The Theory of Crazy and Sane

I know, the office is closed until the end of the year.  Do you really think I leave it all behind?  Not a chance.  The phones are still being answered, and the emails checked.  I can't help it, it's what we do here in the Trenches.  Anyway, I was having coffee with my law school friend, and we talked about families, and of course, the Trenches.  We came around to my theory of crazy and sane.  I don't know if I've expounded on my theory here before, but even if I have, it bears repeating.  In a custody battle between a relatively normal parent (isn't it always relative?) and a parent with a high conflict personality, the high conflict personality almost always wins, at least in the short run.  Why is that?  It's actually pretty logical, if you stop and think about it.  A normal parent will always love their child, not matter what, even if they don't particularly like their behavior.  They're safe.  They're the parent with expectations of the children, beyond what the children can do for them.  They're always there when the going gets rough. The high conflict parent?  Not safe.  Loving the other parent is not OK to this parent.  They have to be the only parent loved by the child. Children know that instinctively.  The high conflict parent forces the child to choose between parents, and they almost always choose the high conflict parent.  For them to do otherwise means they lose the love of one of their parents.  What child would freely choose to lose the love of a parent?  Almost none, so they choose the high conflict parent, knowing the normal parent will forgive them and continue to love them.  Crappy choice, but in the theory of crazy and sane, it's probably the only reasonable one.