No One Dies from Divorce

Bill Eddy: Strategies for Co-Parenting and Communicating with a High-Conflict Ex

November 01, 2021 Jill Coil Season 1 Episode 20
No One Dies from Divorce
Bill Eddy: Strategies for Co-Parenting and Communicating with a High-Conflict Ex
Show Notes

Attorney, mediator, therapist, and author—Bill Eddy—provides us with a master class of techniques he has perfected over his 30-year career in high-conflict divorce. Get his BIFF communication method, 4 co-parenting rules, and top 3 parenting tips of all time—right here on the podcast!

Bill Eddy, LCSW, Esq. developed the high conflict personality theory to explain the driving forces behind people who present the most challenging behaviors. He is an expert on managing disputes involving high conflict situations and 5 high conflict personality types, including a subset of those with narcissistic, borderline, antisocial, histrionic, and paranoid personality disorders. He has trained over 200,000 professionals in 10 countries on understanding and managing high conflict disputes, including lawyers, judges, mediators, managers, human resource professionals, businesspersons, healthcare administrators, college administrators, homeowners’ association managers, law enforcement, therapists and others.

He serves on the faculty of the Straus Institute for Dispute Resolution at the Pepperdine University School of Law in California and is a Conjoint Associate Professor with the University of Newcastle Law School in Australia. 

4 things that define high-conflict personalities:

  1. Preoccupation with blaming others and doesn’t taking personal responsibility.
  2. All or nothing thinking; Want total control (of kids, house, money, etc.).
  3. Unmanaged emotions (e.g. burst into tears, etc.) that the situation doesn’t merit.
  4. Extreme behaviors (e.g.: telling lies to officials, spreading rumors, punching holes in wall, hitting, hiding children, stealing money).

Bill rarely recommends no-contact orders of parents with children. Oftentimes, this leads to kids fantasizing about what the parent is like, that doesn’t fit the reality. It escalates the warfare so high that it’s hard to ever reach peace after. It’s almost always better to just have supervised visitation (like at a therapists’ office) if there’s some kind of concern about safety.

Tips for dealing with high-conflict exes: Manage the relationship at an arms’ length; manage how you write and speak to them and structure things so there’s not much contact (like parallel parenting). Realize that it’s more about emotions than intentional behavior. They communicate emotionally, and children unconsciously absorb that. Don’t bad mouth other parent.

4 strategies for co-parenting your kids when your ex is high conflict (4 big skills for life):

  1. Flexible thinking
  2. Managed emotions
  3. Moderate behavior
  4. Checking yourself

Use BIFF method to communicate:

  • Brief (paragraph is usually enough, even if it’s in response to a tome)
  • Informative (straight info, don’t need justification)
  • Friendly (make it positive not negative; “thanks for telling me your concerns”)
  • Firm (end conversation without asking for follow up questions, or if you have a request, keep it unemotional and include a due date)

What to look for in an attorney:

Need a lawyer with 5+ years of experience in high-conflict divorce, and has empathy. You want someone who’s not afraid to go to court, but isn’t overly litigious, and someone who is able to negotiate settlement. 

Top 3 parenting skills:

  1. Unconditional love and affection for your child
  2. Managing your own stress; you’re emotionally available for your child and that models for your children how to manage stress
  3. Demonstrate healthy adult communication and negotiation. Let your child see you doing this with other adults if not spouse/ex.