Note: This is Part 1 of a two-part Q&A with Bill Ferguson. Click here to read Part 2.
Bill Ferguson, a former top divorce attorney now known as “The Love Counselor” for his work in taking the conflict out of divorce, recently talked with DadsDivorce.com about how to part ways as friends.
For the past 25 years, Ferguson has devoted his life to healing relationships and his work has been featured on “The Oprah Winfrey Show” and in The Wall Street Journal and The Washington Post. He created the How to Divorce as Friends web site to show you, step-by-step, how to end conflict, restore cooperation, heal your relationship, and if necessary, divorce as friends.
Ferguson talked with us about the cycle of conflict, healing the hurt, and restoring the love in relationships, maybe not as husband and wife but at least as one human being to another.
Read on for the Q&A with excellent advice on divorce.
DD: First off, what is the cycle of conflict and how do you end it amicably?
BF: It takes two people to create a cycle of conflict and only one person to end it. Love itself is never enough to make a relationship work. Divorce courts are filled with plenty of people with love. The experience of love is the thing that makes the difference. If I want my relationship with someone to work, I want them to feel love… and that is giving the gift of acceptance and appreciation.
What destroys love is being non-accepting of the way people are. “What’s wrong you? You need to change.” You’re not being accepting and she feels you don’t accept her and it just results in non-acceptance of each other back and forth. That creates the cycle of conflict.
To end it amicably you need to see where your role is. When you can’t see your role in the end of it, you become the victim and then you have no power.
DD: We always hear about relationships need to be 50/50 but I’ve seen you mention they need to be 100/100. What does that mean?
BF: How I am toward you, determines how you’re going to be toward me. That makes me 100% responsible for the presence or absence of love. And you are 100% responsible for how you act to me. Everyone is fully responsible.
What we don’t realize is whenever we blame someone or something, we throw away our power. When I’m saying you’re 100% to blame because you cheated and I’m 0% responsible, then I have 0% power. When you see your role in the relationship that gives you the power to determine where to go.
DD: Obviously divorce is one of the most painful processes to go through and there are a tremendous amount of feelings involved. So how can someone accept and peacefully deal with your spouse with all these hurt feelings involved?
BF: Why we fight the truth is the truth hurts. It triggers an emotion that we don’t want to feel. What we run from are our emotions. At a deeper level, I’m not resisting the circumstance of my wife packing up and leaving me, I’m resisting the feelings and emotions dealing with the person leaving me. That cir cumstance triggers the emotions and if you’re unwilling to feel the emotion, that circumstance will have total power over you.
Note: This is Part 1 of a two-part Q&A with Bill Ferguson. Click here to read Part 2.
Bill Ferguson, a relationship and divorce expert and former top divorce attorney, created the How to Divorce as Friends web site to show you, step-by-step, how to end conflict, restore cooperation, heal your relationship, and if necessary, divorce as friends. From helpful articles to workshops and videos, from consulting to books, CDs & e-books, this site has everything you need to help you get through this difficult time.