Latest / It’s All Your Fault: High Conflict People / Royal Family Fallout: How Public Scrutiny Damages Family Reconciliation
Transcript
- Speaker 1 (00:05): Welcome to, it's All Your Fault On True Story fm, the one and only podcast dedicated to helping you identify and deal with the most challenging human interactions, those involving someone who may have a high conflict personality. I'm Megan Hunter and I'm here with my co-host, bill Eddie. Hi everybody. We are the co-founders of the High Conflict Institute where we focus on training, consulting, coaching, and educational programs and methods, all to do with high conflict. Today we're going to talk about the royal family and a little family conflict. If you're not sure what I'm talking about, think Harry and Megan. They've been in the news quite a lot lately from the UK about their family conflict and we're going to break that down and see what that looks like and talk about maybe some thoughts about what you can do in your own family because almost all families have some conflict and a lot of families have high conflict. Alright, bill, so before we get into that, how have you been and what have you been up to and where have you been? Speaker 2 (01:13): Wow, it's hard to keep track. I just finished two days of seminars with mental health professionals in Toronto. Fortunately that was by Zoom so I didn't have to fly back and forth. But really good folks covered a lot of topics and our new Ways for Families method, our counseling method, our mediation method, our new ways for work method. So it was really good. We're reaching out more to counselors with this and so many counselors say they don't really get the conflict part of personality disorders in their trainings and in the regular work, and yet it's a big part of what they're facing, so people appreciate our information. So that's the last two days. Before that, a week ago I did an all day training in Pennsylvania. Also by Zoom, also a mental health professional, about a hundred of them on bullying and the topic of bullying is just popping up everywhere these days. Speaker 1 (02:20): Shocking. Speaker 2 (02:21): Yeah, so I must say I've been working really hard. I got a lot of consultations, other presentations, all of that. But the next couple weeks I'm going to be in Portugal purely Speaker 1 (02:35): Oh, nice. Speaker 2 (02:36): Without my laptop. So this will balance things out and then it'll be crazy when I get back really busy again. Speaker 1 (02:43): Yeah, I think that's how we roll, isn't it, bill? Always. Speaker 2 (02:47): So how about you? You've been pretty busy. Speaker 1 (02:50): Yeah, today I did a training virtual for the Vermont Association for Justice, which was just one hour. So that was fun and easy. And yesterday I was at Disneyland. So here's the funny thing is we travel all over and do a lot of training and of course you are listeners that have been to our trainings, how far and wide we go, but I'd never been to Disneyland and I hadn't looked at the calendar ahead of to really see where I was going. So I just knew I was going to a hotel and guess what? It was at Disneyland. So that was really nice and I trained the Professional Fiduciary Association of California Speaker 2 (03:30): As Speaker 1 (03:30): Their keynote speaker. So it was really it fun. It was a very happy, fun crowd. So they said that this was very helpful information for them. So it's same here. We're very busy and in a couple of days I take off for Australia, so I'll be there working and training while you're off in Portugal. But Speaker 2 (03:52): You'll both be out of the country at the same time. Is that allowed? Speaker 1 (03:56): I don't know. I'm not sure. We're going to find out I guess. So that'll be exciting. I'll be working training some educational institutions because they're having a hard time keeping principals, retaining principals and teachers and it seems to be kind of a nationwide thing, or at least in a lot of parts of Australia. Also training. There's a third school and some ombudsman. What else? Oh, job link. I'll be doing some employment training too. So pretty excited about that. And then you and I will see each other in New Orleans in a couple of weeks or three weeks I guess for the International A FCC conference where we're both speaking. Speaker 2 (04:38): That's right. Day after I get back from Portugal. So fun. Speaker 1 (04:42): Oh, day after. Speaker 2 (04:44): Exactly. There's the day in between. I get back, there's a day off and then I head to New Orleans. So we'll be good to see you in person again. Speaker 1 (04:51): I know it's Speaker 2 (04:51): Been two weeks at least. Speaker 1 (04:53): Exactly. Okay, well let's talk conflict, and this kind of ties into what you were just saying about therapists and counselors, that they aren't necessarily trained on handling conflict and understanding high conflict and knowing how to help their clients best with high conflict cases and clients I guess. So we'll talk about some of that, but first of all, let's talk about the royal family. It's been in the news for several years now. From the beginning of when Harry and Meghan were engaged, everybody falls in love with the royals and the wedding and all the pomp and circumstance. I remember staying up kind of late, maybe most of the night watching when Prince Charles and Diana were married. It was just such a big deal, even though I wasn't from the uk, but I think collectively worldwide we were in love with the idea. And then when Harry and Meghan married, I don't know that it was as widely watched, but I think everyone wished the best for them. Speaker 1 (05:54): But it wasn't long before there was conflict and kind of the series of events that they made, the announcement that they were stepping back from the royal family and being, I guess royals and if you're from the uk, forgive us for maybe not getting this quite right all the way we're describing it. But if we're looking at it from a perspective of just on its face, what happened, they stepped back and they moved to the United States through a wrinkle, I think into the royal family. There were accusations by Megan of racism within the royal family, and that might've been a part of why they moved to the US and broke away from the family. Then fast forward, we saw that there was a Netflix documentary on them. Then Harry released the book called Spare, and he felt like a spare. I haven't read the book, but I've read a lot about it and kind of that proverbial redheaded stepchild so to speak. Speaker 1 (06:58): So in that book, it was kind of his memoir. He revealed a lot of family secrets and oh, public family, maybe you think it's okay, some people think it's okay to reveal family secrets if your family is public, but in the royal family it doesn't seem like it's a thing you do, but they did it. Then they went on the Oprah Winfrey show or did a special with her and kind of revealed secrets along the way. They were quite upset about not having security provided to them while visiting the UK provided by the government. So there've been lawsuits filed and just recently Harry has lost those suits. He really seems to be reported by the news blaming his dad for these things, and that's kind of, maybe there's conspiracies against him and if you want to protect your grandchildren, why wouldn't you want to protect your grandchildren? So it seems like there's quite a bit of blame, probably a lot of emotion. Are there extreme behaviors? I don't know. What do you think Phil? Speaker 2 (08:14): Well, I want to talk about this in the context of family conflict and family conflict resolution skills. I don't think that the royal family is all that different from most families in terms of family conflict, family dynamics. The difference is that they have a gigantic spotlight on them. And this makes me want to talk about things like one of the main principles we have with all high conflict is keep the conflict small. Whatever you do, you want to try to keep it on small scale because small is the only things that you resolve. When conflicts go large, they're overwhelming. You get everyone's emotional reaction, everyone's reactive, and you don't get into problem solving in keeping with what you're saying. We take a no blame, no shame approach to high conflict people and high conflict personalities, and we talk about personality disorders, all of that to look at what would help people. And so this spotlight on them doesn't help. I think that Harry and Megan made a mistake by the first thing that jumped out at me was their interview with Oprah where they aired a lot of family secrets in a sense. Speaker 1 (09:42): You mean dirty laundry? Yeah. Speaker 2 (09:45): Not to say that, but you're right. Dirty laundry. And I thought that was a mistake. It got a lot of press, a lot of attention, and that I believe was a mistake because you can't solve family conflicts in the public spotlight. And I know that as a family therapist and as a family mediator that you really have a right to some degree of confidentiality and privacy and that we love the entertainment world, but we don't want to live in it. And I think that's a big difference. We need to know the difference between entertainment and real life problems and real life solutions. I think having that public spotlight made it become a question of who's to blame and who should be ashamed of themselves. And I don't see anybody to blame here. I see mistakes here. If people were to learn skills, I'd say one of the skills is figure out where the boundary is of private and confidential versus public and shared. Speaker 2 (10:59): But another thing with the media is it's the high emotion media and our culture today, we confuse entertainment and real life. We should all learn what the difference is. Part of what's confusing is it's the same devices give up both of them. So we get entertainment on tv, we get entertainment on our phones and iPads, and we also get serious information. We get useful information. Also, certainly politics is an area that's very much public, yet has a lot of entertainment to it, and we get confused and I think this is a case where we get confused. I have a lot of empathy for Harry and Meghan. I have a lot of empathy for King Charles. I don't think he was really eager to be in this position. He probably would've been happy for his mother to live to 120 and I think the world would've been happy. Speaker 2 (12:00): She was a perfect queen. She was exactly where she needed to be, and the world was a happier place with her there. So I have empathy for him, an empathy for Camilla, an empathy for William and for Kate. They all are caught up in this public eye which distorts their lives. And I understand Meghan and Harry left a lot because of the media and the media circus around them, which was sad. But I would recommend that if people really want to reconcile, want to have everyone get along together, they need to do it behind closed doors with some confidentiality and some respect for each other. Right now it's hard to respect each other when the whole world is talking about you. Speaker 1 (12:52): So that begs the question then with Harry and Meghan becoming so public for many it's this saying one thing but doing another. So blaming the media and we're leaving the UK because of the media problems, or at least partially, but coming to the US and signing big contracts to be in the public spotlight, placing themselves in positions like on the Oprah Show to tell their story, and I see it as a victim story. How can it not be a victim story if you don't have the other side represented? Well, the other side in this case, they don't do sit downs with Oprah. So how can they tell their side? Speaker 2 (13:36): Yeah, I would hope at some point that someone says, look, you got to sit down together in private, behind closed door. They need a conclave. That's what they need, the door locked behind them and no cell phones Speaker 1 (13:53): And we'll have some smoke, different smoke colors, Speaker 2 (13:56): And when the white smoke comes out, that means they're getting along Speaker 1 (14:00): Good. Speaker 2 (14:01): All as well. Speaker 2 (14:03): But seriously, it's interesting, I think of high profile, high conflict divorces and one I think of was Kim Baer and Alec Baldwin, and they had a very public dispute over their 11-year-old daughter Ireland at one point. This is 10, 12 years ago. The public was lining up behind him and behind her as to who was the bad guy here because there was a voicemail message made public and he said some things he shouldn't have said even privately to his daughter. He blamed her for a bunch of stuff. Anyway, you heard a whole lot about this and suddenly you didn't hear about it anymore. What happened? They were in family court and the family court judge said, you need to stop talking in public about this. I'm not going to have that. There was a grownup in the room. Speaker 2 (14:59): And that's what I like to say. That's a thing that often family court can order as a grownup in the room when you have high conflict, people dueling it out around other people, including in public or not. And that really made a difference. And they all get along pretty much. Now I understand she's probably 12, 14 years older than she was then and has a good relationship with both of 'em. Someone needed to step in and say, cut it out, and you're both going to have time with your child. We're not going to argue about that. She doesn't spend time with somebody. You're both going to have a relationship and it's going to be not in the public eye. And I feel like that's what the royal family needs. They need kind of a grownup in the room to say, get sit down together. All this stuff is understandable. I think it's terrible being in the public eye and I have empathy for all of them because of that. It's a dysfunctional family that's pumped up by high conflict media and the only way to overcome that is to pull themselves out of that environment and sit down with a grownup family therapist or family court judge. Speaker 1 (16:17): Are you volunteering Bill? Speaker 2 (16:19): Absolutely not. Absolutely not. Speaker 1 (16:24): You would be great. You'd be great at it. Speaker 2 (16:28): Yeah. Well, my name's also William, so it would probably seem like I was biased or something. Probably the thing that helps families in these situations is to slow down, go step by step to speak respectfully to each other, acknowledge the positives that each person has and talk about what you want from each other. What would this look like? Let's not talk a lot about the past, talk about what you want the future to look like and we're just going to have to accept the past and I would hope that's what they would do and work out okay, maybe there is some security we can provide. It's not punishment or revenge. I understand he's a public figure and public figures are always at risk in today's world. Speaker 1 (17:16): However, let me interject with this, playing devil's advocate a bit. Harry and Meghan have a lot of money. They could afford their own security. So now they're saying it's just so sad, subversively placing blame on the royal family. It's kind of sad that my children will never get to set foot on my homeland soil when they could afford their own security to do that. So I mean are those just jabs? Speaker 2 (17:44): Well, it's interesting because everybody's got the money. So the issue is not the issue. Speaker 2 (17:52): The personalities are the issue, and that's often what we see. Now, I don't know that there's one outstanding personality here. I think that they're probably all stubborn. That's one impression that I have. But I think if they sat down together, I mean could this is what we do in divorce. Mediations. Look, one's not going to pay for it, the other's not going to pay for it. Let's do 50 50 or 60 40 or 70 30 and split it and put it behind us. Not the issue. When people have a lot of money like this, it's really the optics, it's the impression, it's defensiveness. And I must say I think the institution of the royal family, and I think that's part of what Harry complained about, that it's an institution, it's like a company. I think they made a mistake by not embracing the potential to reach out to the rest of the world, especially through Meghan and Harry. Speaker 2 (18:58): Meghan being a mixed race person, was welcomed in countries that were black and brown and there was so much potential if they could have been a team together. And it's sad that that didn't happen. I mean, that's way past that. But I think this is what we see with families. Find something you can work on together and don't be as threatened and competitive with each other. And I think that that was heightened by the media. Every little thing, you can bring people together or you can pull them apart and adversarial thinking pulls people apart. And that's where the media likes it. Media loves adversarial thinking because then people pay attention. It grabs your amygdala and makes you look. We've got to build some resistance to that. Say, Hey, leave these folks alone and let's not buy all the photos in their face that photographers get when they're swimming and doing whatever else. Speaker 1 (20:05): Keep dreaming. There's money. It's money, money, money. Speaker 2 (20:11): Old school family therapists. Oh, well Speaker 1 (20:14): No, I mean we can have wishful thinking. It's just when money's involved in all this, there's a piece of money in it for a lot of different players here. But I kind of want to flip back to the institution itself. Speaker 1 (20:31): When you're born into an institution like this, you know what it is and maybe you're not happy with it. It seems perhaps William is okay with it. He seems to be on board and Harry was not and that's okay, but it doesn't, I guess the question is, this happens in a lot of families. There's maybe the old school way that a family's done things and the next generation doesn't do them the same way. But does it make it right to put the original family, the older generation kind of on blast and claim a victim status just because there is institution there? Because there is maybe tradition there. And I think it goes to setting limits. The institution is the limit. I'm sure there's plenty of politics and bureaucracy and rules that a lot of people don't like, but the Queen was able to keep it very stable for a long time. And after that, I don't know. So is it okay, I guess the question is that tradition, it seems that maybe Harry and Meghan are dissatisfied with that and want to blow that apart and have the royal family be more like them. I mean, I'm speculating here, but I don't know that that's okay. Speaker 2 (21:52): I think part of the problem, and we see this with family businesses going through transition from one generation to the next. You're seeing this with the Murdoch family and speaking of England, the Murdoch family, England and us, the international aspects there, but passing from one generation to the next, and it's not unusual where you have a son or daughter that seems like they're in line to become the next king or queen. And in case of William, he is in line to become the next king and a brother who's not. We're in this huge transition, I think in humanity really between structures that are top down and structures that are more equal. What we're learning, especially America's based on this, is everyone gets a chance we're equal. Everyone can grow and thrive and succeed and such like that. And so we're very much like that, a constitution that makes us all equal versus say the old structure where you have a king, you have a queen, you have a hierarchy that only has room for one at a time. Speaker 2 (23:11): I think we're seeing a clash of these two cultures. And what's interesting is Harry and Meghan kind of left being at the bottom or being the spare into a culture where you can be relatively equal. Although I'd say they're more equal than most because of their image and their money and all of that. But I think it's a larger dilemma. It's way beyond blaming individuals and in a sense, beyond personalities. It's really is there room for all of us or is there only room for one of us and the two siblings, we have two siblings like this. It's tough and people compete and we have to reign in our competition or people get hurt. I think that there could have been a title for Howard and Megan that was really significant and important to the royal family that maybe they could have been happy. I just think it's sad they had a lot. They could have contributed, but the jealousies between brothers and the roles within the institution are too confining. Speaker 1 (24:25): Yeah, yeah. I mean there's a lot of dynamics as there are in any family. Like you said from the start. You have the brothers, you have the father son, you have the loyalty to the mother who passed away the trauma that came from that. I think that affected those boys so deeply. You have wives of each of the boys. There's a lot here. And look, we're not going to label or diagnose anyone. We're just looking at patterns of behavior in family conflict. There may be a high conflict person, there may be more than one or there may just be ordinary family conflict. Ordinary family conflicts can probably be overcome except for having this huge media attention. If there's some high conflict behavior, patterns of behavior going on, a lot of victim stories, which I find in family conflict, the attempt to draw in negative advocates and put people on sides. Speaker 1 (25:27): My side of the family against the other side of the family, I mean back to the Hatfield of McCoys, it's all about the sides. And really trying to convince people that my family was so terrible to me. The other side is so bad and it's so deeply held and the wounds are so deep and there's so much history that it becomes so hard to overcome. And then you write a book and then you talk about it and you put a lot of blame out there against the other party or other side and you have some big conflict. So we're doing our best, you and I, bill and our team at HCI to help the world with conflict. So if anybody knows the King or Harry, let 'em know Bill is available. Speaker 1 (26:22): You could do it. You could do it. Anyway. I do want to mention here that I hadn't even thought about this before we started recording this, but we just this week released a new coaching program, an online course for couples and families. It's called New Ways for Couples and Families. And it sort of was a springboard from our new Ways for Families program for divorcing and separating families. But we'd really like to see families stay together, but they often need skills. And what we've heard for so long Bill is from people who are going through a separation or divorce and they learn these skills and they start using them in their co-parenting relationship. Wow, if I'd have known these 15 years ago, I probably wouldn't be in this spot. So everybody can learn skills, almost everyone. And so we put this together. You put this together for couples that would like to improve their relationship or would like to stay together. I honestly believe with commitment and skills, most relationships can survive. Of course, there are some that need to end if there's violence and abuse happening, but I don't know, what else did you put in that New ways for Couples and families course? Speaker 2 (27:47): Well, you're right. We put in the same four big skills, the flexible thinking, the managed emotions, moderate behavior, and checking yourself that we put into the Divorce co-parents course. So this is an online class. It's eight sessions, roughly an hour of self-directed reading and writing and watching some videos, including some videos. The benefit of this is for a lot of people, so if a couple is together, maybe they're a young couple going, we want to make this work. What are some skills, basic skills we need? We call those the four big skills for life. Flexible thinking, managed emotion, moderate behavior, and checking yourself. And why not learn them early on in a relationship. Also, parents who are doing pretty well together but may have some difficult kids. Maybe there's a child with a behavior problem, maybe a medical problem. So how you can work together on their behalf. And I get a lot of consultations from individuals still married and want to stay married. The other person's not going to get skills, but they want some skills that will help them and maybe spill over to the other person. A lot of times one person makes a change. It can actually shift the whole couple dynamic Speaker 1 (29:12): One way or the other. Speaker 2 (29:14): Yes, depending on what the change is. But one of the things that I think the skills help people have equal relationships more or less, and people talk about emotional intelligence and emotional intelligence helps you have equal relationships. And I think the problem in a lot of families and including what we're talking about with the royal family is struggling with, are we going to have equal relationships? Are we going to have top down relationships? And frankly, the equal relationships are happier. I've worked with many, many couples over the years as a therapist, lawyer, and mediator. And the happiest couples are people that approach each other as equals. And you get relatively equal respect. You have different things you're good at and fitting them together. Where families run into a lot of trouble is there's someone that really wants to be on top, and that's often the high conflict person. They like dominating. No one likes being dominated, neither high conflict people or ordinary people. And so what you see and what I worry about in this situation is the structure of the royal family is trying to squeeze them into a domineering, top down framework and that people at the bottom of that try to get away and try to get out. And that's exactly what Harry and Meghan have done. If they could work out some ways, let's overcome the structure and have some equal caring, respecting relationships. Speaker 1 (30:56): I mean, it was their choice to leave. So I think that's the problem that many have with it is making a choice like that and then complaining about it. But beyond that, how do we make this work going forward? I think that's what all families have to do and it's, many people make decisions about family relationships. Back in the day, I don't think that you left your family, but families knew how to get along and there was probably an elder hierarchy, speaking of hierarchies that did kind of try to keep the peace. And there was a lot of setting limits as well. And now, at least in Western cultures, that's pretty much a thing of the past. And I wish some of that could come back. I think we need a lot of that. But I do see many families, many individuals making decisions about what type of relationship or relationship having a relationship at all with their family. So I think it's worth giving skills a try. When you have high conflict involved in a family, it's going to be more challenging and you have to be more cautious. Speaker 2 (32:08): I think maybe the biggest skill here is empathy, attention and respect. We have ear statements. If all these folks could get behind the enclave door and give each other some mutual respect and empathy, et cetera, that would be great. On the other hand, sometimes that can't happen. And while I would wish that for Megan and Harry and the whole royal family, that we would stop hearing about them and they would talk to each other instead. The other alternative is get on with your life. Stop complaining. Like you said, they've got money for security. I'm sure they need security, but I'm sure they can afford it wherever they go in the world. It's like, get on with your life, do good things and stop painting. I tell a lot of people dealing with a high conflict co-parent or spouse or divorcing spouse, I say Fight hard for two years so that it really gets figured out and you get the best possible court orders, agreements, et cetera, and then cut bait and move forward. That's part of the problem here, I think is it's hard for people to move forward, but we really, that's what I would recommend if they asked me, I would say, give it your best shot behind closed doors. And if you don't have progress within a short period of time, you've spent enough years on this. Get on with your lives and people, they're likable people. Harry and Megan, I watched that six place, six episode thing. They're in their home and they're talking to each other and all of Speaker 1 (33:48): That. You watched that bill. I am shocked. Speaker 2 (33:51): Yeah, that was year ago. Go. It's very few things that I end up watching, but I was persuaded to watch that series by somebody else. Speaker 1 (34:03): Okay, alright. You get a pass. Yeah, and I think another big aspect in family ramification is forgiveness and just letting the past go in families. That is one of the hardest things to do because you have so much history and often siblings are very hard on each other and know how to go for the juggler, jugular, and then you get other spouses involved and it, oh, it can be really, really tricky and challenging, but forgiveness, using a lot of ear, just having conversations and giving eye contact can go a long way. But it comes down to making decisions. And then if you have a high conflict, someone with a high conflict personality involved, you're going to have to use the skills if you're going to be in that relationship with the person. So that's a must. Not even debatable. So anyway. Well, thank you Bill and thank you listeners. We so appreciate you. We love going around the US and around the world and hearing from people that come up to us at our trainings and say, I listen to your podcast every week and I look forward to it, and we're just blown away because we're just Bill and Megan, but we just chatting. We're just chatting and we love to chat and we love to talk about this and we love to help people. So we're very grateful that all of you are listening to us. Speaker 1 (35:33): So until we come back from our brief hiatus, we hope you all have a nice two or three weeks and we'll be off to Portugal and Australia and when we both come back to the US we'll get to recording more episodes. Until then, if you have questions, you know where to send them podcast@highconflictinstitute.com or high conflict institute.com/podcast. So until we see you again or you hear from us again, try to keep the conflict small, be kind to yourself and others while we all try to find the missing piece. It's All Your Fault is a production of True Story FM Engineering by Andy Nelson. Music by Wolf Samuels, John Coggins and Ziv Moran. Find the show notes and transcripts at True story fm or high conflict institute.com/podcast. If your podcast app allows ratings and reviews, please consider doing that for our show.