The Garden of Roses: Stories of Abuse and Healing

After driving around the Cascade Lakes Scenic Byway, my son and I stopped by a Mexican restaurant for dinner. We were wearing pink sweatshirts that read, "High Conflict Divorce is Child Abuse." A man, a woman, and a five or six-year-old girl sat down at the next table, and, after reading our shirts, the man said, "I like your shirts. He then proceeded to tell us that his wife and stepdaughter had been put through lots of trauma by his wife's first husband. The situation had been so difficult that the little girl's older sister had committed suicide. The family was on their way to an evening church service and invited us to come along because they found so much healing in their religion. I respect their choices, but I have a strong science background and don't feel comfortable in fundamentalist or evangelical churches. I fit in better at Catholic or mainline protestant churches, but I understand that this family's church supported them through a difficult ...

My son and I first went to stand in front of the Lane County Courthouse in Eugene, Oregon around lunchtime one day in October with our sign that reads: Emotional Abuse (Coercive Control) Damages Children And Loved Ones. We Need Laws To Protect Victims I realize many would say the person who uses coercive control on "loved ones" does not love them, but I was trying to write something people would understand that would also fit on a poster. Please also understand that I am not able to verify any of the stories people told me We were first approached by a woman accompanied by a friend and her older parents. She was found in contempt of court because she wrote a letter to her daughter, who was living in her father's care. The court had ordered that she have "no contact" with the daughter.  Maybe if I knew the details of this case, I would agree with the no-contact order, but I don't know why there was a no-contact order. What I do know is how painful it is to be...

I met a man who lost his children to a wife who rarely brought the children to court-ordered visitation, so he rarely saw them. He cried as he told me a story. He was a big man, six feet one or so. I don't know what he did, but he only had court-ordered visitation with the children. He never confessed to what happened. What I do know is that children deserve a chance to work out their relationship with a parent, rather than their other parent deciding what is good for them. Since the visitation was supervised, if the father had misbehaved in some way, the visitation supervisor would have ended the visitation. Instead, the supervisor advised the father to go to court to see his children and offered to testify on his behalf. Unfortunately, his children were getting close to 16 years of age, so the father felt it wasn't worth the time, expense, and pain to go to court again. He felt his wife had turned his children against him, and he might not see them even if he won ...

  What I Learned About Child Custody Issues, Domestic Violence, and Child Abuse by Meeting and Working With Survivors, by Being a Survivor Myself, and by Meeting With Professionals Who Work For Agencies That Work With Survivors by Virginia Jones Story Number One: I had the police called on me after I handed out articles on the clergy abuse scandal in my Catholic Church in 2002. The priest who baptized my children and me Catholic the year before had a long history of sexually abusing boys. He had been removed during the 2002 clergy abuse scandal. He had also groomed my then 5-year-old son and me in the months before he was removed. Being thrown out of my Catholic Church only strengthened my desire to advocate for clergy sex abuse survivors. I learned the skill of Compassionate Listening, taught by The Compassionate Listening Project, and taught a small number of interested Catholics the skill. Then I scheduled a private showing of a film about clergy abuse, and contacted an at...

Author's note: I wrote this blog in 2018. While I think mandating parenting coordinators and therapists to work with high-conflict divorced families, this only works if the families have enough money to pay for therapists and parenting coordinators. Most don't, so I think we should have mental health class mandates instead, while allowing high-income parents the option of working with private therapists and parenting coordinators. People partnered in marriage sometimes separate and divorce because the thrill is gone. Sometimes they separate and divorce because they are in conflict.  Sometimes, both partners behave badly.  When partners are co-parents, their conflict hurts not only each other but also their children.  Fortunately, 75 percent of separating co-parents reduce conflict within two years after divorce and need no intervention.  The other 25 percent continue their conflict for a long time, sometimes indefinitely.  Four to fifteen percent engage in ...