We live in a modern society. In many ways, our brains are so much smarter than parts of our brains. We've got to use the whole brain. So I think it's reflecting.
But the other thing is getting thoughts and ideas from friends and family. It's like, what do you think of so-and-so? So that if they start saying, hey, we're worried about you, you know, this person might not be good for you. You need to pay attention to that.
And also be with this new partner you're dating around friends and family so that you can see how do they interact with other people you care about. Because some of the most high-conflict people don't want anything to do with anybody else in your life and they'll slowly cut you off from your life. So this is one way to watch out for that. This is Dialogue on Divorce.
I'm Catherine Miller and I'm talking today with Bill Eddy and we're talking about his two books, Dating Radar, Why Your Brain Says Yes to the One Who Will Make Your Life Hell, which he wrote with Megan Hunter, and also the about-to-be-released five types of people who can ruin your life identifying and dealing with narcissists, sociopaths, and other high-conflict personalities. Dialogue on Divorce is here on WBOX, 1460 AM, on alternate Wednesdays from 5 to 5.30. It's also available on WBOX.com. And also, perhaps you're listening to this broadcast as a podcast, which is available on my website, www.westchesterfamilylaw.com.
It's also on SoundCloud and iTunes. And in your book, Bill, you talk about blind spots that people have. And I think we're kind of touching on that here, right? The blind spots that people will have that will prevent them from realizing what they're getting into.
What are they? Can you say more about them? Yeah. So the blind spots, first of all, is we often really tell ourselves that we should put up with a bad situation because we tell ourselves that we're desperate.
And I've seen so many people as a divorce lawyer, divorce mediator, and family counselor, I've seen so many people that feel like after a divorce that they're not worthy or they're not as okay and so the pickings are slimmer and they should just go for someone that pays some nice attention to them as fast as possible. So one of the first things is that if you're still grieving a loss, especially loss like through a divorce, which can be a very painful process, is you need to finish that grieving before you really make commitments to new relationships. It doesn't mean don't go out or be around other people, but I really recommend therapy for that. If you're really grieving that loss, you want to be finished with that.
So one of the things that we've learned from our survey was that grieving and also low self-esteem, if you know you're someone who doesn't feel that good about themselves and thinks they're not going to have a good chance in the dating world, either first time or after a divorce, is that's another one to work on in counseling, work on with your friends. Don't work on that by falling in love with someone who pays a lot of attention to you. And what's interesting with grieving a loss and such, we give the example in here of Paul McCartney. The love of his life was Linda McCartney, and when she died after 30 years of marriage, it was such a tragedy for him.
Well, he quickly got involved in a new relationship that ended up in a terrible divorce, and some people suggested that she was one of these high-conflict people, that she really exaggerated things. She blamed him a lot. I actually saw her in the news on TV once and said, wait a minute, that was like a high-conflict person. I don't think Paul knew what he was getting into, but it was too soon after the loss of the love of his life.
So I'm not making judgments, I can't say for sure, but they did have a high-conflict divorce with a lot of public negative attention. Don't you think people sometimes hide or try to buffer themselves from grieving by getting into a new relationship and distracting themselves? In many ways, people do that a lot. It's a way to not feel alone, to feel okay about yourself.
And in many ways, the advice is good that you need to feel okay about yourself alone before you really get into a new relationship. Otherwise, you're looking for part of yourself and somebody else. And no one can do that, but people can fake it. And that's one of the problems in today's world.
People can fake who they are. Even if you meet them in person, they can tell you stories that you believe. So this is the radar concept. You've got to really know what you're looking for, know what to watch out for.
But I also want to say, so I don't forget it, is we really, out of our survey and out of writing the book, recommend people wait at least a year before committing. So they wait a year before either getting married or having a child. A big commitment. Maybe sometimes people moving in together, they find out, okay, now I know what it's like to live with this person.
I don't want to be with them. But don't sign a five-year lease with someone that you haven't known at least a year. Because a lot of these kind of high-conflict traits don't show up until six or nine or 12 months. You know, I remember a long time ago when I was in college, a high school friend of mine was living with an older woman.
And he said, well, you know, I really love her and it's wonderful and we're going to be together forever. And I said, well, you know, if you love her that much today, you're going to love her that much a year from now and then you can marry her. Then he went and got married the next week. And he said to me afterwards, well, you convinced me to marry her.
And I said, wait, what? And he said, yeah, you said, if I love her this much now, I'll love her this much in a year. And so I just went ahead and married her. It did not result successfully, however.
Did it work out? No, it did not work out. Yeah. Well, one thing I want to mention that this brings up is many of us have our own parents or grandparents who did meet and get married very quickly.
And it worked out and lasted for 30 or 40 years. But times are different now. Two big things are different. One is that we have the Internet and we have all these ways that people can fake who they are.
So you really don't know until you've had time. And the other thing is people come without a community and without a history nowadays. So you may meet somebody that no one has known for very long. They may have just moved to town or maybe they've been around a couple of years, but only people at work know them.
Their family, their whole history might be coming from another state. And so for these reasons, we don't really know people and have to learn to get to know them. Our parents and grandparents often got together with people that a lot of other people knew so that they had a history. But nowadays, people come often without a history and the ability to fake their history.
So people have to have more radar than they ever did in the past. Bill, you mentioned the survey that you and Megan Hunter did. Tell us, what was the survey about? Is it still open?
The survey isn't still open. We closed at the end of 2017. So we just missed it. But if people get the book, they can see survey results.
What we did is we asked a lot of questions. We had about 300 responses. And we asked people questions such as, did you ever have a relationship with a high conflict person? Whether they dated or married, it didn't matter.
And then we asked things like, if you saw red flags but proceeded to marry or move in, did you change with time? Did you think they would become a better person with your health? Would they change with time? Would time and love cure all problems?
Did you feel friends and family pressured you? Did you feel it was too late to change your plans? Did you have fear about changing your plans? And did you believe that love conquers all?
And so we got responses on that, which varied. I often think that when marriages fail, you can often think back to the first date. On the first date, you can see the reason why it failed. That's what makes it for me.
I go back and say, you know what? I can tell. The same thread runs from date one through marriage, through having children, through divorce. Yeah.
And that's why we think people need to have radar so that they're more aware. And so you can kind of train your brain to ask more questions. Like, is this really true? And am I fooling myself?
Are my blind spots making me overlook this? Because a lot of people that answered the survey said, yes, I saw red flags, but for the reasons I listed, I overrode them. And it's like almost 50% believe that love will conquer all. Well, we've learned that's not true anymore, if it ever was.
So people need to really have their eyes open. And that's where radar comes in. It's just the idea, know what you're looking for, know how you get diverted, like charm and fake compatibility and intense sexuality, and then know your blind spots, you know, self-esteem. But these culturally naive beliefs showed up a lot, which is time and love will cure everything.
We learned that in songs growing up. That's in the movies, but it's not always true. I'm Catherine Miller. You're listening to Dialogue and Divorce, and I'm talking today with Bill Eddy.
And Bill, perhaps you'd like to give our listeners an opportunity to find out more about Dating Radar or the five types of people who can ruin your life, your books, your programs, and say how they can contact you or get information. Sure. First of all, go to our website. Our website is highconflictinstitute.com, and you can order these two books there.
And let me mention, I talk mostly about Dating Radar. Five Types of People Who Can Ruin Your Life is similar, but it's broader. So it's for any situation, friends, co-workers, getting a job, hiring employees, joining volunteer groups, all of these things. It's just how to recognize high-conflict personalities before you invite them deeply into your life, even as a friend or as a colleague.
So that's the five types of people. But both of these books are on our website. So you can go to highconflictinstitute.com, click on the book cover, and order the books. We also have video training.
We have a lot for professionals, such as divorce professionals, legal professionals, counselors. But we also have a lot for the average person. We have about 50 free articles they can get at the website. And I can also mention that both Dating Radar and Five Types of People are available anywhere books are sold.
So they can go on Amazon, Barnes & Noble, et cetera. But we really want to help people understand these patterns because times have changed, and it's not that hard, but you do need knowledge to know what you're looking for. Well, let's talk about the five types of people who can ruin your life. Those are strong words.
What are those five types? Well, basically, they're all high-conflict personalities that overlap with personality disorders. So the subtitle is identifying individuals. dealing with narcissists, sociopaths, and other high-conflict personalities, which include borderline, histrionic, and paranoid.
We also talk about those in Dating Radar. So both types of high-conflict personalities. But what we're talking about, five types of people, is I talk more about identifying them by listening to their words, paying attention to how you feel around the person, and looking at their behavior. And sometimes one single behavior is a tip-off, because it's something 90% of people would never do, even if they were tired or lonely or frustrated.
And we see people like that nowadays, but they make excuses. There's so many excuses people make for extreme behavior that throw us off. The five types of people really help you identify in any area of life. Sometimes, quite quickly, this is someone to not engage with, not try to become friends with, not get close to at work, don't hire to work on your house, those kinds of things.
We try to give you a lot of warning signs in that book. But also, if you do have to deal with the person, some methods for dealing with them. So it's a lot of tips for the average person. It's probably my most comprehensive book in terms of identifying and dealing with them for anybody.
So I like to say that five types of people is for anyone. Dating Radar is for people who are dating or considering dating. Bill Eddy, what are some of the extreme behaviors that you could watch out for that could be sort of tried to be excused away? Particularly, I mean, so hitting a wall, you mentioned that.
I guess it depends on the age group and whether or not alcohol or drugs were involved. But just what are some of those things that could give you a heads up? It's usually something that startles you. Maybe you're at a meeting at work, and someone starts screaming and running out of the meeting.
They can't stand what's being said. And then afterwards, they say, oh, you know, so-and-so just irritates me so much. I can't stand when he's talking. And you think to yourself, yeah, but 90% of people didn't run out of that room.
That's a sign this person may lack impulse control and may do things. Usually, extreme behaviors are the tip of the iceberg. There's a pattern supporting that. Stealing things, spreading rumors, hitting people.
They may shove somebody at work, and then they say, oh, I was just under a lot of stress. Well, wait a minute. 90% of people, when they're under stress, don't shove other people at work. Maybe they shove their brother or sister when they're growing up.
But in the workplace, people control themselves better. So when you see that, that's often the tip of an iceberg someone to steer clear of. If you can't steer clear, are there ways to sort of manage them that could keep you from being the person they hit, for example? Yes, and we have a method we call the CARS method, connecting with them, helping analyze choices.
What can I do now or what can they do now, responding to misinformation and setting limits on them. So that's a whole other discussion, but it's in the book in terms of ways to manage the relationship if you do have to deal with them, like they're in the next cubicle or something like that. So in that situation, you know, you say in the Dating Radar book that some people will jam your radar. Can you explain more about that and let us know ways in which to watch out for that?
Well, I think the excuses are one way of jamming. I think charm. A lot of people, like, change their personality on the spot and suddenly become wonderful and easygoing, especially when it looks like you may bring some limit setting to them. Then they go, oh, you know, you're so nice.
Don't get along so well. So watch out when you're getting the charm turned on as well as when negativity is happening. But part of it is just not having a big emotional response, not getting real emotionally engaged. Matter of fact, I've got to get back to work, but we'll talk later.
That type of thing. And same in relationships is, you know, very interesting. I'll call you. We'll see.
We'll see if we're going to get together. And so not engaging in the sort of reactivity. Right. Keeping your own emotions from getting too intense.
Because if you get really angry with some high-conflict people, that feeds them. They like that. They like seeing you upset and distressed. So if you realize I'm dealing with a high-conflict person, I'm not going to give them any of my intense emotions.
I'm going to be matter-of-fact and keep a distance. Thank you, Bill Eddy, for being our guest on Dialog on Divorce. It's been a pleasure.