This blog is about what it was like being married to a practicing pedophile for almost forty years — and not knowing it.  Look at the signs with me — the red flags — that were there all of those years waving at me begging me to look inside.  Get educated with me so that you can learn how to identify child predators before they stop grooming and close in on the child and molest.  If you’re new to this blog, please start here.

By now our house was filled with children, and I loved it!  I was so happy to be a mom that it was easy for me to get caught up in the wonderfulness of motherhood and push aside the lingering pain of so many years of odd happenings, hurtful experiences, and negligence that made up such a large part of our lives as husband and wife.  Sadly, as the years clicked on, I could sense the separation between us growing wider   and more pronounced.

It was now common practice for John to be away all week long working insurance.  I had accepted that as part of our lives.  And, I had also accepted the fact that John was not going to share with me where he stayed, who he was with, or what he was doing.  He didn’t like talking on the phone, so there was usually one phone call a week — and most of the time that was to ask if I could fill out some kind of insurance form and fax it to the home insurance office or asking if I could make some phone calls to clients.

John didn’t talk to the kids while away — I had full responsibility of taking care of things while he was gone.  It was as though I was a single parent — except I was always worrying what kind of trouble he might get into while gone.  He was “my biggest kid” — the one who gave me the most problems.  Laughable at times, and always exhausting!

On this particular night as I remember, I put all of the kids in bed, and I spent some time reading before shutting out the lights for the night.  I had just gotten into a sound sleep when the phone began ringing.  I bolted up in bed to see that it was 2:30 a.m., and that brought immediate panic to me.  Who would be calling me at this time?  It had to be something horrible!  I could feel my body tense and my hands shaking as I reached for the phone in the dark.

“Hello.”

“Hey, what are you doing?”

“Who is this?  John, is this you?”

“Yeah, baby!  It’s been a funnnnnnnn night tonight!  I just thought I’d call to see what you’re up to!”

Something was wrong.  Very wrong.  I could hear loud music in the background and some lady was laughing into the phone.  I listened……wait….there were other voices, too.  It sounded like some kind of party going on.  And, baby?  Where did that come from?  He never called me that!!!

“John, what are you doing?  Where are you?  What do you want?  Are you okay?”

“Heck, yeah, I’m okay.  I’ve been smoking dope and gettin’ drunk!  What are you doing?”

My heart began throbbing like I was going to have a panic attack.  “Where are you?  Are you okay?????”

He was at a bar with a young man who he was training.  John explained, through lots of laughter, that they went out to eat, got bored watching the mice romping in the hotel room, so they decided to stroll across the street to the bar.  Then, he said something that made no sense at all.

“I got drinking.  And, the time got away on us.  We met some chicks and here we are.  I just thought I’d check in on you.”

And, with that I slammed down the phone!

I was fuming mad!  I was steaming!  I was also hurt and confused beyond words.  Who is this person?  Who is this man?  He told me that he NEVER had a drink of alcohol in his life.  In fact, he preached many sermons on the sins of alcohol.  And, he also said he’d never been in bars, and here he was calling me in the middle of the night from a bar.  He told me he never looked at another woman — I was the only one.  And, I heard a woman with him laughing — probably mocking me being for home with the kids.

Nothing made sense.  My head was spinning.  My eyes were pouring out hot tears.  I threw myself down on the bed and sobbed into my pillow so the kids couldn’t hear me.

I don’t know what happened that night in that bar.  To this day I don’t know the facts.  However, I did learn something very important that particular evening.  The man I was married to was a liar.  That particular night was a turning point for me.  From that night on I no longer trusted John Hinton.  I no longer believed what he told me.  He was a liar, and he was a fake.  I wondered what else he was lying about.

When John got home that Friday night I wasn’t speaking.  And, he knew I was upset so he had prepared for that.  He had a lovely bouquet of flowers in one hand and he had a bag of groceries in the other.  “I’m going to cook you a special dinner tonight.  I want you to prop up your feet and relax while I fix you a meal, and we’re going to have a special date night.”

What did I do?  How did I respond?  I think you already know.  I melted.  It wasn’t often that he came home like this after a week away.  Usually the first thing he did was lift the lid to the pot on the stove to see what I had cooked for supper that night.  He made me feel so special that I pushed aside my feelings of anger and enjoyed the evening with my husband.  It felt so good to have him home, and it felt even better to be treated so special!

We ate in silence as usual, but the food was so delicious.  He fixed a seafood pasta meal — my absolute favorite.  After we ate he played with the kids and it seemed like all was well.

But……..deep inside I knew.  I finally knew that something was fake about John.  He was so very different on that phone call.  It didn’t feel like that was a one-time thing to me.  He sounded too happy.  Later on, when the credit card bills came I found out he spent $300 that night.  Money we didn’t have.  Money he should never have spent.  And, money he should never have spent in a bar!

It was that week that I began being very skeptical of the things John told me.  I began journaling my thoughts.  I began writing about the things that didn’t add up.  I began writing them down so that I wouldn’t forget.  When we are in emotional pain there is a coping mechanism that most of us use.  We push the traumatic thoughts of our pain back into a safe compartment in our brain and we lock them there.  I didn’t want to lock my thoughts away any more.  Not this time.  This hurt too much to forget about it.

Much later on — in fact years later — I found out the name of the young man that was with John that night.  I actually met him at an insurance gathering.  And, in our talking I did find out John was in a bar all evening with him, and there was a woman with John — a woman in a red dress.  The young guy laughed, “I didn’t know preacher boy could pack away so much beer!”

I smiled while dying a little bit more inside.  No, this wasn’t the man I thought I knew.  Time and time again he preached about alcohol.  My goodness, he’d never dream of having a glass of wine with a meal.  And, now I heard how much beer “preacher boy” could put down in one sitting.

Of course I’d never connect the dots to this event and child molestation.  But, there was something that holds true for every pedophile.  They are liars.  Masterful.  Manipulative.  Hard core liars!  And, I was married to an expert liar! 

For years that night haunted me.  What else didn’t I know about this man?  Little did I know what was in the future!

In the book, “Conversations With a Pedophile“, Alan (the pedophile) says, “My entire life was built on fantasy and lies.  How else could I get all of those kids to build up enough trust in me?  How else could I have molested all of those years?”

He goes on to say, “Secrecy is the crux of sexual abuse.  Without it, there could be no abuse.”  Please read that over and over again because that statement is powerful!

Open, honest communication is the single most powerful tool we have as parents in protecting our children from pedophiles.  Really listen to your children.  Let them know that they can tell you anything — absolutely anything — and you will believe them.  Trust them.  Unconditionally love them.  If you aren’t there — the pedophile will be!

I hope and pray that something I’ve shared has struck a chord with you.  If you’re living with a liar then something is wrong.  Good, solid relationships are built on trust — not lies.  Start journaling things that don’t seem to make sense.  Refer to your journal often.  It will help you to see things more clearly.

And, above all else, please keep open lines of communication with your children.  They need us!  They need us to listen to them.  They need us to believe in them.  They need us to trust in them.  If we want them to come to us in their time of trouble, then we have to make it clear to them that we will love them always and forever — nothing can change that!

Thank you for reading.  Every week I’m getting so many emails about sexual abuse.  It’s frightening.  We have to stop this and the first step is getting armed with education!

Remember — if it doesn’t seem right, it probably isn’t. Liars never can be trusted!  And, every pedophile has one thing in common — their lives are built on lies!

Thank you — thank you so much for helping me be an advocate for the children!

Love,

Clara

If you have questions you’d like addressed in this blog, please email me at clarahintonspeaker@gmail.com .