Jenny duBay on the Dr. J Show ep. 291 Part 1
Catholic trauma-informed life coach Jenny duBay shares her personal journey as a survivor of domestic violence and how her faith played a central role in her healing. She discusses the importance of trauma-informed care within the Church and offers insights into how Catholic communities can better support survivors. This conversation highlights the intersection of faith, psychology, and recovery, offering hope and practical guidance for those affected by abuse.
Jenny duBay is a domestic abuse survivor, Catholic advocate, author, and trauma-informed life coach. She is the founder of Create Soul Space, a ministry and blog dedicated to cultivating awareness of domestic violence within a Catholic context. A certified Deconstructing Gaslighting Specialist (C-DGS) and narcissistic abuse specialist, Jenny also holds a Bachelor’s degree in Catholic theology from CDU. She facilitates a domestic violence support group at Hope’s Garden and partners with organizations such as Catholics for Family Peace to support survivors. Her mission is to walk with women through the journey of healing from abuse and betrayal trauma. Jenny is also the voice behind the Prodigal Parishioner blog and contributes regularly to a variety of Catholic publications, including the Catholic Education Resource Center, Missio Dei, and the National Catholic Register, where her work has been recognized among the “Best of Catholic Blogging.”
Links:
Jenny’s website: https://www.jennydubay.com/
Hope’s Garden – https://hopesgarden.com/
Her X profile: https://x.com/createsoulspace?lang=en
https://linktr.ee/jdubay
Her substack: https://www.createsoulspace.org/
Men’s group: https://men-of-hope.mn.co/landing
Social Media:
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/jenny.dubay/
https://www.instagram.com/create_soul_space/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/jennydubay/
Buy a copy of her book: https://www.createsoulspace.net/store/c2/shop#/
Missio Dei Catholic:
YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/@missiodeicatholic
Website: https://www.youtube.com/@missiodeicatholic
Jenny’s social media appearances:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6GCnblWfTjU
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2B_y7DS28nQ
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IMYJLV0nQSY
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hfwvU9anBSo
Chapters
00:00 Addressing Domestic Violence: A Necessary Conversation
07:46 Understanding Domestic Abuse: Its Widespread Impact
15:09 The Role of Faith in Healing from Abuse
22:08 Catholic Teachings on Marriage and Abuse
30:39 Navigating the Annulment Process
32:07 A Discernment Process for Healing
41:53 Recognizing Patterns of Abuse
44:55 Recognizing the Reality of Abuse
Subscribe to our newsletter to get this amazing report: Refuting the Top 5 Gay Myths https://ruthinstitute.org/refute-the-top-five-myths/
Have a question or a comment? Leave it in the comments, and we’ll get back to you!
Watch the full episode, uncensored, on Rumble: https://rumble.com/user/Theruthinstitute
Subscribe to our YouTube playlist: @RuthInstitute
Follow us on Social Media:
https://www.instagram.com/theruthinstitute
https://twitter.com/RuthInstitute
https://www.facebook.com/TheRuthInstitute/
https://theruthinstitute.locals.com/newsfeed
Press:
NC Register: https://www.ncregister.com/author/jennifer-roback-morse
Catholic Answers: https://www.catholic.com/profile/jennifer-roback-morse
The Stream: https://stream.org/author/jennifer-roback-morse/
Crisis Magazine: https://crisismagazine.com/author/jennifer-roeback-morse
Father Sullins’ Reports on Clergy Sexual Abuse: https://ruthinstitute.org/resource-centers/father-sullins-research/
Buy Dr. Morse’s Books:
The Sexual State: https://ruthinstitute.org/product/the-sexual-state-2/
Love and Economics: https://ruthinstitute.org/product/love-and-economics-it-takes-a-family-to-raise-a-village/
Smart Sex: https://ruthinstitute.org/product/smart-sex-finding-life-long-love-in-a-hook-up-world/
101 Tips for a Happier Marriage: https://ruthinstitute.org/product/101-tips-for-a-happier-marriage/
101 Tips for Marrying the Right Person: https://ruthinstitute.org/product/101-tips-for-marrying-the-right-person/
Listen to our podcast:
Apple Podcasts – https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-ruth-institute-podcast/id309797947
Spotify – https://open.spotify.com/show/1t7mWLRHjrCqNjsbH7zXv1
Subscribe to our newsletter to get this amazing report: Refuting the Top 5 Gay Myths https://ruthinstitute.org/refute-the-top-five-myths/
Get the full interview by joining us for exclusive, uncensored content on Locals: https://theruthinstitute.locals.com/support
Transcript
(Please note the transcript is auto-generated and likely contains errors)
00;00;00;00 – 00;00;26;09
Dr. Jennifer Roback Morse
Domestic violence is one of those topics we don’t want to talk about. It’s intrinsically icky. In fact, most of us most of the time, actively avoid talking about domestic violence. Hi everyone. I’m Doctor Jennifer Roback Moors, founder and president of the Ruth Institute, an international interfaith coalition to defend the family and build a civilization of love. But guess what?
00;00;26;11 – 00;00;48;29
Dr. Jennifer Roback Morse
We got to talk about it. Domestic violence harms the immediate victim and creates ripple effects throughout the whole family system. And besides, if those of us who love and respect marriage don’t talk about it, we might end up leaving that whole field to the enemies of marriage by default. And we certainly don’t want that. Today I’m delighted to have Jenny Dubay as my guest.
00;00;49;02 – 00;01;19;29
Dr. Jennifer Roback Morse
Jenny is a Catholic trauma informed life coach. She specializes in Christ centered healing from domestic abuse and relationship betrayal, with a degree in Catholic theology and numerous certifications and coaching trauma, domestic abuse and much more. Jenny is uniquely qualified to help Christians heal from their wounds and to be made whole again. I realize you might find this issue troubling, but I do think you’re going to benefit from this very frank conversation.
00;01;20;02 – 00;01;38;17
Dr. Jennifer Roback Morse
If you’ve been traumatized by domestic violence, either as a spouse or as a child witnessing spousal abuse, please be gentle with yourself as you watch this interview. Hit the pause button as often as you need to take a break for as long as you need to. Jenny and I will still be there.
00;01;38;17 – 00;01;41;27
Dr. Jennifer Roback Morse
Jenny Dupay. Welcome to the doctor J show.
00;01;41;29 – 00;01;43;06
Jenny duBay
Thank you. I’m so glad to be here.
00;01;43;09 – 00;01;58;22
Dr. Jennifer Roback Morse
Well, I’m glad that we got acquainted. We kind of got acquainted indirectly through a friend of a friend, kind of a thing. But I’m very interested in your ministry and what you’re doing. So why don’t you two, let’s start by. You tell us about your ministry. What do you do? Whom do you serve?
00;01;58;24 – 00;02;31;01
Jenny duBay
Okay, well, I am a trauma informed Catholic life coach. And what I do is I exclusively, have clients, female clients who are survivors of domestic abuse or betrayal trauma. And I work with them one on one. And I also work in groups. So we have support groups. And that’s through hobbies garden that we just minister to women, helping them heal in a Christ centered way from the trauma of being in abusive relationships.
00;02;31;06 – 00;02;37;22
Dr. Jennifer Roback Morse
And you use the term relationship betrayal or betrayal trauma. Would you just explain what you mean by that.
00;02;37;24 – 00;03;02;27
Jenny duBay
As it’s, sexual betrayal trauma? That is when your spouse betrays you through infidelity, pornography, addiction, or any other, you know, form of infidelity. And and that that’s obviously a real trauma breaks apart families and, you know, as people are trying to heal from that. And, and often couples are trying to heal from that after they get over, like if it’s a porn addiction, the porn addiction.
00;03;02;27 – 00;03;09;09
Jenny duBay
So I just kind of walk with them through that and help them navigate the healing journey.
00;03;09;11 – 00;03;11;05
Speaker 3
In.
00;03;11;08 – 00;03;18;17
Dr. Jennifer Roback Morse
A in Christ centered. That’s very important. Do you do this in face to face or by zoom, or how do you typically operate?
00;03;18;19 – 00;03;39;21
Jenny duBay
I have very, very few clients face to face, unfortunately, so most of them are just so the, the support group. So I also facilitate a support group, through a nonprofit called Hope’s Garden. And so we do all that over, Google Meet actually. And so we have women from all over who join us.
00;03;39;24 – 00;03;40;05
Speaker 3
Okay.
00;03;40;05 – 00;04;02;08
Dr. Jennifer Roback Morse
And so what that means is that you can be a nation wide ministry. You’re not pinned down to to any particular location. Yeah. Yeah. Tell us about some of the training and certifications and things that qualify you to do this. You’ve got a combination of training in that. I suppose you have some life experience as well. Just just tell people why you’re qualified to do this.
00;04;02;10 – 00;04;29;28
Jenny duBay
Well, you know, my degree is in Catholic theology, which I feel is really important to have that theology degree, to have that, you know, firm understanding of what the church teaches and just, you know, because it’s Christ centered, because it’s the ministry is in the church. I just feel that it’s very important. And then as far as my coaching certification, I have many certifications because I wanted to specialize in the, the various areas.
00;04;30;01 – 00;04;56;04
Jenny duBay
So the first one is just a trauma informed, coaching certification. And what that means is that I was trained in learning about the nervous system, dysregulation of the nervous system, how to regulate it. Again. Also various like, attachment styles. So a lot of, like, psychology goes into that type of training just to help with that. The results of trauma and I also have certifications in deconstructing.
00;04;56;04 – 00;05;10;00
Jenny duBay
Gaslighting is what it’s called to just understand the dynamics of gaslighting and how to how to really, navigate that and to avoid being like helping my clients to avoid being gaslit in the future.
00;05;10;00 – 00;05;27;01
Dr. Jennifer Roback Morse
You’re giving them name for something, a name for something that they may be experiencing so that even if it’s going on, you know what to do with it in your mind. You can you can assign it the right importance. You might not be able to stop the person from doing it, but you can assign the right importance to it.
00;05;27;01 – 00;05;36;02
Dr. Jennifer Roback Morse
You can respond to it appropriately because, you know, when you think about a gaslighting is very common in the public square as well. So that that’s a useful skill to have.
00;05;36;04 – 00;05;36;15
Jenny duBay
Yep.
00;05;36;22 – 00;05;44;01
Dr. Jennifer Roback Morse
Yeah. So continue. Continue. I just wanted to say that because that just kind of blew me away. What you just said there. Go ahead. Tell me more.
00;05;44;04 – 00;06;13;21
Jenny duBay
So then I also have certification in specifically in domestic abuse and attachment styles and just all the various aspects that go into it. There’s just so many pieces of the puzzle that I wanted to have that well-rounded education. And then I also have life experience. I am a survivor of domestic abuse. And so that is actually why I started my ministry as as I was healing and going through my own healing journey and reading a lot about abuse on my own.
00;06;13;23 – 00;06;34;19
Jenny duBay
I realized what a need there was out there for really trauma trauma informed coaches, but also from a Christian perspective, because there’s not many out there and there was just such a need. And I just felt that calling to be like, it’s you know, it says in the Bible, we use our suffering. Romans 828, all things work for good.
00;06;34;22 – 00;06;51;04
Jenny duBay
So yes, I had this suffering journey. Yes, I did suffer, but now I just felt like I can take that and turn that into something good. And so that’s what I wanted to do. And so here I am.
00;06;51;06 – 00;06;51;26
Speaker 3
Yeah. You know.
00;06;51;27 – 00;07;12;24
Dr. Jennifer Roback Morse
And then there’s that verse in Colossians where Saint Paul talks about, his suffering making up what is lacking in the suffering of Christ. You would be surprised in the years that I’ve been doing this program, how often that topic comes up, you know, of redemptive suffering and how to use it appropriately because we, you know, we deal with a lot of, you know, some very dark that we deal with beautiful things that the Ruth Institute.
00;07;12;24 – 00;07;35;23
Dr. Jennifer Roback Morse
But also there’s a lot of very dark things that have to be addressed. And, you know, we bring on someone like you because we got to deal with it. People, you know, we don’t deal with it. Who’s going to deal with it? You know, so that that perspective of the the importance of suffering, bearing suffering. Well, and having the suffering itself turn out to be fruitful, you’re not going to find that in your typical secular secular program.
00;07;35;23 – 00;07;52;12
Dr. Jennifer Roback Morse
That’s so let’s let’s talk about domestic abuse. Let’s just get kind of the kind of an overview of domestic abuse, you know, how widespread do you think it is? And and what are some of the ways that domestic abuse is harmful to people, individuals and whole family systems?
00;07;52;14 – 00;08;26;12
Jenny duBay
Yeah, unfortunately, I think it’s more widespread than we realize. And, you know, we do we do live in a fallen world. And, we we tend to think of domestic abuse as physical abuse. But there’s also that emotional level, that psychological level, the covert abuse that is just so devastating to relationships and to minds and to you. And there are, of course, there statistics out there, but it’s hard to really be able to say what the percent, you know, when I start talking about it, then people will come to me and be like, I’ve been through this.
00;08;26;13 – 00;08;53;18
Jenny duBay
I that happened so often to me. So, I think it is more, unfortunately, more common than we realize. And it is it’s very devastating to families, to marriages, of course. I mean, it’s that’s a yeah, obviously to marriages, but to children too, even if there’s no physical abuse involved, that emotional abuse and even if the children aren’t being involved in abuse, let’s say it’s just one spouse is abusing the other.
00;08;53;20 – 00;09;26;18
Jenny duBay
The children still they have they are going to feel it in the home and they will. They just even without really knowing why, they will feel the tension. The abused partner will not be able to give his or her attention to the child like they normally would, because they’re just so consumed in this relationship. And of course, that affects the child growing up and and what they do observe can it will filter into their adult life because it’s like that’s kind of what they’ve been taught or what they see.
00;09;26;19 – 00;09;29;09
Jenny duBay
Right? How they understand relationships.
00;09;29;14 – 00;09;58;15
Dr. Jennifer Roback Morse
Right, right, right. And how they how they perceive the relation between men and women. And, you know, how they model themselves on their same sex parent and how they react to their opposite sex parent. All of that can all of that can turn out to be in the mix. And one one thing that we sometimes hit on when we talk about the issue of divorce is that, you know, the the child in God’s plan, the child is the the expression or the incarnation, you could say, of the parent’s love for each other.
00;09;58;21 – 00;10;21;01
Dr. Jennifer Roback Morse
And so I am half of my mom. I am half of my dad. Well, if there’s some, if they hate each other, that’s like a big thing. That’s a problem. Yeah, that’s a really big problem. And if if you, Yeah. And if and if there’s covert abuse then that’s real, then that’s real confusing. Right. And so a child would need to, you know, to have some way of processing that.
00;10;21;01 – 00;10;33;22
Dr. Jennifer Roback Morse
And we are we’re often not astute, you know, tuned in to the fact that, that that’s a real suffering for the. Do you ever work with children of domestic violence. Does that do those people ever show up on your doorstep?
00;10;33;24 – 00;11;02;14
Jenny duBay
I do not, I don’t, I only work with adults, I do I have, work with like, parents with their children, but not children alone. And, I mean, I’ve had offers, but, you know, just I just feel like my unique strength is adults. So, like, helping adult to heal also helps your children. But just like, more with it’s more like helping the adult to educate the children on what their experience.
00;11;03;17 – 00;11;23;00
Dr. Jennifer Roback Morse
Well, I was also thinking though about adult children, you know, that if somebody becomes aware that this is part of their life journey, you know, maybe from some other process that they’re working on and all of a sudden they realize, you know, that really wasn’t okay. What? Dad, mom were doing that was really not okay. They you they might land on your doorstep.
00;11;23;05 – 00;11;43;17
Dr. Jennifer Roback Morse
I’m going to say that now. Everybody watching it. This is part of your story. You could you can at least call her, see what’s going on. You know, she she could, help you sort out some of those things that are that are the unique product of, of that kind of that kind of experience. So just tell me, tell me a little bit about what kind of person does land on your doorstep.
00;11;43;19 – 00;12;01;27
Dr. Jennifer Roback Morse
You know, who reaches out to you? Is it is it exclusively women, or mostly women? And how old? What religion? Just tell me. And maybe there’s no typical, but. But to tell us the typical and tell us the range of who comes to you.
00;12;02;00 – 00;12;30;09
Jenny duBay
There really is a typical, because a lot of my clients, I have a Substack blog, and I’ve also written a book and a lot of my clients come to me from my writing and in my writing. I do write from a female perspective, and I and I state why, that’s my unique strength. I feel that I and I better serve my clients, sticking with that clientele that that is my strength so that I can really.
00;12;30;14 – 00;12;57;13
Jenny duBay
Because men who are victims of domestic abuse, yes, their healing journey is very similar and they go through very similar things, but they process things differently by nature of their gender. They are different. They think that. So I just don’t feel like it’s my strength to to have them as clients. I have a colleague who, he handles like when I had, men come to me, they’ll say, here’s, here’s my colleague.
00;12;57;18 – 00;13;00;09
Jenny duBay
He can help you. So it’s not like I leave them high and dry.
00;13;00;09 – 00;13;17;22
Dr. Jennifer Roback Morse
Yeah. Well, so that’s really that’s really good to know for for a couple of reasons. That’s good to know. You know, one is that I think I think everybody who works in this area knows that there is some, female on male domestic violence. It’s not as common is not talked about as much. And there’s a particular shame for men.
00;13;17;25 – 00;13;33;25
Dr. Jennifer Roback Morse
And, you know, I’m feeling that there that is unique to men, I think, you know, I mean, the shame there’s shame for both men and women if they’ve been victimized, but they think, like you said, they they experience it differently. So I think it’s a good thing to state that, you know, so that people know that we know.
00;13;33;28 – 00;13;52;11
Dr. Jennifer Roback Morse
Right. And that. Jenny. Jenny, if if this is something that’s a factor in your life, Jenny does know somebody who can help you. And I think it makes complete sense that you would specialize in either men or women. You know, I’m also aware I’ve also become aware because of other kind of work that I do, that same sex couples experience domestic violence.
00;13;52;11 – 00;14;21;16
Dr. Jennifer Roback Morse
And in fact, according to some data, it’s worse. You know, there’s more and and it’s it it’s very violent. And it matter of fact, the person that I interviewed not long ago, who was an ex lesbian or, you know, who had this whole she talked about her journey of healing. Right. And in her experience, I can’t remember how this came up in the conversation, but in her experience, she knew somebody, who had actually the the couple broke up and the one of them murdered the other, you know.
00;14;21;16 – 00;14;38;29
Dr. Jennifer Roback Morse
So, so it’s it’s a thing, you know, it’s not simply all men abusing all women all the time. Like you might some people might create that impression. This is a broader thing in each aspect of it has its own thing. But but yeah, yeah. Just tell us more.
00;14;39;02 – 00;15;08;23
Jenny duBay
Because it’s quite centered healing. My clients are exclusively Christian. I’m Catholic myself, so the vast majority of my clients are also Catholic. But then I have some who aren’t, but they are Christian, which is important because I, you know, he’s crisis, our divine physician. I can’t heal without Christ, so I can’t lead them through that healing journey without without bringing in his divine mercy, his love, and his desire for us to heal.
00;15;08;27 – 00;15;14;24
Dr. Jennifer Roback Morse
Yes. Yeah. If you were exclusive with married couples, or do you sometimes work with cohabiting couples?
00;15;14;26 – 00;15;34;21
Jenny duBay
I work with the cohabiting couples. If they come to me. Most commonly it is married couples. And then. And then, like you had mentioned previously, I also work with with adult adult children, you know, victims of, of, family of origin trauma. So that as well.
00;15;34;23 – 00;15;57;19
Dr. Jennifer Roback Morse
Oh good. Okay. Yeah I didn’t, I didn’t catch that before. The fact that you deal with this from a Christian perspective. And in your description you talk about a Christ that’s Christ centered. And the people who endorse your book are all, you know, and they have some kind of affiliation, some kind of religious affiliation and stuff. Why is the distinctively Catholic perspective important from your perspective?
00;15;57;23 – 00;16;17;17
Dr. Jennifer Roback Morse
What? Why that why Catholic? I mean, I know you’re Catholic, I’m Catholic. We we’re Catholics because we believe it. We wouldn’t be Catholics otherwise, but but there’s something about it from your for what you’re doing, you have a view that there’s something uniquely beneficial about that approach. I want you to spell that out for people so they know what you’re talking about.
00;16;17;19 – 00;16;42;20
Jenny duBay
Well, in the Catholic Church, marriage is not just marriage. It is a sacrament. It is holy. It is sacred. It’s actually a sacrament. And so the Catholic Church teaches that marriage is indissoluble. So a lot of people who are in abusive relationships think, okay, that means I’m stuck. The Catholic Church says, I have to stick to just being abused the rest of my life, which is not what the church teaches at all.
00;16;42;23 – 00;17;07;16
Jenny duBay
As a matter of fact, the U.S Catholic bishops have a document called when I Call for help, which will really, explains what the Catholic Church teaches. But what I found in my own healing journey in trying to, you know, make sense of this and understand exactly what the church teaches, is that as I was going through it myself, at first I really didn’t know.
00;17;07;16 – 00;17;27;04
Jenny duBay
I’m like, did the church have any documents? Is there any? And I found them online. But it took a lot of time to find various homilies, to find the USCCB document, to find other documents. I took my time to do that, and I thought, you know, a lot of people don’t have this ability or this time to do it.
00;17;27;06 – 00;17;55;17
Jenny duBay
So what I did is I created a website, Create Social Space dot net, and basically put all these resources together for Catholic people, because understanding the dynamics between the sacrament of marriage and what the church really teaches is important, and also understanding if they’ve had to divorce. What is an annulment? Do I call, you know, just all those different aspects that are unique to the Catholic faith because the marriage is a sacrament.
00;17;55;20 – 00;18;11;15
Dr. Jennifer Roback Morse
Okay. And so the sacramental perspective is one aspect of what the church offers that’s unique and that’s very important. But I think there’s another whole, whole aspect that to my mind. But by the way, this is what the book looks like. Y’all. Okay. And you can see I’ve read it because you see all my little tabs here.
00;18;11;15 – 00;18;28;23
Dr. Jennifer Roback Morse
Okay. But where I’ve marked cool stuff that’s in here, one of the things that comes through, really, on every page is that you have a view of the human person, you know, and the Catholic Church has a view of the human person. What does it mean to be human? What’s going to make us happy? You know, why are we here?
00;18;28;26 – 00;18;43;11
Dr. Jennifer Roback Morse
You know, all those type of questions are deeply implicated in this issue of how you address domestic violence. Can you speak to a little bit of that, make some of that implicit stuff explicit for us, if you wouldn’t mind?
00;18;43;14 – 00;19;21;22
Jenny duBay
Well, that’s really getting into Saint John Paul, the Second theology of the body, which is a magnificent, magnificent, I’ll going to call it a work of art. It is just beautiful and really teaches us the dignity of the human person, which shows us how we deserve to be treated, and also how marriage and relationships about mutual self-giving. So mutual self-giving is when when you’re in an abusive relationship, there isn’t that, you know, there’s one partner taking in the other giving, but there’s no mutuality.
00;19;21;22 – 00;19;52;23
Jenny duBay
So the church really stresses that, along with like, like you said, the dignity of the person and what it truly means to be married. So again, this is all and it’s in the book, the theology of the body is too much to get into here, to, you know, express exactly what he says. But I really put it in the book because it’s so important to understand the true beauty of the human person, the human body, and how we bodily share that there’s a gift to share with another person.
00;19;52;23 – 00;20;08;02
Jenny duBay
And if that other person is taking that gift and throwing it aside, or, you know, abusing it, or that to understand that they never to understand how God created us for more. He didn’t create us for abuse. He created us for mutual self-giving.
00;20;08;05 – 00;20;30;04
Dr. Jennifer Roback Morse
Right. And that mutuality is important. When you really examine the passages, we’re going to talk about the clobber passages here a little bit, you know, because you have a whole chapter on abused by abused by Bible verses. We’re not only abusing each other, we’re abusing the Bible here. But if you really understand the teaching, in a sense, the man, the stronger party has, the bigger burden.
00;20;30;04 – 00;20;56;25
Dr. Jennifer Roback Morse
He has the bigger obligation in a way. Right? Because if you’re if you’re a strong, if you’re strong, it’s your obligation to use your strength in service, you know, to much to those to whom much is given, much is required. You know, that’s a whole that’s a that’s part of Catholic culture that goes back centuries, really. You know, that the guy at the, the, the top banana, the head enchilada doesn’t get to do whatever he wants, you know that.
00;20;56;27 – 00;21;14;12
Dr. Jennifer Roback Morse
You know that. That’s a lot. That’s all part of the picture is that that that comes through really on every page of your book. And so I want to emphasize that to people that, you know, the, the understanding of the human person, dignity, the human person, why we’re here. We’re here for love. We’re here for mutual self gift.
00;21;14;16 – 00;21;37;18
Dr. Jennifer Roback Morse
We’re not here to grab all we can. We’re not here to, you know, abuse other people so that we can be gratified. You know that. No, let’s get this basic thing right. And Jenny does a really good job throughout this book of dealing with that kind of thing. You know, the Catholic tradition also has rules, and a lot of times people think the rules are harsh and the rules are a problem.
00;21;37;20 – 00;21;56;00
Dr. Jennifer Roback Morse
And so one thing you do again throughout the book is you have you kind of look over your shoulder at those rules and explain them and stuff, but for the benefit of people who are not Catholic, or the forbidden people or people who are Catholic and maybe don’t understand this, but the rules are there for reason.
00;21;56;03 – 00;22;08;22
Dr. Jennifer Roback Morse
There’s a good that they’re trying to protect, tell explain people to people, you know, some of them the, the Catholic rules and, and why they’re there and how they’re supposed to be used.
00;22;08;24 – 00;22;33;20
Jenny duBay
Yeah. I’m glad you mentioned that. You know, a lot of people think it’s well, it’s repressive, right? It’s all the all the rules, and the rules are actually there for our freedom, for our personal freedom, because we are here to grow in virtue. So they actually make us more free because they teach us how to be virtuous and how to live the life that God intended when he created us in his image and likeness.
00;22;33;20 – 00;22;54;00
Jenny duBay
And because of the fall original. For we can’t do this on our own, we do need guidance. We’re like little children now, you know, we need these, these, these, these rules, these guidelines which are absolutely beautiful and put in place for our well-being. You know, it’s it’s like, a parent will have rules in their household for their children.
00;22;54;00 – 00;23;23;21
Jenny duBay
If they don’t, their children are going to grow up to be terrors, right? They’re going to be abusers because, you know, right. And be because they just that no, no boundaries, nothing. So the church has these rules to guide us, you know, so one of them pertinent to my book, for example, is the rule of chastity. So that is a Catholic rule.
00;23;23;24 – 00;23;33;04
Jenny duBay
Couples are to remain chaste in their relationship. And a lot of times I bring this up. People like Chase are married. I did because I confuse celibacy with chastity.
00;23;33;08 – 00;23;35;20
Speaker 3
Celibacy, right.
00;23;35;22 – 00;24;04;29
Jenny duBay
Engaging in any sexual activity, sexual relationships for the sake of God. So a priest, for example, is celibate. But chastity within marriage, I think for me, that’s like one of the primary rules, because that means being faithful to your spouse. And that is a rule that’s kind of counterintuitive to today’s secular world, because we’re so ingrained in even like just watching regular TV or things like that.
00;24;04;29 – 00;24;32;04
Jenny duBay
People make jokes about pornography, or you see ads that are, you know, soft porn or so pornography is a huge, huge pornography addiction problem, epidemic. But someone who has a pornography problem is not being chased in their marriage. Being chased in the marriage is just being with your partner exclusively, which means not just in mind and not just in body, but in mind too, in spirit.
00;24;32;07 – 00;24;35;00
Jenny duBay
And more totally.
00;24;35;02 – 00;25;01;19
Dr. Jennifer Roback Morse
And you know, if you think of chastity as a virtue, what you’re really saying is that chastity is rightly ordered sexual conduct. Right. Whether it’s behavior or thoughts, feelings. You know, chastity is about rightly ordered, rightly integrated sex, you know, like taking the sexual urge and using it the way it’s intended to be used. And so when you when you open it up that way and think of it in those terms, then that is a much richer way of looking at it.
00;25;01;19 – 00;25;28;21
Dr. Jennifer Roback Morse
Then you realize that the sins against chastity are or are more than you might think, and therefore the benefits of chastity are greater than you might think. All of the prohibitions are protecting some good, you know. So you were saying no to something so we can say yes to something else. And so the yes here is, to be fully available to your partner, to to your spouse, to your partner, to, to be to be fully a gift to your spouse, that’s the good that you’re protecting.
00;25;28;24 – 00;25;46;04
Dr. Jennifer Roback Morse
And so that that’s why you say no to certain things. The other big Catholic rule that freaks people out is the idea of permanence of marriage, that marriage is indissoluble. So talk to people a little bit about that. Now, a lot of Ruthie’s are going to know very well why marriage is indissoluble. Because it’s for the good of the children.
00;25;46;05 – 00;26;04;20
Dr. Jennifer Roback Morse
You know, the child is the the child is permanent. Doggone it. Your union needs to be permanent because you’re both invested in that child. You know, that’s kind of a crude way of putting it. But, but, but there’s more to it than that. Talk to people about Indissolubly and how that plays into the whole question of domestic abuse.
00;26;04;22 – 00;26;21;25
Jenny duBay
Again, that goes back to the sacrament, that marriage is a sacrament. And it says in the Bible, the two shall become one. And so that is truly what it’s about. It is joint. It’s not just, okay, we’re going to get married, we’re going to join our households, make join our finances. It is we’re going to join our souls.
00;26;21;25 – 00;26;58;00
Jenny duBay
We’re going to join ourselves. Two shall become one. And at the altar in front of the Eucharist, in front of Christ, we are promising to be faithful to this person forever. We’re making a vow to Christ and that in in the sacrament is indissoluble because of the sacredness of it, the permanence of it because of again the two shall become one, because that is so biblical as far as how that interacts with domestic abuse, we have to understand what the sacrament is.
00;26;58;00 – 00;27;17;27
Jenny duBay
And the Catechism of the Catholic Church talks about the criteria for a marriage to be sacrificed, a sacrament that has to be in place at the time of the vows, for example, full consent. So you have to have full consent. Now, a lot of people would say, well, I, I gave full consent to get married. I didn’t have a, you know, gun to my head.
00;27;17;27 – 00;27;40;13
Jenny duBay
And I was up at the altar. I my question a lot of times to my clients is, well did you get you did you give full consent to be abused because at the time of the vow, most likely they didn’t know that their partner because that usually comes out after. Or if they did, they weren’t eating the red side, the red flags yet or you know, so did you actually consent to that.
00;27;40;13 – 00;28;07;28
Jenny duBay
So we that’s why in the church. So the code of canon law states that if you are in an abusive or dangerous situation, that you can remove yourself. Yes. If someone in that situation has to divorce, that’s what the beauty of the annulment process is all about, because then the church can view can really take a look at that marriage and say, was it a sacrament from the beginning, or was it not because all these other things were in play?
00;28;08;01 – 00;28;21;24
Jenny duBay
And if not, then they can say, okay, this this wasn’t a sacrament, it’s okay to remarry. And it’s not, you know, it’s that marriage is indissoluble as long as the sacrament is intact.
00;28;21;26 – 00;28;42;28
Dr. Jennifer Roback Morse
Yes. An annulment is not a Catholic divorce. It is not that. And that’s the confusion that people have. And there are a lot of reasons for that confusion that we’ve talked about on other shows. But but the point is, a declaration of nullity is a statement that no marriage ever existed in the first place. And and therefore the well, okay, if you’re not married, you know, you’re free to marry again.
00;28;43;00 – 00;29;17;04
Dr. Jennifer Roback Morse
And and you mentioned in here in your book that you had been through the annulment process and you actually found that annulment process to be very healing, because the church asked questions about what happened, in a way that the people typically don’t. And, and I just want to say I had I’ve been through an annulment, too, and I had that very same experience, you know, and this on the civil side of things, people weren’t really very interested, you know, and the church ask questions about things that really mattered that that were substantial and, and so therefore that’s a constructive thing.
00;29;17;06 – 00;29;37;09
Dr. Jennifer Roback Morse
Now the other point that that we should bring out is that you if you if you have to remove yourself from a dangerous situation and, the next the only reason it matters usually for people, I mean, not the only reason, but, often a big reason is can I get married again? If they’re, you know, if I’m divorced, can I get married again?
00;29;37;17 – 00;29;57;20
Dr. Jennifer Roback Morse
If under civil law, yes, you can get you can get married to it. But if you’re concerned about this, there’s any Catholics watching this who may be concerned about it. If you’re not, if you haven’t moved in with somebody else, if you’re not, if you’re a Catholic and you have to remove yourself from an abusive situation, that is perfectly okay for you to do that.
00;29;57;23 – 00;30;22;16
Dr. Jennifer Roback Morse
Totally. Okay. You are not sinning, by doing that. Not at all. Okay. That’s that’s not the issue. The only time it comes up as an issue is if you were to attempt another marriage, then you have to ask the question, was it ever a marriage in the first place? And and so on and so forth. But as long as you don’t marry a contract, another marriage, the church is perfectly fine with you living apart from the person who is abusive to you.
00;30;22;22 – 00;30;38;23
Dr. Jennifer Roback Morse
So let’s put that on the table, you know, right there. Because that’s that’s where you get into all the that whole other range of problems. So it’s, it’s simply not the case that the church says you must stay with an abusive spouse. That is not the case. Right? Jenny.
00;30;38;25 – 00;30;40;13
Jenny duBay
As easily correct.
00;30;40;16 – 00;30;43;10
Speaker 3
Yeah. Okay.
00;30;43;12 – 00;31;02;21
Dr. Jennifer Roback Morse
And you know, one thing that I discovered that I learned this is kind of interesting, like, this guy reached out to me from the Philippines. Philippines is 95% Catholic, so their marriage law was pretty Catholic. And one of the features of Philippine divorce law is, even even if you get divorce and you can only get divorced for cause.
00;31;02;21 – 00;31;22;00
Dr. Jennifer Roback Morse
So they don’t have no fault divorce. But if you get divorced, it’s not automatic that you would have the right to marry again. Okay, so the the civil divorce in the Philippines does not automatically free you for a subsequent marriage. So I thought that was kind of interesting at the influence of Catholic thinking on the civil law. Right.
00;31;22;00 – 00;31;34;01
Dr. Jennifer Roback Morse
And we could do that if we wanted in the US. But, you know, nobody seems to be interested in that. And anyway, is there anything else you want to add about the specifically Catholic aspects of this for our audience?
00;31;34;03 – 00;31;34;12
Speaker 3
Yeah, I.
00;31;34;12 – 00;31;45;07
Jenny duBay
Don’t think it’s just just again, knowing what the church teaches is just so important because there’s just a lot of confusion about that. But, you know, I think we really covered that well.
00;31;45;09 – 00;32;01;03
Dr. Jennifer Roback Morse
You know, one of the things that I think is, that is going to be helpful about your book and your counseling and whatnot is the discernment process that you spell out for people. You’ve got a four part discernment process in one of your chapters, and I think that’s going to be very helpful to a lot of people.
00;32;01;03 – 00;32;07;03
Dr. Jennifer Roback Morse
So why don’t you just kind of walk us through, what are you discerning and, and, and how do you discern it?
00;32;07;05 – 00;32;34;19
Jenny duBay
Well, as far as what are you discerning? You can apply this to anything that you’re you’re discerning, especially, you know, the really difficult, challenging decisions. But this this four part discernment process, I kind of I developed through prayerfully studying the lives of the saints and seeing like how they developed in their their journey towards Christ. And so the first step is just simply to ask, because that’s something that Jesus tells us to do.
00;32;34;19 – 00;32;55;15
Jenny duBay
Ask and the door will be opened. And a lot of times we don’t think to ask, or especially if we’re in an abusive relationship, that there’s brain fog that goes along with all that. We’re just, a constant state of nervous system dysregulation and confusion, and it just causes you not even to think, to ask. But that’s what we need to do.
00;32;55;15 – 00;33;19;12
Jenny duBay
We need to ask the Lord for help, for guidance. We don’t have to ask for anything specifically. Just ask the Lord for help. Lord, come to my help. Make haste to rescue me. That’s just simply opening the door of our hearts. That’s what Jesus wants. He wants us to ask because he’s a perfect gentleman. He’s not going to just walk right in, you know, he’s we have free will.
00;33;19;16 – 00;33;41;13
Jenny duBay
So if we open the doors of our hearts and just ask, just help me. Just leave it at that doesn’t have to be elaborate. Just help me. And after we ask, the next step is that of release. And what I write in the book is this really releasing? So quite so often we will ask for something specific and this is what we want.
00;33;41;15 – 00;34;08;15
Jenny duBay
And of course we know that the Lord will give us. He will answer our prayers, but not necessarily in the way that we ask, because he always answers in the best way. So we have to release that attachment towards okay, here, this is what I’m praying for. This is what I want to happen. It’s like, okay, here, I’ve prayed now I’m releasing that need for my prayer to be answered in the way that I want.
00;34;08;17 – 00;34;27;09
Jenny duBay
It’s going to release everything to Jesus. Just give it to him and then surrender, which is, and accept surrender to his will. So release is something we do like externally. We just release our stuff and then surrender into God, into his.
00;34;27;09 – 00;34;28;08
Speaker 3
Will.
00;34;28;11 – 00;34;47;06
Jenny duBay
Try really just again going back, you know, we can think, we think of these stages not like one, two, three, four, but like circular. We go back, go around back, so we surrender and then ask it. We usually ask him for the grace to be able to fully surrender because that’s a hard that’s can be scary, right? It can be really.
00;34;47;08 – 00;35;15;26
Jenny duBay
So, you know, asking him for that grace to fully surrender to his will and to whatever he wants for us, and when that will end. And and again, going back to ask, asking for the eyes to see, the eyes to see when he answers those prayers in hell, especially if it’s not in the way that we had intended or wanted, and one that prayers answered because it always is the next.
00;35;15;26 – 00;35;37;10
Jenny duBay
The last step is to act because we don’t just be, oh, we’re going to pray and then sit that he wants us to be active in our lives. He wants us to to be full participant in our wounds. We really have to make that so act. So we’ll use the instance of an abusive situation. So the next step of act can be okay.
00;35;37;14 – 00;35;57;08
Jenny duBay
Is the Lord calling me out of this relationship or is he calling me okay. I’m still in this relationship, but I still need to heal. I have to, you know, acting can be joining a support group, joining a community, seeking out the help of a priest or a trusted loved one or some self-care, or, you know, it doesn’t have to be this big, huge, huge, magnificent act.
00;35;57;09 – 00;36;10;01
Jenny duBay
It’s the little things that really help us along that healing journey. And again, it can be just self-care, taking, taking care of the self for once. But once we hear that answer, we really need to act upon what God’s will is for us.
00;36;10;04 – 00;36;29;15
Dr. Jennifer Roback Morse
And you know, when I read this, I. I’ve never been involved in domestic violence. So I, you know, I don’t I can’t connect to it on that level. But I was thinking one of the biggest traumas in my life and one of the things that was the opposite, opened the door for a whole spiritual journey was a journey of infertility.
00;36;29;17 – 00;36;46;12
Dr. Jennifer Roback Morse
That that I had been a lapsed Catholic for years. You know, I thought I knew better than the church, and. Okay, now I’m ready to start a family. And I had it all planned out. And of course, it didn’t happen on my terms. And so to to to start by asking, that was a huge that was a huge step.
00;36;46;12 – 00;37;09;20
Dr. Jennifer Roback Morse
You know, the fact that I would even think, oh my gosh, I can’t handle this. Please help me. Somebody help me. Oh yeah. You. God, yeah, I remember you. Help me, you know, but but then then the release when you said release. And here’s what I, what I thought of was letting go of the outcome. I don’t know what the outcome of this is going to be, because I can’t control all the things my fantasy was.
00;37;09;21 – 00;37;33;00
Dr. Jennifer Roback Morse
I could control everything. Like I could control my PhD, you know? And that’s not the way it works, especially when kids are involved. Right? But I’m going to release the outcome and for somebody dealing with a difficult person, you you’re not in charge the outcomes. You can’t control what they’re going to do. So you release the outcome and then you surrender to whatever is the next step going to be.
00;37;33;02 – 00;37;53;09
Dr. Jennifer Roback Morse
And the act, the action. It seems like the action. Tell me if I’m wrong, Jenny, but I would include under action simply different pattern of self-talk, you know that, okay. He’s being an idiot. He’s saying mean things because I have difficult, but I have no domestic violence and nothing. But I have difficult people in my life. I think a lot of people have difficult people.
00;37;53;09 – 00;38;16;08
Dr. Jennifer Roback Morse
But, you know, one way to deal with that is to say, okay, he’s talking to me like this. I’m not required to believe everything he says. I’m going to just let it sit out there and, you know, I’ll think about it a little later. Or, you know, maybe he has something of value in what he just said. But but for now, I’m going to just I’m going to distance myself from it so I can be protected so that that’s a kind of action.
00;38;16;10 – 00;38;23;27
Dr. Jennifer Roback Morse
That’s a kind of action. Do you train people to do that type of new self-talk in these situations?
00;38;23;29 – 00;38;27;02
Jenny duBay
Oh yes, oh yes, definitely tell us.
00;38;27;02 – 00;38;31;06
Dr. Jennifer Roback Morse
So tell us about it. Oh, I didn’t hear if you give me a few examples.
00;38;31;09 – 00;38;54;19
Jenny duBay
Okay. So a huge, huge part of my ministry is being, a facilitator at Hope’s Garden. So if anyone’s interested, just Hope’s garden.com. We are a dynamic online community. The mission is just healing hearts, marriages and families. And so we, you know, we get together for prayer. We get together for support groups. We get have, you know, a forum where we can just talk.
00;38;54;19 – 00;39;17;11
Jenny duBay
It’s a beautiful, beautiful community. For Catholic women, for Catholic men, they have one called net of Hope. But through Hope’s Garden, we have a program. It’s called the Christ Program. And Christ actually stands for I can’t remember what it stands for, but there’s, you know, there’s meaning in that title, but it is basically restructuring your thoughts to take all thought captive for Christ.
00;39;17;11 – 00;39;45;11
Jenny duBay
So the Christ program is based on dialectical behavioral therapy, which was a therapy developed to to really, help your help, retrain your thoughts and create new neural pathways so that it was actually created for suicidal patients. So really like Marshall Linehan created it. Yeah. Because she would he took her own suffering and then created this this whole program.
00;39;45;11 – 00;40;15;10
Jenny duBay
But it’s it’s a secular is what is wonderful called DBT dialectical behavior therapy. But it’s secular. So what Laura or Balina, who’s the founder of Hope’s Garden, did a she took her own, you know, personal training experience with DBT. And she made all of the skills Christ centered. So we have various it’s like a six part video series comes with a workbook and each one is ways in which you can retrain your thoughts.
00;40;15;12 – 00;40;32;19
Jenny duBay
Just like even just thinking opposite. So like, you wake up and you’re like, it’s a miserable day. I can’t get through the day. I can’t catch yourself and be like, here’s some blessings that I have today, but I can, you know, thank you. That’s just what there’s too many skills to get into. But it’s just a beautiful program.
00;40;32;19 – 00;40;48;26
Jenny duBay
And I work with clients one on one. So we do that together. And then we also work in groups through Hope’s Garden. We have groups at work, which is really powerful to do the Christ program in a group and get feedback from other people. It’s a beautiful way to heal. It’s amazing. It’s just absolutely amazing.
00;40;48;28 – 00;41;08;15
Dr. Jennifer Roback Morse
And so I want to go back to the domestic violence case specifically now, okay. Because this discernment, this discernment process that you’re talking about a lot of times for somebody who’s suffering with an abusive partner, their big discernment is, what am I going to do in this relationship? You know, you have an intuition that something’s not right.
00;41;08;17 – 00;41;31;25
Dr. Jennifer Roback Morse
But you’re not sure because of gaslighting. You might think it’s your fault. And you may, and there may indeed be some something that that you’re doing that you shouldn’t be doing, but trying to sort that out, that’s what that’s why you have it in your book, right, is to try to figure out how am I going to deal with this abusive situation.
00;41;31;27 – 00;41;51;10
Dr. Jennifer Roback Morse
Help us see it specifically, give us a typical client you know who would come to you. What might she describe to you where you would go? You know what? It’s time to discern. You know it’s time to use this product. What what would be the kinds of things that would be going on in her life? And how would this process help her take some positive steps?
00;41;51;10 – 00;41;53;15
Dr. Jennifer Roback Morse
Just spell it out for us.
00;41;53;17 – 00;42;23;03
Jenny duBay
Well, the first thing to recognize is that abuse is it’s a pattern. It’s a pervasive pattern. So I mean, if someone came to me and said, my husband and I had a fight and he called me this bad name and I’m like, okay, well, we have to see a pattern. Is this a pattern? And when there’s this ongoing pattern, I help clients to recognize that pattern, recognize what’s going on, recognize the different aspects of abuse.
00;42;23;03 – 00;42;43;04
Jenny duBay
So you have okay the gaslighting. So if there’s a situation where, gaslighting is basically trying to change your reality, like, you know, something’s happened and they deny it, you know, and so I what I will help clients, they’ll be like, I know this happened and just have them talk it out and be like, okay, you know, just explain what happened.
00;42;43;04 – 00;43;03;02
Jenny duBay
How do you how can you discern that? You know, you know, you know that you’re actually being gaslit in this situation and just showing them the various tactics of that, also helping them. It’s quite often, like you said, like, oh, how do I know I’m not to blame, right? So there’s a lot of blame shifting and projection and abusive relationships.
00;43;03;04 – 00;43;36;20
Jenny duBay
So showing them, okay, here’s here’s an incident. This is what I’m hearing you say. And I’ll repeat back to them what they just said. And I’m like, can you see now the dynamic of he just blamed you for something that he did or, you know, things like that, teasing out to them ways in which there is subtle abuse that they might not be recognizing because of the gaslighting, and helping them because when they can start to see the various tactics, then when it’s going on in their life and they’re not, you know, face to face with me, but it’s something is happening, then they can, like you said, put an end to it and
00;43;36;20 – 00;43;55;03
Jenny duBay
be like, okay, now I can recognize he’s just blame shifting again. Or, you know, this is projection and this isn’t I know, I know what happened. And I know I didn’t say, you know, just so helping them to really understand the dynamics of what’s going on is so important. And that’s really the beginning is just that understanding.
00;43;55;05 – 00;43;57;20
Dr. Jennifer Roback Morse
So that’s where it starts. Okay.
👉 Watch the full uncensored video on Rumble or on Locals
Know someone who needs to hear this? Share this post. The truth heals.
Have a question or a comment? Leave it in the comments, and we’ll get back to you!
Subscribe to our YouTube playlist: @RuthInstitute
Follow us on Social Media:
https://www.instagram.com/theruthinstitute
https://www.facebook.com/TheRuthInstitute
https://theruthinstitute.locals.com/newsfeed
Press:
NC Register: https://www.ncregister.com/author/jennifer-roback-morse
Catholic Answers: https://www.catholic.com/profile/jennifer-roback-morse
The Stream: https://stream.org/author/jennifer-roback-morse/
Crisis Magazine: https://crisismagazine.com/author/jennifer-roeback-morse
Father Sullins’ Reports on Clergy Sexual Abuse: https://ruthinstitute.org/resource-centers/father-sullins-research/
Buy Dr. Morse’s Books:
The Sexual State: https://ruthinstitute.org/product/the-sexual-state-2/
Love and Economics: https://ruthinstitute.org/product/love-and-economics-it-takes-a-family-to-raise-a-village/
Smart Sex: https://ruthinstitute.org/product/smart-sex-finding-life-long-love-in-a-hook-up-world/
101 Tips for a Happier Marriage: https://ruthinstitute.org/product/101-tips-for-a-happier-marriage/
101 Tips for Marrying the Right Person: https://ruthinstitute.org/product/101-tips-for-marrying-the-right-person/
Listen to our podcast:
Apple Podcasts – https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-ruth-institute-podcast/id309797947
Spotify – https://open.spotify.com/show/1t7mWLRHjrCqNjsbH7zXv1
Subscribe to our newsletter to get this amazing report: Refute the Top 5 Gay Myths https://ruthinstitute.org/refute-the-top-five-myths/
Get the full interview by joining us for exclusive, uncensored content on Locals: https://theruthinstitute.locals.com/support
About the Ruth Institute
The Ruth Institute is a global non-profit organization, leading an international interfaith coalition to defend the family and build a civilization of love.
Jennifer Roback Morse has a Ph.D. in economics and has taught at Yale and George Mason University. She is the author of The Sexual State and Love and Economics – It Takes a Family to Raise a Village.
To get more information or schedule an interview with Dr. Morse, contact media@ruthinstitute.org.
Refute the top 5 Gay Myths With Our Ebook & Get Our Newsletter
Join us on Locals for exclusive content*!
*Censorship free!
Get all of our video content on Rumble*
*Also censorship free
