Abuse in Marriage and Divorce
January 27, 2015
Hosted by Virginia L. Colin, Ph.D.
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Guest Information
Episode Description
Shockingly large numbers of women and men find themselves in abusive marriages. Most stay in denial for a long time because abuse -- insistence on power and control, with or without physical violence -- evolves so gradually. Eventually the entire family walks on eggshells, suffering stress, pain, and isolation. Getting out of the nightmare takes amazing courage. Filing for separation and/or divorce can be dangerous. Not doing so might be worse. Sometimes a restraining order is needed. In court, abused spouses quickly learn that the legal system is not about justice. It’s about how you play the game, and to stay in the game, you must be able to pay substantial legal fees. Often the abuser has the money and the desire to escalate and prolong the battle. Where is justice when your spouse turns the legal system into a new weapon by hiring an expensive bully attorney to intimidate the victim and drain family resources? How is a prolonged court battle in the best interest of the child?
Family Matters
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Our goal is to share good ideas about helping all kinds of families handle the challenges and problems that are common in today’s world. We seek to help people heal, grow, and thrive in a culture in which marriage, parenting, and other family relationships are under great stress.
We will feature experts on a variety of family matters. Topics may include building and maintaining healthy relationships, family mediation, divorcing with minimal damage, strengthening marriages, LGBT families, forming and maintaining stepfamilies, single parents, creating constructive separation agreements, addiction, preventing or ending abuse, and other Family Matters.
Virginia L. Colin, Ph.D.
Virginia L. Colin, Ph.D is an author, speaker, professional family mediator, Director of Colin Family Mediation Group, and a Founding Member of the Academy of Professional Family Mediators (APFM).
Having survived a nightmarish divorce, Dr. Colin actively supports divorce reform efforts, teaching people how to take a lot of the pain, financial cost, acrimony, and trauma out of divorce. She also loves learning and teaching about building healthy relationships and solving family problems long before anyone has a reason to consider divorce. She has been a foster parent, a married parent, a divorced single parent, and a remarried stepparent.
Formerly a research psychologist studying attachment and other aspects of human development, Dr. Colin has been providing family mediation services since 1999. She specializes in helping couples and ex-couples develop co-parenting plans and financial agreements that support their children’s security, self-confidence, and healthy development as well as their own adult well-being.
Dr. Colin has published two books, ��Human Attachment" and "The Guide to Low-Cost Divorce in Virginia: How to Do It Yourself.” She has also written a variety of articles published in journals and on the Internet.
