The Two Most Important Strategies for Dealing with a High Conflict Person During and After divorce
Bill Eddy's High Conflict Institute suggests that high conflict people generally share four characteristics:
Preoccupation with blaming others
All-or-nothing thinking
Unmanaged emotions
Extreme behaviors
Where do you see one or more of these characteristics showing up in your co-parent? Even more unsettling, where do you see one of more of these characteristics showing up in yourself?
Divorcing from or co-parenting with a high conflict person (HCP) can often lead to feelings of dread, fatigue, and mental chaos when you talk to them, think about talking to them, or revisit your most recent conversation with them. Interactions with them can flare at any time and this reality can keep you from living out the fullness of your own life. It's the unexpected and irrational nature of your interactions with them that keeps you on edge.
There are multiple layers of healing to explore in your life experience of this person. These layers will likely take years of concerted effort to realize relief. There are two critical strategies that you can return to as you walk this long path:
Protect Yourself
Learn Their Operating System
PROTECT YOURSELF
Protecting yourself means learning how to disengage. Many people think disengagement is just being quiet in the midst of an HCP attack. This approach looks like every siren going off in your head and every intense reaction triggered inside your body, meanwhile your face is flat and your mouth is shut. This is a great starting place.
You can't stay here.
Truly protecting yourself is having a go-to response that pulls your HCP from his or her state of defensiveness into a more logical problem-solving space. Bill Eddy offers this simple sentence to use when in the barrage of attack from your HCP:
So what's your proposal?
You will need to ask this question with some authenticity. And it may need to be reworked to sound more like you. You could try: "What's your suggestion?" or "I want to get your thoughts on this - what do you think we should do here?"
After you ask this question with genuine interest, make sure you fully understand who would do what, when, and where based on his or her proposal (no matter how wild it is). You then ask permission to ask clarifying questions about the proposal and do so if allowed. Finally, you can answer the proposal with yes, no, or I need to think about it.
This is your base structure. This is the homebase you return to when you start worrying about whether they will call you and be upset about some topic. Your fear of engaging with this person comes from feeling flat footed and unable to navigate the conversations. Have a plan. Great co-parenting conversations always take this structure:
So what's your proposal?
Ask clarifying questions around the proposal.
Answer yes, no, or I'll need to think about it.
LEARN THEIR OPERATING SYSTEM
The second goal in managing co-parenting life with an HCP is to learn their operating system. You've probably been doing some of this work for years, but you will be well served by documenting it and committing it to memory. Every person has an operating system. It’s the hardwired equipment that fuels our daily activities and behaviors in life. The first pieces of your operating system were installed in your childhood and the system continues to be shaped in an ongoing way as you grow up and encounter new people, new situations, and new traumas. Your HCP’s operating system is comprised of everything you know to be true and somewhat predictable about them. When you intimately know your HCP's operating system, you can create meaningful strategies that contribute to not only protecting yourself, but also helping you accept the reality of what living life alongside an HCP will mean for you and your kids.
HCPs shape our lives in difficult ways. Learning how to protect yourself and create strategies around their operating systems is your greatest hope for going the distance in this uncomfortable relationship.
