Publisher’s Note
This publication is designed to provide accurate and authoritative information about the subject matter covered. It is sold with the understanding that neither the author nor publisher is rendering legal, mental health, medical, or other professional services, either directly or indirectly. If expert assistance, legal or psychological services is needed, the services of a competent professional should be sought. Neither the author nor the publisher shall be liable or responsible for any loss or damage allegedly arising as a consequence of your use or application of any information or suggestions in this book.
Copyright © 2015 by Megan L. Hunter
Unhooked Books, LLC
7701 E. Indian School Rd., Ste. F
Scottsdale, AZ 85251
www.unhookedbooks.com
ISBN: 978-1-936268-70-2 (paperback)
eISBN: 978-1-936268-71-9 (e-book)
All Rights Reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic form without the express written permission of the publisher. Failure to comply with these terms may expose you to legal action and damages for copyright infringement.
Names and information identifying private individuals have been changed to preserve anonymity. Many quotations have been modified to protect confidentiality and to demonstrate the principles of the book. Some examples are slight alterations of real situations, while other examples were inspired by real cases but are completely fictional.
Library of Congress Control Number: 2014952323
Cover Design: Gordan Blazevik
Interior Layout: Jeffrey Fuller
Printed in the United States of America
Praise for Bait & Switch
“Wondering, ‘How did I get here?’ in her exceptional book, Bait & Switch, international speaker Megan Hunter provides meaningful insight for people who sailed into love on a wave of excitement only to find themselves living inside a storm. She opens the doors to understanding what’s happening beneath the surface with her explanation of the Complicated Operating System. This book is a must-read for anyone in love with a person with borderline personality traits making meaning out of the chaos while bringing skills and hope in an ocean of despair.”
– Lynne Kenney, PsyD,
pediatric psychologist, international educator, and author of The Family Coach Method and Bloom: 50 Things to Say, Think, and Do to Help Anxious, Angry, and Over-the-Top Kids
“Megan Hunter has successfully tackled one of the biggest topics of today: What do you do when your great relationship turns into a struggle? She gives numerous practical tips on what you can do and how to influence your partner. She combines her experience and observations from working with hundreds of couples as an administrator for family court systems and as a business manager, to give the reader encouragement—and hope!”
– Bill Eddy, LCSW, Esq.,
president of the High Conflict Institute, and author of Splitting: Protecting Yourself While Divorcing Someone with Borderline or Narcissistic Personality Disorder and So, What’s Your Proposal?
“In her book Bait & Switch, Megan Hunter addresses an important facet of parental relationships, and of our society in general: How can we handle, survive, and even thrive in relationships with a very difficult partner? That is, with partners who may be very attractive in some ways, yet have a personality skewed by a fear-based, threat-based view of the world. This personality issue renders relationships very challenging.
“Based on her years of experience in this field, Megan proposes an effective and simple strategy based on ‘connecting, shifting, honesty, and consequences.’ Connect with the emotional brain (right) to control the fire. Then shift to the analytic brain (left) to activate the thinking. This is something that we can all do and practice. Thank you Megan for articulating such a clear strategy that will help many of us.”
– Frederic Bien, PhD,
President, Personality Disorder Awareness Network (PDAN.org)
“With extraordinary insight, Megan Hunter provides clear and usable strategies and skills for ending the chaos of high conflict relationships. Backed up by science, she provides the reader a detailed prescription for turning around behaviors and relationship patterns for the better. If you want to save your relationship, this book will show you how. If your relationship cannot be saved, this book will help you understand why, and provide you the groundwork for co-parenting after divorce and better relationships in the future, if that is where your path leads. This is a valuable piece of work.”
– Angie Hallier,
Divorce Attorney, Fellow of the American Academy of Matrimonial Lawyers, and author of The Wiser Divorce – Positive Strategies for your Next Best Life
CONTENTS
Preface
Introduction
PART I: UNDERSTANDING THE RELATIONSHIP BRAIN
CHAPTER 1
Trajectory from Incredible Romance to ExhaustingChaos
CHAPTER 2
The Relationship Operating System: It’s “Complicated”
CHAPTER 3
The Complicated Operating System: Desperate Need for Relationships
CHAPTER 4
The Complicated Operating System: Behavior within the Relationship
CHAPTER 5
The Complicated OS Brain in the Complicated Relationship
CHAPTER 6
Wrapping Your Head Around Your New Reality
PART II: CREATING A NEW ENVIRONMENT TO MANAGE THE RELATIONSHIP
CHAPTER 7
Establish a Threat-Reduced Environment
CHAPTER 8
Get Unhooked
CHAPTER 9
Relationship Management: Connecting
CHAPTER 10
Relationship Management: Shifting
CHAPTER 11
Be a Complicated Code Cracker
CHAPTER 12
Addressing Other Concerns and Unique Questions
Resources
Acknowledgments
About the Author
Dedicated to my husband Paul; to my beautiful children, Mychael and his wife Alison, Bryant, and Elizabeth; and to my teacher and mentor, Betsy Van Tuinen.
PREFACE
IN THE AUTUMN OF 2005, I HAPPENED ACROSS AN ARTICLE ABOUT HIGH-CONFLICT DIVORCE. I’d worked in divorce law long enough to know that these were the outlier cases—the seemingly impossible cases that were beyond what most would consider a “normal” divorce—they were family destroyers. These cases did not settle easily and often required a judge to decide every matter at issue. They usually took a year or more to be finalized and then ended up becoming “frequent filers,” coming back to court to fight about anything and everything. These cases drained the budgets of the courts who adjudicated them, served as a source of frustration and helplessness for the professionals who handled them, and wiped out savings, retirement, and college funds for the high-conflict couple. But worst of all, the parents’ behavior affected their children in damaging, disturbing ways.
Family law professionals share the notion that approximately 20 percent of family court cases consume around 80 percent of the court’s time, energy, and resources, similar to the Pareto Principle. Most divorcing or separating spouses get through the process by settling it between themselves or by using mediation. Some need the assistance of professionals like lawyers, but they also eventually reach resolution. However, the approximately 20 percent of cases considered high conflict are those that keep lawyers, psychologists, therapists, social workers, and the courts busy. Indeed, high-conflict divorce and related child custody cases have created an unintended, thriving, multimillion-dollar, self-sustaining industry.
Families already in crisis typically seem to worsen in our adversarial court system. Some cases take years to litigate, with multiple attorneys and tens or even hundreds of thousands of dollars spent on lawyers for each parent, lawyers for the kids, psychologists, counselors, custody evaluators, parenting coordinators, and other professionals. Some custody evaluations can cost upward of ten thousand dollars. Long after the legal case is finally finished, the fighting continues as parents battle over co-parenting issues and everything else for years to come. More conflict, more loss, more drama, more chaos. And: More damage to the kids and the parents!
Although many jurisdictions in various countries have established programs to address this growing problem, their goal of helping parents reduce conflict and become more cooperative is often met with disappointing results. This phenomenon intrigued me. I wanted to know why a modern, sophisticated society with scores of intelligent, highly educated people working to solve this dilemma couldn’t get this group to succeed with even the best educational, therapeutic, or other interventions.
So, back in 2005 when I read an article on high-conflict divorce called “How Personality Disorders Drive Family Court Litigation,” by therapist/lawyer/mediator Bill Eddy, I experienced the ultimate “aha moment.” Eddy, applying his therapy background to the dynamics of high-conflict family law cases, understood what was driving them—people who have personality disorders or traits of such disorders are usually involved. His logic opened the doors of understanding for me.
I invited Eddy to lead a training seminar for family court judges in my state, and again a few months later, to train mental health professionals who work with high-conflict cases doing psychological and custody evaluations. While originally thinking we would top out at thirty attendees, we finally had to close the doors at nearly two hundred participants. People wanted and needed to know how to help this outlier group.
This led me to the realization that people who work with family court cases were desperate to understand not only what made this population different from the other 80 percent of cases, but also how to effectively manage these cases. Shortly thereafter, I left my position at the Arizona Supreme Court Administrative Office of the Courts and convinced Bill Eddy to work with me to communicate his practical prescription for understanding and managing high-conflict family court cases to family law professionals everywhere. My business and family law background, combined with his expertise in all things high-conflict, proved highly successful. We jointly moved the needle forward in improving the lives of high-conflict families by training the professionals who deal with them.
Progress But Still Discontent
The court system is usually the end of the relationship road, and that frustrated me. Debate swirls around divorce statistics, but the reality is that at least half of the people in this stage of life—in which they cohabit, marry, divorce, remarry, and have children—will eventually come calling on the court to either dissolve the marriage, decide who gets custody of the kids, or determine how much time the kids will spend with the other parent.
Although the high-conflict industry provided my income, I had grown disillusioned being part of the clean-up crew. While it was still satisfying to know we were helping move people through the court system with more ease (and thereby reducing the stress and frustration felt by professionals, as well as with decreasing the threat of lawsuits and complaints against their licenses), what kept nagging at me was an underlying belief about the population we were serving: that these were people who simply couldn’t change and the only solution was to end the relationship.
Granted, many of these people displayed really ugly behavior and seemingly deserved the labels they were commonly given—“crazy,” “psycho,” “psycho bitch,” “lunatic,” “borderline,” “narcissist,” “sociopath,” or “psychopath.” Typically, only the most patient people, usually mental health professionals, had any success in dealing with them. Most others eventually learned to avoid them because the very thought of dealing with or even being around them was too distressing. It’s true; they’re exhausting to deal with or be around. Some of us find ourselves in constant conflict with them, while the rest of us just try to run away from them.
However, the more I studied human behavior, particularly the brain’s role in relationships and conflict, the more wasteful it seemed. I asked myself: Was a segment of society incapable of having successful relationships? Could relationships be saved if at least one partner understood the brain nature of this relationship impairment? Could divorce or relationship dissolution be avoided if at least one person took ownership of managing the relationship in a skillful way? What would happen if they had the right set of instructions for this particular brain; if they understood their own brain’s unconscious reactions?
Through the years I’ve worked to help many individuals develop the skills to manage an ongoing relationship with their ex-spouse or ex-partner, typically because they share children. Circling back six months or even a year later, I asked about their successes and mistakes. Most reported varying degrees of success as they practiced using their new skills during interactions with their former partner. The more they practiced, the better they got. My final interview question was this: “If you had these skills while you were still together, do you think the relationship might have survived and you would have an intact family today?” Many, but not all agreed that their relationship troubles may have had a more positive outcome with the knowledge and skills they now possessed. Sadly, no one has reported a desire to reconcile—the wounds are too deep. While my anecdotal evidence is not a scientific study, my findings were informative and prompted me to write this book.
Now, in addition to my continuing work helping professionals understand and manage these cases differently, I also focus my energy on what happens before a couple makes the decision to file for divorce or otherwise end the relationship. I’ve been frustrated knowing that many, not all, couples want to stay together, but can’t seem to make it work—even if they’ve read loads of relationship books and gone to counseling. Their relationship continues swirling in chaos until it ends.
I deal with couples who have the most extreme and dreadful relationships, but the strategies and solutions I advocate also work for those with less conflict and adversity. My current passion and commitment is to focus on giving all these people hope, not only for saving their relationship, but also for rebuilding loving, trusting partnerships that have the potential to endure.
INTRODUCTION
As you pick up this book, are you lost in a relationship nightmare, one that has become chaotic, complicated, and extreme? Does your partner constantly demand your attention and need to feel connected to you most or all of the time by phone, text, or email when you’re apart? Do you get blamed for every argument? Did your relationship start with an intense spark that later turned into chaos? Do you deal with jealousy about your friends, extended family, or co-workers? Defensiveness? Do arguments sometimes become out-of-control explosions? Do items get thrown? Does your partner sometimes storm out of the room, slamming doors? Do you feel confused and overwhelmed about what to do?
If you answered yes to any of these questions, this book is written to help you. This book is about what I call “bait and switch” relationships. These are relationships that begin with a flurry of romance and intensity (the bait) and at some point undergo a radical transformation (the switch). After the switch is thrown, the relationship is characterized by extreme behaviors, and a sense of great instability and chaos. While the relationships may not include all of the behaviors listed above or may differ from those listed, the type of behaviors and interactions we’ll be discussing all fall outside of the range expected in a normal relationship and indicate that the relationship is at high risk of falling apart.
Note: Some relationships are so toxic that ending it may be the best solution. If yours is violent, abusive, or potentially violent, it’s best to do a risk assessment and seek safety. You are not helping yourself or your partner by allowing abuse. I would like to take the easy route by declining to address abuse and violence; however, a key feature of some of these relationships is a lack of impulse control mixed with extreme pain that shows itself as rage. The combination can and often does result in violence or some sort. I do not hold myself out as an expert on domestic violence or abuse; however, I have been involved for most of my career in listening to all sides of domestic violence in crafting policy and legislation to address it in the courts and training others about how to deal with it in the professional realm and in individual relationships. So I choose to address the reality of relationships such as these. It is required. You will find that I do not advocate putting up with abuse or violence of any kind, but I also do not see it as entirely all-or-nothing. The skills in this book are meant to help you manage the relationship differently to reduce the chaos and thus, the incidence of violence. If, after reading this paragraph (or even the entire book), you are confused about what to do about your abusive relationship, please seek outside help. The Resource section lists several resources for you to turn to.
Anecdotally, about 10-15 percent of people in marriages or other romantic relationships have experienced much of these behaviors. Most of these relationships end badly in divorce court or long, drawn-out break-ups that destroy families and are usually devastating in every way. These are the War of the Roses relationships that you don’t talk about casually over the water cooler or the backyard fence, because no one could fathom—or believe—what you’re going through.
In the past, there was no hope for these relationships. The behaviors involved just seemed too extreme, the problems too complex, and failure and dissolution appeared to be the only way out. I’ve witnessed this innumerable times in my work in family law, as a trainer of professionals who handle high-conflict divorce and child custody cases, and my work with individuals and couples. By the time I’m contacted for help, it’s usually too late for the relationship to survive; one partner has pending criminal charges or may be in jail, there is an alleged false accusation, the court won’t allow contact with the kids due to accusations of domestic violence or child abuse, or one partner has the feeling of being trapped and is simply overwhelmed. Divorce or some type of break-up seems to be the only option.
Another Way Out of the Chaos
I think it’s important to pause and remember that the person before you now, the person who is making your life feel unruly and out of control, is the same person you fell in love with sometime in the past. Even though this layer of awfulness seems unconquerable, on some level you believe there may still be a good person inside. Your friends, family, colleagues, pastor/priest, therapist, and just about any sensible person who knows your story will likely tell you to RUN. Yet, I firmly believe that many of these relationships can be saved with understanding, training, discipline, and practice.
The first thing you need to know about me is that I have tremendous compassion and empathy for both of the people caught in the chaos. I also feel immensely frustrated when these relationships end simply because one or both partners do not know what to do. These are extreme relationships, with extremely intense people, who may leave you feeling like there’s no alternative, and worse yet, no hope. They’re outside the norm—outliers. Although many relationship experts and therapists don’t hold out much hope for these relationships, I’m different. I believe that many, not all, have a chance at surviving, and even have a chance at happiness, if you—the person who has the ability to manage the relationship—get educated and develop a new skill set for interacting with your partner.
It’s not easy, and it depends largely on how “hooked” you are—that is, your unconscious response to conflict. The more you unhook from your customary behavior and responses, the easier it will be to do the opposite of what you’re used to doing, and the more success you’ll have in turning the relationship around. There are no guarantees or promises of success, but there are some strategies you can try. After all, you’ve already invested a lot of time and effort into this relationship, and you may even have children together, which makes splitting up inherently more difficult. It’s worth a shot trying to save the relationship.
In this book, we’ll talk about how bait and switch relationships develop, examine the factors that lead to extreme relationship behaviors, and explore specific strategies and skills you can use to restore your relationship to health and sustain it over the long term.
One of the most important ideas we’ll explore is that relationships are all about the brain—the stuff going on that we know, see, and control, and the unseen stuff that causes these relationship disorders. Today we know much about how the brain works and how it affects our behavior. We’ll talk about the science of the brain in these pages and consider how this knowledge may provide answers for resolving relationship issues.
Just as there have been advances in understanding how the brain works in people with various brain differences like autism or traumatic brain injuries, we have learned that some people’s brains function a little differently when it comes to relationships and human interaction. We are beginning to understand that we can’t use the same strategies in these relationships with the expectation of having a successful relationship. We keep doing the same thing in them but expecting different result. Sounds like insanity. It’s like chasing your tail, except the tail eventually gets bitten off. I’ve come to realize that the ultimate act of empathy is adapting your own actions in order to help another human being improve theirs.