Why Oregon Needs to Focus Divorce Laws on Family Mental Health
I have been traveling through Oregon for the last year or so to promote my issue. I want counties to teach parents involved in high-conflict divorce and child custody battles mental health and communication skills instead of requiring them to go through lengthy, time and money-consuming courtroom battles. I went through a child custody battle that lasted a decade or so, if you count all the years that led up to my ex-husband trying to take custody of our daughter away from me, and then the aftermath of his continuing harassment of me until our daughter turned 17, and there wasn't much time to fight over custody of her anymore. I won the battle so thoroughly that the judge in the case ordered my ex-husband to pay 90 percent of my attorney's fees. My attorney told me that such wins are rare. I knew that to be true because I am a former psychiatric nurse who worked with survivors of child sex abuse and domestic violence who lost their children to the men who abused them because th...