The Garden of Roses: Stories of Abuse and Healing

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 ...