Before Hope Restored Publishes Another Success Rate: 12 Questions Its Longitudinal Study Must Answer October 4, 2026: Focus on the Family’s Hope Restored Marriage Intensive has...
Research & Documentation
What Would It Take to Make Hope Restored Safe?
The Hope Restored Marriage Intensive talks constantly about safety. Here’s what a truly safety-first model would require. Let’s first look at Hope Restored’s curriculum One of...
A Reform Proposal for Focus on the Family’s Next President: 8 Changes for Safer Families
Focus on the Family is approaching an unusually important crossroads. Jim Daly plans to step down in 2027 after more than two decades of leadership as president, and Focus is...
Before You Choose a Focus on the Family Counselor, Ask These 4 Questions
Before You Choose a Focus on the Family Counselor, Ask These 4 Questions Can This Counselor Distinguish Marital Conflict From Abuse? Focus on the Family’s Christian Counselors...
I Rated 4 Top Christian Premarital Books for Abuse, Red Flags & Safety
Why Can’t Christian Publishers Give Us a Really Good Christian Premarital Workbook? Before we got married, my boyfriend and I went through a Christian premarital workbook. Twenty...
John Piper on Wife Abuse: Did He Retract His “Smacked One Night” Advice?
John Piper on Wife Abuse: Did He Retract His “Smacked One Night” Advice? A firestorm broke out when John Piper's video mentioning a wife "being smacked one night" was released....
What Are Focus on the Family Donors Really Funding? An Investigation into Hope Restored and Abuse
Are Christian Donors Funding a System That Keeps Abuse Victims Married? Focus on the Family receives desperate calls about abuse every week. What happens next? Most Christians...
Stop Quoting Linda Waite’s The Case for Marriage Without Reading What Came Next
You Were Sent Here Because You’re Quoting Linda Waite’s First Book. Twenty-Five Years Later, Her Own Research Has Changed the Story. Linda Waite is still pro-marriage. But her...
Divorce and Child Custody Depositions: How to Prepare (What to Expect)
Divorce and Child Custody Depositions: How to Prepare (What to Expect) One of my readers recently asked how to prepare for a child custody deposition. If you've never been...
Best Parenting Plan Workbook for High-Conflict Divorce
Best Parenting Plan Workbook for High-Conflict Divorce There are many good parenting plan resources, but they do not all serve the same kind of parent. Some parenting plan books...
The “Easy Divorce” Myth: For Many Christian Survivors, Divorce Took Years
Divorce Wasn’t “Easy.” For Many, It Took Years. When policymakers talk about making divorce harder, they often seem to imagine careless people casually walking away from decent...
Divorce Is Not the Mass-Shooter Warning Sign People Think It Is
Divorce Is Not the Mass-Shooter Warning Sign People Think It Is In The Violence Project data, childhood trauma / abuse appears more often than parental divorce — 33–68% compared...
“Kids Are Resilient” Does Not Mean “Divorce Doesn’t Matter”
“Kids Are Resilient” Does Not Mean “Divorce Doesn’t Matter” Anti-divorce groups love a sneering line: “They say kids are resilient. Ha ha.” Notice the trick. “They” is left vague...
87 Ways “The Body Keeps the Score” After Trauma
87 Ways "The Body Keeps the Score" After Trauma Trauma is not only remembered in the mind; it is carried in the body. In the work of two of the best-known trauma physicians,...
Judith Wallerstein, Wayne Grudem, and What the Divorce Study Really Said
What Wayne Grudem Overstates in Judith Wallerstein Thirty years ago, in 1996, Wayne Grudem did an analysis of Judith Wallerstein’s second book, Second Chances, one of three books...
Healing After Divorce: What a New 2025 Study Found About Post-Trauma Growth
A Remarkable Pattern of Healing Over Time A new 2025 study of middle-aged divorced women offers something many Christians need to hear: the pain of divorce is real, but it is not...
The Unexpected Legacy of Divorce: What Counselors, Students, and Divorcing Parents Need to Know
Judith Wallerstein on Divorce and Children: What Pastors, Counselors, and Divorcing Parents Need to Know A critical review of Judith Wallerstein’s five major books on divorce,...
12 Half-Truths in Focus on the Family’s “How Could Divorce Affect My Kids?”
12 Half-Truths in Focus on the Family’s “How Could Divorce Affect My Kids?” Focus on the Family should be ashamed of this article. Why? Because it tells frightened parents that...
75% of Divorced People Are Happy (GSS 2024)—So Why Does the Church Say the Opposite?
Here’s Why That Misery Message Persists—Even When the Data Says Otherwise I often hear church leaders and Christian organizations repeat a familiar warning: Divorced people are...
When Divorce Is Called “Violence” but Abuse Is Not: What Sermons Reveal
When Divorce Is Called “Violence” but Abuse Is Not Dr. Valerie Hobbs, a linguist and senior lecturer at the University of Sheffield in the U.K., has spent years studying how...
Pastors and Christian Divorcees: What LifeWay’s Surveys Reveal About the Church Divorce Gap
Pastors and Christian Divorcees: What the LifeWay Surveys Reveal About the Church Divorce Gap In 2015, Focus on the Family sponsored LifeWay Research to conduct multiple surveys...