Something nasty is happening in America. Have you noticed the trend? There's more bullying, more incivility, more disrespect and even more relationship violence between us at home, at work, in our communities and in the news. And, it seems to be increasing rather than decreasing.

We have noticed a pattern to this behavior that is all too familiar: Personal Attacks, Crisis Emotions, All-or-Nothing Solutions, Narcissistic Behavior and Negative Advocates. We are well-acquainted with this pattern in high-conflict divorces from working with divorcing families over the past 30 years, and it's not good. This behavior is called "high-conflict" because it increases the conflict, rather than reducing or resolving it. Worst of all, it's contagious – it spreads when people are exposed to it, like a virus.

Recently, political leaders in both parties appear to be adopting and escalating high-conflict behavior, and perhaps, even leading it. Millionaires and billionaires are funding expensive ads as key elements in high-conflict election campaigns. And, the news media promote high-conflict behavior in every broadcast – to children as well as to adults – by relentlessly showing, and thereby teaching, the most dramatic bad behavior of the day.

We have seen this high-conflict behavior "split" too many families going through divorce, and we don't want to see it destroy the American family. We want to avoid a Democrat-Republican high-conflict divorce.

This book focuses on the patterns of high-conflict behavior we are seeing today in today's politicians. There's even a scorecard for comparing candidates by looking at their patterns of behavior. This book is our small effort to calm this national conflict – for the good of the American family.