It’s All Your Fault: High Conflict People

High conflict cases have a well-documented credibility problem: the person with high conflict personality traits walks into the lawyer’s office, the HR department, or the courtroom looking calm and composed. The person who has been responding to years of escalation walks in looking emotional, reactive, and hard to follow. Without a framework for recognizing this pattern, systems can unintentionally reward the behavior driving the conflict—and penalize the person trying to respond to it.
Bill Eddy, LCSW, JD, and Megan Hunter, MBA, co-founders of the High Conflict Institute, walk through the biggest mistakes people make when presenting high conflict concerns to lawyers, HR, courts, and adult protective services—and offer a concrete strategy for making those concerns land. They cover why chronological storytelling buries the most critical information, how to work with professionals who don’t yet see what’s happening, and what to do if you’ve already vented or lost your cool.
It’s All Your Fault is produced by TruStory FM.
Full Show Notes & Resources
Submit Questions | Full Show Notes | Bookstore | Website
Watch this episode on YouTube
Important Notice: Our discussions focus on behavioral patterns rather than diagnoses. For specific legal or therapeutic guidance, please consult qualified professionals in your area.

(00:00) - Welcome to It's All Your Fault

(00:50) - When No One Else Sees It

(03:19) - Why Do HCPs Come Across Credible?

(07:55) - Biggest Mistakes

(13:43) - Connecting Behaviors to Laws

(19:28) - Repairing After Venting

(23:52) - Takeaways

(24:36) - In Legal Case

(27:00) - Wrap Up

When addiction and high conflict personality traits both show up in a custody case, the usual advice stops working. Vague parenting plans become weapons. Standard timelines get exploited. Courts aren't designed to manage what's happening daily between two households—and the divorce itself is often just the beginning.
Bill Eddy, LCSW, JD, and Megan Hunter, MBA, co-founders of the High Conflict Institute, lay out what actually works: parenting plans built with iron-clad specificity, consequences written into agreements before problems happen, relapse protocols, objective safety safeguards for young children, and the assertive court strategy Bill describes as the most effective approach—not aggressive, not passive, but steady and information-forward.
It's All Your Fault is produced by TruStory FM.
Full Show Notes & Resources
Submit Questions | Full Show Notes | Bookstore | Website
Watch this episode on YouTube
Important Notice: Our discussions focus on behavioral patterns rather than diagnoses. For specific legal or therapeutic guidance, please consult qualified professionals in your area.

(00:00) - Welcome to It's All Your Fault

(00:56) - Part 2: High Conflict Behavior, Addiction, and Child Custody

(02:00) - Parenting Plans

(05:58) - When Reluctant to Change

(08:27) - Being Prepared

(10:05) - Don’t Reward the Pushing

(13:59) - Build Consequences into Agreements

(18:24) - With Younger Children

(22:15) - Professional Involvement

(26:33) - Top Mistakes

(30:17) - Wrap Up

High conflict custody cases are hard enough—but when one parent also demonstrates antisocial personality traits alongside addiction and a pattern of long-term deception, standard parenting plans fall short in ways that can leave a child at real risk. Antisocial personality disorder appears in family court more often than most people realize, and it requires a fundamentally different approach to court orders, parenting plans, and relapse planning.
Bill Eddy, LCSW, JD, and Megan Hunter, MBA, co-founders of the High Conflict Institute in Scottsdale, Arizona, walk through how to recognize the pattern, what to actually say to a family court judge, and how to build a relapse plan directly into a custody agreement as a court order. They also cover monitoring options, supervised contact, and why no-contact orders should be extremely rare. This is part one of a two-part conversation.
It’s All Your Fault is produced by TruStory FM.
Full Show Notes & Resources
Submit Questions | Full Show Notes | Bookstore | Website
Watch this episode on YouTube
Important Notice: Our discussions focus on behavioral patterns rather than diagnoses. For specific legal or therapeutic guidance, please consult qualified professionals in your area.

(00:00) - Welcome to It's All Your Fault

(00:58) - High Conflict Behavior, Addiction, and Child Custody

(01:49) - Case Setup

(04:00) - Pattern Recognition

(08:50) - Traits

(10:05) - Feined Connection

(11:58) - What to Do

(15:04) - Back to the Case

(22:08) - Monitoring Services

(23:40) - Parenting Plan

(27:11) - No Contact Order?

(29:43) - Defining More Extreme Personalities

(33:16) - Wrap Up

In high conflict divorce, children don’t just witness a parent’s distress—they absorb it, often without knowing where the feeling is coming from. Bill Eddy and Megan Hunter explain the brain science behind emotional contagion, why it can quietly build a child’s resistance to the healthier parent, and what that parent can do about it. From holding the schedule steady under emotional pressure, to teaching the four big skills for life, to naming emotions out loud to reduce their intensity—this episode gives parents practical tools they can use inside their own home starting today.
Resources from this episode:
BOOKS
Don't Alienate the Kids
BIFF for CoParent Communication
COURSES & CLASSES FOR PARENTS
Conflict Influencer™ Class
New Ways for Families Class + Coaching (for parents)
Resistance, Refusal and the Child’s Brain
ARTICLE
7 Ways Children’s Brains Absorb Their Parent's’ Emotions in Divorce (And What You Can Do About It)
TRAINING
Professional Organizational Training: [email protected]

Submit Questions | Full Show Notes | Bookstore | Website
Watch this episode on YouTube!
Important Notice: Our discussions focus on behavioral patterns rather than diagnoses. For specific legal or therapeutic guidance, please consult qualified professionals in your area.

(00:00) - Welcome to It's All Your Fault

(00:51) - Update

(04:18) - Children Absorbing Their Parents’ Emotions

(10:16) - What’s Happening

(15:55) - Dad’s Options

(17:41) - Setting Up Emotional Responses

(20:21) - Parental Awareness and Roles

(29:55) - Wrap Up

Passive aggressive behavior is one of the most common—and most maddening—dynamics in high conflict situations. In this episode, Bill Eddy and Megan Hunter of the High Conflict Institute reframe passive aggression as what it really is: aggression with built-in deniability. They walk through how to recognize it at home and at work, how to set limits on behavior that’s designed to evade accountability, and how the “it’s not about me” mindset gives you the emotional footing to respond effectively. Whether you’re dealing with a co-worker who “forgets” every commitment or a relationship where nothing is ever directly addressed, this episode gives you a practical framework for protecting your peace.
Resources from this episode:
5 Types of People Who Can Ruin Your Life
Dating Radar
Conflict Influencer Class
Managing High-Conflict Behaviour in the Workplace Training (April 23, 2026)
Submit Questions | Full Show Notes | Bookstore | Website
Watch this episode on YouTube!
Important Notice: Our discussions focus on behavioral patterns rather than diagnoses. For specific legal or therapeutic guidance, please consult qualified professionals in your area.

(00:00) - Welcome to It's All Your Fault

(01:07) - Passive Aggressive Behavior

(03:59) - Is It High Conflict Behavior?

(08:43) - Confronting Them

(09:36) - When They Don’t Stop

(13:43) - Conflict Avoidance Behavior?

(17:17) - A Pre-Cursor to More Overt Conflict?

(18:24) - In the Workplace

(19:42) - Examples

(21:54) - Antisocial Behavior

(23:57) - Following Through

(26:09) - Staying Confident

(27:22) - Wrap Up