Brandon remained the children’s father, and he was granted scheduled parenting time, because the court ruled — correctly, I believe, however much it stung — that a man’s cruelty toward his wife does not, by itself, prove that he is unsafe with his children.

Those are two different questions, and a court that muddled them would eventually harm as many children as it protected.

What Brandon had done to me was ugly.

It was not, on its own, evidence that Lucas and Amelia were in danger in his care, and the court declined to pretend otherwise.

But the children were not ordered back to the marital home.

Their temporary primary residence remained with me.