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As a conclusion to our recent focus on Dating Radar, Bill Eddy and Megan Hunter provide answers to listeners’ questions, covering everything from extreme jealousy to lack of empathy, from warning signs to partners who fluctuate from loving to making life a living hell. Tune in!
If you are curious about love and romance with challenging – or even toxic – partners, this is your opportunity to hear questions from our listeners and Bill’s and Megan’s answers. In this episode, they answer questions about:
Megan and Bill answer these questions and more in this final episode of the Dating Radar series.
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Note: We are not diagnosing anyone in our discussions, merely discussing patterns of behavior.
Hosted by Bill Eddy, LCSW, Esq. and Megan Hunter, MBA, It’s All Your Fault! High Conflict People explores the five types of people who can ruin your life—people with high conflict personalities and how they weave themselves into our lives in romance, at work, next door, at school, places of worship, and just about everywhere, causing chaos, exhaustion, and dread for everyone else.
They are the most difficult of difficult people — some would say they’re toxic. Without them, tv shows, movies, and the news would be boring, but who wants to live that way in your own life!
Have you ever wanted to know what drives them to act this way?
In the It’s All Your Fault podcast, we’ll take you behind the scenes to understand what’s happening in the brain and illuminates why we pick HCPs as life partners, why we hire them, and how we can handle interactions and relationships with them. We break down everything you ever wanted to know about people with the 5 high conflict personality types: narcissistic, borderline, histrionic, antisocial/sociopath, and paranoid.
And we’ll give you tips on how to spot them and how to deal with them.
Megan Hunter:
Welcome to It's All Your Fault on TruStory FM, the one and only podcast dedicated to helping you identify and deal with the most challenging human interactions. Those that are with people with high conflict personalities. I'm Megan Hunter, and I'm here with my co-host Bill Eddy.
Bill Eddy:
Hi everybody.
Megan Hunter:
We are the co-founders of the High Conflict Institute in San Diego, California. In today's episode, we continue our Dating Radar series. Specifically today we will be answering your questions about Dating Radar, so thanks for sending those in. First though, we have a few quick reminders, we'd love to hear from you about your high conflict situations. Have you dealt with someone with a high conflict personality or been a target of blame? Have you dated someone who has turned out to have these high conflict personalities? If so, we'd love to hear from you and you can send your questions to us, and we just might answer them on the show.
You can submit them by clicking to submit a question button at our website, highconflictinstitute.com/podcast emailing us at podcasthighconflictinstitute.com or dropping us a note on any of our socials. You can find all the show notes and links at highconflictinstitute.com/podcast as well. Make sure you subscribe, rate and review, and please tell all your friends about us. Telling just one person that you like the show and where they can find it is the best way you can help us out and help more people learn how to address high conflict people. We appreciate you so very, very much. And now let's talk about Dating Radar.
Well, here we've arrived at the final episode in the Dating Radar series. In the other episodes, we discussed the different types of people with high conflict personalities in love relationships and how they jam your radar, and then how to identify your own blind spots in your dating relationships. Because I think most of us probably have some, but today we're going to answer your questions about Dating Radar. So here is the first question Bill, a listener has asked, "I'd like to know what's going on when my boyfriend goes suddenly quiet after acting out, blaming, and causing chaos and even making some false accusations. He is sporadic in his behavior and hard to deal with at times. He makes my life hell for a while and then can be okay and very loving for a while."
Bill Eddy:
Well, this sounds like someone with perhaps some of the borderline personality traits that we talk about, which includes a wide mood swing. And so it's not that unusual with someone like this and this could be a man, this could be a woman, who just can be friendly, loving, all of that, and then five minutes later, be yelling, be furious, be angry, blaming, maybe throwing things. And then an hour later, let's have dinner and everything's fine. So we see that as one of the mood swings with some high conflict people. But I also might mention the narcissistic HCPs or high conflict people, some of them also have this and they get distracted. So they're blaming and outraged, and then they're distracted focusing on something else, maybe somebody's telling them things about how wonderful they are, so they calm down.
Because they like the position of being seen as wonderful, and when someone doesn't see them as wonderful, then they're blaming and angry and they have of what we call a narcissistic injury. So it could be either of these types, it's not unusual for high conflict people to have less control of their emotions, and you see a wide range all in just one day or 48 hours.
Megan Hunter:
So someone who does not have a high conflict personality will stop themselves from having, let's say a narcissistic rage or some wide mood swing, right? Whereas the high conflict person, they don't stop themselves, and that's where we see this differentiation, right?
Bill Eddy:
That's the key. They don't stop themselves, whereas say 90% of if people would.
Megan Hunter:
Right. I hope that helps answer your question, whoever submitted that. Now here's another one. "My girlfriend is so jealous. She breaks into my phone, email, and violates every privacy boundary I have. I don't know how to handle the jealousy. I can't go out with my friends, go for a walk alone. I can't do anything without her permission. When I try to do anything on my own, which is rare because I want to avoid the coming wrath, she rages at me, blames me, throws things at me, hides my phone, hits me. Recently, it got worse. She threatened to kill herself, if I went to my parents' house for Thanksgiving. Mind you, she was going to her parents' house for Thanksgiving. We've been living together for two years, she thinks we're getting married, but I can't marry her. However, I don't know how to get out of this without a lot of repercussions. She's threatened to ruin me financially and reputationally. Any ideas you can share to help me exit the relationship without collateral damage?"
Bill Eddy:
Yeah. A few things are, first of all, it seems to be from my experience consulting with really hundreds of people and helping people and their dating relationships, living together relationships and marriages. What seems to be the case with high conflict people is you need to do it in steps, so that you bring them down a little bit slowly, so it's not all at once. And so you might say, "I need some time away to think. Things aren't working that well for me or it's just not going that well from my end. I know you've told me you're angry and upset with how things are sometimes too." But don't be surprised if she is going to want to cling and really hold on tighter. When you've decided on this course, don't reverse yourself. In other words, go step by step.
I need some time to think. Okay. I've had some time to think and we do need to go separate ways, but we can talk about this, we can go to a counselor together, we can plan the steps of moving out, all of that. So don't try to do it everything all at once, especially because you live together. It's not so easy, you can't ghost somebody that you with. You've got to go through a bunch of steps. So a counselor, maybe even a mediator, you haven't tied the knot, so you may not have too much financial intertwined with each other, but you may need to talk to a lawyer to also find out any technicalities. But you said she's threatened to ruin you financially, reputationally, that's very common that threat is made. But if she does actually start putting things, emails to friends and family, telling everybody what a jerk you are, is let everybody know that this is a private matter, things aren't necessarily accurate and that no one needs to get involved.
So step by step, and I might suggest that we have not only Dating Radar, but also the book, Splitting: Protecting Yourself While Divorcing Someone with Borderline Or Narcissistic Personality Disorder, which includes some steps to go through, especially if you have a legal separation. So just take it step by step, get a lot of support and remind yourself that it's okay to move on.
Megan Hunter:
Yeah. Jealousy is one of the main complaints we hear when people come to us for help. They say, "My partner is just hyper jealous and jealous extra." Right. And I suppose it might be somewhat human nature to have some jealousy maybe if your partner is openly flirting with someone else, that would be natural, I guess. But with this person with a high conflict personality, their fear of either being abandoned or being made to feel powerless or inferior can really drive this jealousy and it can be quite extreme. These days you see a lot of people who, like this listener asked in the question, violate boundaries, by looking into each other's emails or hacking social media accounts, things like that, and that's never a good thing.
Bill Eddy:
Yeah.
Megan Hunter:
I would think, right?
Bill Eddy:
Yeah. Yeah.
Megan Hunter:
It's a huge red flag if someone's doing that. I think there are some people who are not high conflict necessarily, but they certainly don't have good boundaries. So I think anyone in any type of relationship should be cautious, and you're allowed to have boundaries. You don't have to hand your phone over, you don't have to let someone read your texts and emails. Right. So if someone insists that they have that right, it's my opinion that they don't. Would you agree, Bill? And you can disagree.
Bill Eddy:
No, no, I totally agree. I think that's one of the big issues with high conflict people is they lack the necessary boundaries for sharing emotions, for allowing privacy, all of that. But one thing I wanted to add, this triggers in my mind is there also there is a risk of violence when you separate from someone that's this jealous and this controlling. And so sometimes it's safer to get to a safe place and let the person know that you want to end the relationship, move your separate ways. So that's something to consider, the risk of violence and to be careful around that. So Megan, let me ask you one of these questions. So there's the case of State vs Jodi Arias.
There's a wealth of lessons to be gleaned from that case, specifically discussing the impact of the experts on the case, the red flags that Travis, the boyfriend should have acted upon and the missed opportunities to end this pattern. Would love to hear what you think about that, and there's much to be learned about red flags. So people may not know this case, if you could fill them in and what should we learn about red flags from this?
Megan Hunter:
Wow. That was such a big case, and it actually happened here in Arizona, where I live. When it's a little closer to home, you pay even more attention to it. And because of the work we do, I paid particularly close attention to it and wish I could have gone to the courthouse to watch the hearings, but I had work to do. So Jodi Arias was arrested for the murder of her boyfriend, Travis, and it was a pretty volatile relationship, and it's been a few years since this happened. She was eventually convicted of killing him, and I think she's serving life sentences in prison here in Arizona. But I think it would be interesting for us Bill, to do a series on this because there really were so many red flags, there was so much volatility.
There was so much confusion in the relationship, and I think the boyfriend, Travis, obviously saw some red flags, but could have been in that potentially hopeful category that, I can help change this person, she needs some help. From my observation, she really had some antisocial traits, we're not diagnosing, I'm not diagnosing anyone, I'm not qualified to do that. But just looking at personality patterns and high conflict patterns, I could see where someone could be easily manipulated by a beautiful woman who is extremely intelligent and is willing to lie and manipulate to get what she wanted. And it ended very, very tragically for him, and it really shook things up for a while. So maybe we will have to do some research on that case Bill, and do a series on it, because it is important.
I think many people think they would never be in that position, that this boyfriend, Travis was in, in a very volatile, high conflict relationship. And so you think it's never going to happen to me, I can handle this. But in my lifetime, I've come across many cases like this. I was just thinking of one today, and it's a sad case, and it's an extreme case, but I think it's important for people to really understand that these things happen to ordinary people, right, everywhere. It's not just someone you hear about on the news and people with high conflict personalities maybe comprise what percentage of the population, which they, Bill? Is it 10%, 15%?
Bill Eddy:
I tend to think 10% is a safe number, although it may be higher. We know that research on personality disorders is about 15% of the U.S. adult population, probably similar in other countries. But just to be on the cautious side, I'd say 10%, and that's I believe higher than generations ago. So if people say, "Hey, my grandparents met and the week later they got married and they've had a wonderful marriage for 50 years." Yeah. But nowadays there's the higher risk you'll end up at some point with one of the 10% who have high conflict personalities. And you really need to be aware there are warning signs and these are warning signs, there're red flags, and not to ignore those. Because I think like you said, people think it won't happen to me, and so they block out the negatives, but Hey, when you're dating is the time to really pay attention to the negatives, because that's how you may screen out people who could be incredibly dangerous to you. And it's sad, it's tragic, and in many cases, avoidable, if people have more of this knowledge.
Megan Hunter:
Right. I think back to a situation that I happened to be peripherally involved in and not peripherally involved, might even more directly involved in. It was a case in which I worked at a hotel at a front desk. This was right after college, and one of the other employees there was this nerdy, nerdy guy, he struggled in life. And so I had a lot of empathy for him and I liked to joke around with him and he was just funny and he was always joking around as he'd clock in and clock out for the day. So one evening he came in to the hotel and he was not on duty, he wasn't working at the time. He just came in and came to the front desk and asked for some change, he wanted to play some video games in the rec room and he just wasn't his usual jovial self.
He had a flat effect, he didn't joke, he didn't really look at me and he just took the change and went off and played. So fast forward about 18 hours, I was at work again the next day, and the phone rang, I picked it up and it was a journalist from a newspaper in a town on the far other end of the state, probably about, I don't know, six or seven hours away. And they said, would you care to comment on your employee? They said his name, and I said, "Well, what are you talking about?" Because usually people are calling to make a hotel reservation.
Bill Eddy:
Right.
Megan Hunter:
I don't hear from journalists that much ever. So what are you talking about? And of course my mind, I just saw him less than 24 hours before. So she said, "Well, he just murdered his wife and three children this morning."
Bill Eddy:
Oh my goodness.
Megan Hunter:
And it was the other side of the state, he'd waited outside their house, and it turns out she had just left him within the previous weeks and took the kids and moved to the other side of the state to live with her parents. So he waited till they were coming out of the house to go to school, and it was really tragic, and if course I was completely in shock and he killed himself afterwards as well. So the whole thing was entirely tragic. So ordinary people, I was just an ordinary desk clerk at a hotel and this happened. And I like to think back, were there any signs? And I didn't know their intimate relationship, I didn't know him outside of just chatter at work, but these things do happen. So we must be careful in our exit strategies. Right?
Bill Eddy:
Yes. That's the most dangerous time is when you leave.
Megan Hunter:
Yep. Anyway, that was a long story, but most relationships that even in high conflict category are not going to end that way. But you have to be very careful and cautious if you are exiting from them, because these are people who are in some survival mode and fight or flight mode, that are going to possibly do some very extreme things like drive across the country to find you and to feel connected to you, so just be aware of that.
Bill Eddy:
And that's why Dating Radar is important, so you can get out early if you see any signs like this. So Megan, here's another question, do you think you can live successfully with a high conflict personality spouse?
Megan Hunter:
That's a good question and I'll be really interested to hear your take on this as well, Bill. But I think if it's an extreme high conflict person, it's not possible, and not have a fruitful life, not have a healthy existence. Maybe some that are not quite as extreme. If you use really good skills such as the method you've created your statements, giving empathy, attention, and respect when they are upset and learn to really set limits with them and have good boundaries. I think you probably can live successfully, if you build a trust relationship with them, do what you say you're going to do, when you say you're going to do it. Don't lie. I think it's possible. What's your take?
Bill Eddy:
Well, I'm thinking about this a lot lately, and I think that because I do a lot of consultations and so I get a fair percent of people talking about, "Should I stay, or should I go?" And I think if you're asking that question, that there must be enough going on, that's a problem, but some people decide to stay, and it's usually in very narrow circumstances. It's usually, first of all, because they've got kids that aren't adults yet. They're thinking of perhaps staying for a couple years. Like let's say they of kids are 17 and 16 and they figure that in two years, they'll both finish high school, that's a good time to end this and move apart. Another factor is if you have a really great support system so that you might not even spend a lot of time with your high conflict spouse, but you spend time with your support system and that's okay with your high conflict spouse.
Sometimes there's the workaholic doctor or lawyer who has a great income, but is always working, perhaps he even having affairs, but you figure, "Hey, we've got the resources, I've got friends, we'll get our kids through a couple more years of high school, then it may be time to move on." So I think it's really narrow circumstances, the majority of people asking a question like this eventually separate.
Megan Hunter:
Yeah. I think it's pretty hard to stay in the relationship and you'd have to be extraordinarily skilled or extraordinarily putting your own needs completely in the basement. Right. In order to just stay with someone like this. I guess I have seen some stay together, but it's not happy, it's not good. I'm not a big advocate for divorce and I don't like divorce, but I do understand that at times there's self preservation as well.
Bill Eddy:
Yep.
Megan Hunter:
So here's another question. "I noticed after a while that this wonderful, generous man that I'd fallen in love with, who seemed to be very kind, actually had no empathy for me. I just never felt empathy. Is he a high conflict person?"
Bill Eddy:
Quite possibly, because lack of empathy is one of the signs that we see, especially with narcissistic HCPs and antisocial HCP. So you could be getting someone who's putting on a show. And so far it's a great show, they're charming, generous, kind, they put on a wonderful image. And then you find out years later that this is really not who it is, or maybe months later. There are some people who have difficulty with empathy because they're on the autism spectrum. And so people have said, there're some similarities there, but their lack of empathy, isn't a personality disorder, it's just being wired a little bit different and not being as attuned to their partner as the average person is. And in some of those relationships, they're able to actually build some empathy and be able to make it workable, sometimes it's not. So personality disorder or high conflict personality may be one explanation, but not the only explanation. And getting some counseling is a good thing to do, and sometimes getting a medical workup to find out what's going on. There may be something that maybe some medications can even help with.
Megan Hunter:
I've been suggesting to people that, if they're really trying to determine if their partner or someone they just started dating, may have some high conflict personality traits to talk to others. If you can't go to a therapist it's good to talk to someone you know in your life who is reasonable. And I think almost everyone has an objective reasonable friend or family member, and they're going to be able to see things that you might not be able to see. And it's good to go to more than one too, because sometimes people can be biased against what they perceive to be true.
Bill Eddy:
Let me mention one more thing I just thought of, when we did our interviews with the 16 domestic violence experts, which turned into videos available on our website. One of the people who does treatment for domestic violence perpetrators, abusers, whatever word you want to use, as part of the treatment in a 52 week program is teaching empathy, and that maybe 70% of the people going through the program are able to learn some empathy. And so they have exercises and discussions, empathy for their partner, empathy for their kids. And so it is empathy, something that can be learned by some people. So there is some hope, and of course that's what we like to always end with. There is some hope that many people can get skills and learn to have more balanced and reasonable personalities.
Megan Hunter:
Right. Good. All right, Bill, so here's the last question for this episode. "How long should I wait before knowing whether the person I'm dating has a high conflict personality? I've seen maybe some signs, but I'm not really sure, and is there a recommended time to wait?"
Bill Eddy:
Well, my recommended time is a year, and the idea is that a lot of people with high conflict personalities are able to cover them up for several months. And they can engage in exciting, positive, charming behavior and really keep things relatively happy. But that's a lot of cases that I'm aware of that people said after about six months is they start seeing a turn, a person started getting more aggressive, maybe that's when domestic violence began, all of that. But the survey we did online, which is still available, if people want to take it, the results we were getting is many people said a year. Some people even said they didn't see this was really happening until two years or three years. So there're no absolutes to this, but my experience is usually within months, whether it's two or six or 10 or 12, most people with high conflict personalities are showing the full range of their personalities.
Something's gone wrong. I remember one woman told me that she was on her second date and the guy slapped her on the butt after she said something, and he says, "That's stupid." And she said, "What's that about?" And he says, "Oh, nothing." Well, she immediately stopped dating him because if the second date she's going to get slapped for no reason, you can bet those things are just going to get worse. But let me include here, not getting married for 12 months, not having a child for 12 months, not buying a house together for 12 months, but I also want to suggest something from the Gabby Petito case. And that is, she went on a cross country trip alone with her boyfriend who she'd known over a year, I think because they met in high school, but he had this negative side.
And even during the trip, apparently someone called the police because he was hitting her and the police came and she said, "Oh I was the one that started it." And all of that. But isolated with someone that you're in any way iffy about can actually a dangerous thing. So I would add to the 12 months is don't do a cross country trip alone either, especially just in a van, something like that. You want to have other people around.
Megan Hunter:
Yeah. That's very important. Yeah. So many young people are traveling the world these days together, so you might want to rethink that. What about Dating Radar? What's the most important thing or how can you really get this point across if you have an adult child or you have a friend who's dating someone who seems to be high conflict? And I like to think of it in a couple of ways. The first is, is this person, let's say, you're the person that's wondering about a high conflict partner. Is this a person that I would want my future children to have as a parent? Would I have wanted this person as a parent? Right.
So it takes it out of an egocentric mode in thinking about your own children. Because as you and I both know, Bill, the high conflict divorces are just a nightmare and co-parenting with a high conflict ex, it really can be a nightmare, it makes life not very fun. So that's one way. And the second way is to think of it as, what would you tell your best friend if your best friend were dating this person?
Bill Eddy:
It's a good one.
Megan Hunter:
Right. Just getting that different view. Yeah. I always think about my friends, I want them to have great relationships. I would never want them to be abused. I'd never want them to be harmed. I'd never want them to be stalked or just the pressure of being in a high conflict marriage. So why don't I give myself that same kindness, right? So if you find yourself in this situation, ask those questions of yourself, I think that will help. We get asked a lot about having a sketchy past dating history and dating a lot of people that were difficult or high conflict. And so how do you have the confidence to take that next step forward? And I like to say, you just do the opposite of what you've been doing in the past, right?
If you went for the bad boys, don't do that anymore, go for the good guys. But there's lots of other little signs you can look for and you can read about them in this book. So anyway, thank you for sending in your questions. We hope you got some good information there and please share it with others so that we can all make a more peaceful world. We'll put the link to the book and the Dating Radar website and survey into the show notes, and you'll find lots of information there.
Bill Eddy:
Also, in wrapping up, we want to mention that high conflict people aren't bad people. High conflict people have problems, some of them may be able to change if they get help. Some of them may change if they're motivated to, because things don't work out and people say, "You need to get some help." Something like that. So we just want to make sure we're seeing them as people who need some help rather than bad or evil people. So don't just assume that we're saying, ignore them or stay away from them. Manage relationships with happy people, people you're happy with. But the people that don't work well in relationships, we always hope they'll get some help for themselves.
Megan Hunter:
Yeah. Good points, and I'm glad you brought that up because I'm sure, and listening to these episodes, it can sound like we're demonizing someone with a high conflict personality, and we're really not. We're really not. As we teach people skills, how to handle interactions and conversations and communications with high conflict people and choosing who they can have in their lives, it's really both a help to you and to them. So that's why we do what we do. Again, not diagnosing, not saying they're bad people because they aren't. So good point, Bill.
That wraps up our Dating Radar series. And next week we're going to move on to talking about the current conflict atmosphere with all the mandates and the protests against mandates and threats of war and vaccine and masking in school, all those things are just so divisive. So Bill and I will talk about how to handle conversations around that and maybe some different ways to think about it and expand your mind. So we hope we'll see then, and you can send your questions to podcasts@highconflictinstitute.com. Or submit them to highconflictinstitute.com/podcast and tell your friends about us. We'd be very grateful if you'd leave a review, whenever you listen to our podcast. Until next week, have a great week and keep learning about high conflict behavior, so you can avoid it in your life.
It's All Your Fault, it's a production of TruStory FM. Engineering by Andy Nelson, music by Wolf Samuels, John Coggins, and Ziv Moran. Find the show, show notes, and transcripts at trustory.fm or highconflictinstitute.com/podcast. If your podcast app allows ratings and reviews, please consider doing that for our show.