Megan Hunter
Welcome to It’s All Your Fault on TruStory FM, the one and only podcast dedicated to helping you with the most challenging human interactions—those involving high conflict situations and high conflict people. 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 and ConflictInfluencer.com, where we focus on training, consultation, coaching, classes, educational programs, and methods all to do with high conflict. So welcome, listeners, and thank you for joining us over your cup of—or not cup of Prosecco, maybe glass of Prosecco today, especially if it’s evening. If it’s morning, maybe a cup of coffee. So today we’re looking at a situation that combines high conflict behavior, addiction, and child custody, and where the usual advice doesn’t really seem to fit. We’ll walk through what’s going on in cases like this and help people understand what they’re actually dealing with. So this is kind of a little bit of a change for us. A lot of times we’re either answering questions from podcast listeners or, you know, just things that we’re dealing with in our cases and consultations and questions we get. But this is one of those real-life situations. And of course, no identifying information or anything. But people go through this. They go through these cases, and it is real life. What do we do? It’s hard, but it doesn’t have to be so hard. So let’s see if we can help.
So this case involves an ongoing divorce and custody matter between parents of a young child, with court proceedings currently underway after multiple delays. During the course of the separation, one parent became aware of previously undisclosed behaviors by the other parent, including a pattern of deception, extensive online activity—and not the good kind—and concerns related to compulsive or addictive behaviors. As additional information came to light, concerns were raised about financial decision-making, boundary violations in digital spaces, and overall judgment. There were also questions regarding age-appropriate decision-making and supervision related to the child. The parent at issue participated in a period of treatment. But there are ongoing concerns about consistency in recovery and decision-making since that time. Temporary court orders currently in place include primary custody with one parent and structured parenting time for the other. The case also involves broader high conflict dynamics, including disputes over finances and ongoing litigation activity. Overall, the situation highlights the challenges that can arise when custody cases involve combinations of high conflict behavior patterns, other mental health considerations possibly, and potential addictive or compulsive behaviors, particularly where standard custody arrangements may not fully address issues like compliance, risk management, and the need for clear structure.
So even if you’re not involved in a high conflict divorce, I bet you know someone who is or has been. And if you’re someone who listens to this podcast for workplace-related information, you might find this interesting as well, because we’ve handled a lot of workplace consultations and just questions about people who are going through high conflict divorce, and it kind of comes into the workplace in different ways. So it might help to understand. So Bill, I want to walk through this scenario, right, where high conflict, addiction, and custody collide. Let’s just start with kind of the pattern recognition. When you hear about someone living a long-term double life with deception across multiple areas, what does that signal to you from a high conflict perspective?
Bill Eddy
Well, it raises the question of whether you’re dealing with antisocial personality disorder. And I don’t say that lightly, but I say that importantly, because it’s a whole different ballgame.
Megan Hunter
Yeah.
Bill Eddy
Now, addiction and substance use—a lot of people have that. About 15% of adults have addictions of one form or another: alcoholism, drug addiction, etc. There’s a whole range of people with those addictions, and at one extreme end I would say is antisocial personality disorder. The reason why I say that is because being able to lead a double life for years requires a lot of deception, a lot of lying, a lot of conning people, a lot of manipulation. And the cases I’ve had where someone’s had a double life like that—and taking advantage of people financially, sexually, legally, all these ways—it’s always involved antisocial personality disorder. So that’s the question it raises for me. Of course, I can’t diagnose someone I haven’t met, but I would say for educational purposes that it’d be helpful to look at what’s different about a case like this from another parenting plan, custody, and visitation for 95% of people. Let’s say 96%, because much research puts antisocial personality disorder around 4% of the adult population—that’s one out of twenty-five people.
Megan Hunter
Interesting. So that brings to mind: can you see a situation where someone who truly has antisocial personality disorder can be a good parent? I mean, that’s a big question. But if you understand antisocial personality disorder, we’re talking about people who believe they don’t really have to abide by the laws and rules of society. So what is a parenting plan? It’s a court order. It’s saying you must comply with this court order—perhaps lying when they know they can even get caught, someone who needs to dominate and maybe destroy you when they don’t feel like they’re getting what they want.
Bill Eddy
Yeah, it’s a big question mark. I wouldn’t 100% rule it out, because I think with some of the other personality disorders, people can be okay parents in some cases. But there often needs to be more guardrails built in. My experience with cases involving antisocial personality disorder is that the parent never follows rules. And they teach their children antisocial behavior, or they just abandon their kids—they don’t have that connection. Characteristics of antisocial personality disorder include a lack of empathy and remorse, aggressive behavior, lying and conning, all of that. And it may be more biological. So treatment for antisocial personality disorder isn’t one-to-one counseling—they become better con artists. It’s often going to jail, or the threat of going to jail, that reins in some of their behavior. So like I said, it’s a different ballpark. And there’s a strong association with criminal behavior—probably half of people with antisocial personality disorder are engaged in criminal behavior and may have been caught or not. The other half are pretty manipulative in business, maybe not breaking the law, maybe following some decency in relationships, but generally violating the norms of society.
Megan Hunter
So would someone with more traits rather than the full-blown disorder be more able to get along in society? And I’m thinking of maybe people who arrive with a lot of charm and can continue that charm no matter what, and kind of love bomb people and just keep it going and lead that double life with ease.
Bill Eddy
Yeah. One of the best examples of antisocial personality disorder looking normal was Bernie Madoff. He was a stockbroker on Wall Street. He was considered for being the chairman of the SEC—Securities and Exchange Commission. He went about 20 to 25 years conning the world, including his family. After this all came out, one of his adult sons committed suicide. So it was very much a secret from everybody. And he looked normal, looked successful, looked friendly. You mentioned charming, Megan. These folks can be the most charming people you’ll ever meet.
Megan Hunter
And make you feel so special.
Bill Eddy
Yes.
Megan Hunter
Right? But underneath it, you realize there’s not really a connection there. The connection is feigned.
Bill Eddy
It’s artificial. And often what happens is you have a gut feeling there’s something up with this person, but your brain can’t put its finger on it, because they’re saying all the right things.
Megan Hunter
Yes. So it makes you confused, which to me is the biggest tell that makes me stop and think. Like, when I feel that confusion and that big question mark. Sometimes there’s a question mark with some of the other personality types, but definitely with the antisocial—when I’m confused, there it is.
Bill Eddy
Yeah, and that’s a really good thing to know, because I sometimes get cases where nothing makes sense, and I go, okay, let’s look into antisocial. And I have to admit, in the last ten years—I’ve been involved with family court for over forty years, first as a therapist, then as a lawyer for thirty-some years—in the last ten years, I didn’t used to see antisocial personality disorder very much. The last ten years, I’m seeing a lot of it. I think what’s happened is antisocial people have figured out they can con family court and family law professionals and therapists. Because antisocials used to just leave their kids behind and start another family. But now they’re willing to fight for kids in court because they’ve figured out how to con the courts.
Megan Hunter
And they must, right? I mean, I must dominate, I must win. And this is my way of winning.
Bill Eddy
Once they’re engaged, that’s it. They’re driven to prevail. And most family lawyers and family therapists are just not prepared for this personality. So becoming aware of the personality is one thing. What to do is another.
Megan Hunter
Yeah, yeah.
Bill Eddy
I want to talk today more about the personality and also about substance abuse.
Megan Hunter
Let’s talk about substance abuse.
Bill Eddy
Yeah. Because you’re saying in this case there’s substance abuse, and there was substance abuse treatment.
Megan Hunter
Right. And a lot of online activity—visiting porn sites and just a lot of things like that happening. So do you put substance abuse, addiction, and online activity like sex addiction kind of in the same category?
Bill Eddy
I’d say they’re in the same category in terms of addictive characteristics. Compulsive behavior—the person decides they’re going to stop and they can’t stop. It escalates, it grows, it doesn’t stand still, it harms the family, and yet they can’t stop. And so there’s parallel dynamics. But you need for substance abuse, you need substance abuse treatment. For gambling, online behavior, you need treatment that’s designed for that, because there are a lot of specific differences between the two. But let me add here: antisocial personality disorder, of all the personality disorders, has the highest overlap with addictions. And it’s very common, especially with substance abuse, that they’re engaged with that. And I know when I worked with alcohol and drug treatment for a few years in the 1980s, we would get people clean and sober who’d engaged in antisocial activity, and they would stop the antisocial activity. Some people. Other people, the antisocial activity became clearer. I remember we had one guy who was dealing drugs—which is a common thing with antisocial, that is an antisocial behavior—and said he had an addiction. He came to our hospital treatment program with the idea that we would write a recommendation for him to have a light sentence, because he got busted for dealing drugs. And that we would say it really was just his addiction. And it became very clear to us there’s a lot of antisocial behavior here under his addiction. And there’s no way we’re going to say, write a recommendation for an easy sentence because the poor guy’s an addict in recovery. He was an addict in recovery, maybe. But he also was antisocial, and there was no sign that was going to be in recovery. So there’s that overlap, and it’s good to know about it.
Megan Hunter
Yeah. So getting back to this particular situation: there’s a lot of boundary violations, there’s the addiction, there’s financial decision-making, safety for the child—it’s a young child. So what is a parent to do? Do you go to court and what do you say? Like, my ex-spouse has antisocial personality. She or he has addiction problems. Do you just say it and the courts believe it? What do you do? I know I’m being kind of ridiculous here, but—
Bill Eddy
Well, no, it’s an increasingly common issue for family courts to struggle with. First thing is, as of today, it doesn’t help to tell a judge, “I believe my co-parent has a personality disorder.” Judges don’t want to hear that. However, if somebody has diagnosed someone—a psychiatrist, a program, psychologist, licensed clinical social worker—for some reason with a personality disorder, then that may be really helpful in informing the court: look, you’ve got somebody with a pattern of behavior that’s very resistant to change. Not impossible, but very resistant to change. Like borderline personality disorder is probably one of the most able to change, and antisocial is one of the ones that’s the least able to change, because it may be genetic, biological, from birth in some cases. So what you want to do instead is focus on behavior and say: this person has this double life online, this person’s addicted to this substance, there’s all this stuff, and I need the court’s help in setting limits and imposing consequences on this behavior. And I need a parenting plan that’s realistic given this behavior is very likely to relapse.
Megan Hunter
Bill, I think those are two extraordinarily important distinctions here, and asks here to the court. So let’s repeat those. So the first one was asking for the court’s help—
Bill Eddy
Yeah.
Megan Hunter
—in putting guardrails around this parent and their behavior, especially when it comes to the child. And what was the second one?
Bill Eddy
The relapse. Very likely to relapse—substance abuse, very likely to relapse antisocial behavior, online behavior, lying, doing all this stuff. So you need much stronger court orders and you need a court willing to enforce them. That’s not easy to do. Family court’s not designed for raising children. I keep telling clients that, and I haven’t yet met a judge that disagrees with that. They’ll say that openly. So it’s got to be super structured and very detailed. And there really should be a relapse prevention plan built in—or a relapse plan. Now, one of the things I did, because I had experience in alcohol and drug treatment as a professional—I want to add that.
Megan Hunter
Nice distinction.
Bill Eddy
Yeah. And so when I became a family lawyer and divorce mediator, I often got cases referred to me by people who knew I had the alcohol and drug treatment background. And so we would build in relapse plans. The relapse plan would say something like: both parties acknowledge so-and-so has a substance abuse issue or problem. And in the event of a relapse, as identified by either the client who has the addiction or the other parent—if either one believes there’s a relapse, then they can halt the parenting plan for that parent for seven days. So you’d say: okay, you’ve showed up at my house, you’re quite drunk and you want to drive the kids. It’s your time now. I, by the agreements and terms of our court orders, am saying no, and I’m going to keep the kids for seven days. But within that seven days, they have to go to a specified counselor to discuss what’s happening. Is a relapse happening? How significant is the relapse? A lot of people don’t know that there’s a thing called a therapeutic relapse—where someone has a relapse and they get back on the wagon. And they go to 90 meetings in 90 days: AA, Narcotics Anonymous, all of that. And so they get back on track, and pretty soon they can have their normal parenting time. But you need an outside person that they’ve agreed on in advance. So I wrote marital settlement agreements, which then got stamped as court orders by the judge, and had those terms in it. The parties would agree: it’s going to be Dr. Smith or Ms. So-and-So—that’s the counselor they go to to sort out the situation. And so that was a good plan. There was a third person to figure it out. It might be that the parenting schedule needed to change, and that person might help them change their parenting schedule. But they always had the right to go back to court if they didn’t agree with that person. So there’s a plan built in, because relapse is a part of life with addictions. And the question is: is it a therapeutic relapse or an out-of-control relapse that’s long-term? There’s a difference, and that needs to be addressed. But that’s just alcohol and drug relapse. I’m not an expert on internet addictions, gambling addictions, porn addictions, stuff like that. They have similar programs, and I think there would be a similar response, because some behaviors can endanger the kids. I mean, if you’re involved in criminal behavior, you may have people coming around to your house to collect money that aren’t going to be very safe for a young child.
Megan Hunter
Right. Or leaving a laptop open to a porn site when the kids come over. You know, lots of things that are not good for kids. Coming back just for one second to the substance abuse—now there are many, seems like quite a few companies that provide monitoring services, like Soberlink, and I don’t know the names of all of them. So we’re not promoting one over the other; it’s just that’s the only one that comes to mind. But what do you know about those?
Bill Eddy
Just in terms of alcohol—you have a breathalyzer, so you’re going to get in the car and drive, and the breathalyzer says no.
Megan Hunter
Oh, for that. Yeah. But I think there’s like ankle monitoring and a whole lot of different ways now.
Bill Eddy
Yeah. Hair tests. So sometimes built into the agreement that becomes a court order is that a parent can say the other parent needs to get a drug test or a hair follicle test, something within the next 24 hours, and they have to go. If it turns out they were using drugs, then that parent has to pay for it. If it turns out they weren’t, then the parent asking for it has to pay for it. So they have to be pretty seriously concerned, or it costs them. And that’s turned out to be a decent way of controlling this. There are more detailed options, and since I haven’t been representing clients in family court for a while, I don’t know all the options, but there are more options than ever before.
Megan Hunter
Yeah. So let’s kind of talk about the parenting plan itself. Let’s say in this situation the parents are going to court soon. If this parent has a propensity for addiction of all kinds, financial problems, putting the family at financial risk, lying perhaps to the court—what are the main—I guess the first question is, is there a parenting plan somewhere in the world that addresses all of this?
Bill Eddy
I’m sure there are specific cases where there are parenting plans. The standardized parenting plans like you can find on the internet basically don’t take high conflict personalities into account. Someday somebody will do that.
Megan Hunter
Is his name Bill Eddy?
Bill Eddy
No, he’s not going to do that. I don’t think we should get into that because that can take over your whole life. But somebody somewhere can put together—we can. I’m happy to give general principles. And I think one of the general principles is: be prepared for relapse and have a relapse plan. But another is it has to fit the situation. So I’m thinking of a case I had where I believe there was an antisocial father. And by the way, all the personality disorders seem to be within about a 60-40 split of men and women, except for antisocial personality disorder, which is 75 to 80 percent male. Although there are female antisocials, and they make movies about them. Anyway, so this personality needs to be limited, really. I know—I was going to say a case I had. It was a nine or ten year old child. And dad was, you know, sufficiently decent. He was a double-life dad—had this double life, escorts and all that stuff. But his relationship with his child was decent. And so he had, I don’t know, 25 to 30% of the parenting time. And his ex-wife agreed with that—that that was possible.
The question that comes up is supervised contact. If you have someone who’s, you know, leaving porn out on their computer, and maybe just distracted by all this stuff so they’re not paying attention to the child—the younger the child, the higher risk this all is. So supervised contact is one approach. But courts don’t like to impose that on an open-ended basis. And if someone has these kinds of issues, maybe they do need it indefinitely, and that’s unrealistic. So it’s like you’ve got to come back. And the other thing is it’s expensive. Some court orders say a family member can supervise somebody because their behavior isn’t outrageous, but they need someone to keep an eye on them. With antisocial behavior, you really need a professional supervisor, and that can get expensive where you’re paying an hourly rate. But the question comes up: should there be a no-contact order? And I, for one, am very opposed to no-contact orders. I think, first of all, family courts aren’t accurate enough to know who’s really bad and who’s saying the other person’s bad. And no-contact orders may harm a positive relationship for a child. People can change and can work. And a lot of no-contact orders that I become aware of go on, you know, six months, twelve months, eighteen months, which is terrible. But in extreme cases—if you think of serial killers, things like that—their child may be a lot better off just not growing up with them. And I think of there’s a movie—I’m not sure the name of it—but it was about Whitey Bulger, who was a serial killer, mass murderer.
Megan Hunter
Was he a serial killer?
Bill Eddy
I think he was. Anyway, I think it was called Black Mass or something like that.
Megan Hunter
Did you—
Bill Eddy
Anyway, the movie was made. Actually, we could look up Johnny Depp—I think he was in it.
Megan Hunter
Yep, he was.
Bill Eddy
Okay, you’re thinking of the same one. Anyway, he had a son, and he was teaching his son how to be a bully. And then he goes to jail for life, which is a safer place for him, and his son can visit him in jail. I’m not opposed to people visiting their parents in jail, because most of the time their parents say, don’t do what I did. And that can be instructive. But it’s got to be very, very extreme that you end up with a no-contact relationship. And a lot of people think, oh well, that solves the problem—just no contact with that father. Let me just add: for kids, even if their parent is a serial killer, they want their parent to love them. And so to some extent—and I haven’t ever had a case with a serial killer—
Megan Hunter
That you know of.
Bill Eddy
But people feel like the other parent is the worst person in the world. And most of the time they’re really not, and should have a relationship. And the child needs to know that that parent loves them.
Megan Hunter
Okay. Yeah. So let’s define a little bit these more extreme, disturbing personalities. What would make that? So is stalking—stalking either physically or online—
Bill Eddy
Well, that’s bad behavior. Isn’t necessarily antisocial personality disorder. People with borderline personalities sometimes are stalkers, and they’re more able to be treated. But that is an antisocial behavior.
Megan Hunter
So how about having several mental health diagnoses, different personality disorders, alcohol use disorders, a hedonistic lifestyle—something that comes at the expense of others? Would that be associated with antisocial? And if so, and maybe it’s also associated with other disorders, personality disorders as well—but is that what you would put under that umbrella of potential no-contact?
Bill Eddy
You can’t rule out any solution for everybody. So I say no contact: extremely rare. Extremely rare. Stalking—because stalking for borderline is treatable, stalking for antisocial might not be—that could be an extreme where you have a no-contact. And let me mention: there are temporary no-contact orders that happen a lot with restraining orders at the beginning of a case, and this is different. This is ongoing no contact. So those might be for a couple weeks, and then a regular schedule gets going. And that’s manageable until you figure out what’s going on. But more than a couple of weeks is really, I think, harmful to the child. And you can have supervised contact—that’s always a solution.
Megan Hunter
True. And hopefully that supervisor is aware and trained to kind of identify what they might be dealing with and how to not be manipulated by that.
Bill Eddy
Right.
Megan Hunter
How about weapons hidden throughout a home or in vehicles, things like that that the other partner doesn’t know about?
Bill Eddy
I would say if they have other characteristics of antisocial personality, then that’s a big concern. I think there are some people who just really like guns and they’re safe. But if they’re in a situation where there needs to be a restraining order, for example—most states now, restraining orders mean that the guns need to go away to a safe place for the duration of the restraining order. It doesn’t necessarily mean antisocial. There are borderline men who are impulsive, and if they have a gun around, maybe they’ve done something. I once had someone who was angry, and so he shot a few bullets from his gun into his mattress. And he didn’t hurt anybody and had no history of domestic violence. But that’s a pretty dramatic act, and so his guns were taken away for the period of a restraining order, which typically aren’t more than three years. His wife thought they worked together on the kids and everything else, but it’s not good for him to have a gun when he’s upset.
Megan Hunter
So we’re going to continue this conversation in the next episode. So we’ll kind of cut it off here. I think the bottom line: we know that any court order needs to be very clear and have built-in consequences that protect that child, and really help the other parent know what to do and what their options are going forward. So a key takeaway is: you’re not going to change a high conflict person, but you can change how you do things. These are really difficult, very difficult cases. I think we both know that when we do consultation work with individuals in these situations, it’s usually those facing an antisocial other parent who are really scared. It’s kind of hair on the back of your neck, not sleeping well, type of fear. So as always, we hope this helps you feel a little more prepared. We’ll talk more about this next week. Thank you for listening today. You’ll find the links to our upcoming classes and training, specifically the New Ways for Families online course plus coaching for parents, and New Ways for Families Training for Counselors and Coaches. We’ll have those links in there, and links to the books Don’t Alienate the Kids, Calming Upset People with EAR, and BIFF for CoParent Communication. And if you want to go deeper into managing high conflict behavior in the workplace, we have a training coming up really soon, April 23rd, with our senior trainer, Michael Lomax. You can see that link in the show notes as well. Visit us at HighConflictInstitute.com for professional stuff and ConflictInfluencer.com for personal. Keep learning and practicing skills. Be kind to yourself and others while we try to keep the conflict small and find the missing peace. It’s All Your Fault is 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.
