Married to a Pedophile: The Secret Chamber

Posted on August 29, 2013 by Clara Hinton

Thanks so much for visiting this blog! You have no idea how much your presence means to me. I feel like I’m connecting with friends and people who understand, and we share a common goal – protecting our children and helping stop this horrible cycle of child molestation.

If you’re new here, please be sure to start here. This is an easy read – I write straight from my heart and you won’t find any fluff. “It is what it is.” I’ve found that’s the only way I can write.

We left off with our move to Pennsylvania following John being fired from his job as youth minister in Oklahoma. I’ll be upfront with you and let it be known right off the bat that this was not a place where I wanted to be. This area of the country is known as snow country. It has mountains and long, cold, dreary winters. I grew up in Southern Jersey right along the shore and my heart will always be connected to the ocean.

Worse, though, than the location was the situation. I was sickened at the thought of being a preacher’s wife. I struggled so much with low self-esteem issues and now I knew without a doubt that I was going to live under the scope of eyes watching my every move as well as every move of my children.

John’s one promise to me had been that we’d never be a preacher’s family, yet here we were – committed to doing just that. We were now officially part of this thing called “ministry.” John had not prepared for ministry. He was a business major gone sour. He couldn’t keep up with the math classes. So he changed his major, and then persuaded his professors to create a title for his specialized course — Religious Education. He was the first student at Oklahoma Christian College to graduate with this degree. Talk about manipulation! Continue reading →

Married to a Pedophile: We’re Off to Pennsylvania!

Posted on August 23, 2013 by Clara Hinton

The last post I wrote about did me in. It drained me. So many of you that I know personally ask me the question, “How do you do it? How do you keep it all together?”. Well, the honest answer is sometimes I don’t. Some weeks I go to work and work as long and as hard as I can to avoid alone time with my thoughts. It’s too painful to go there. This life that I’m now living — alone, and the father of my children in prison for the remainder of his days on this earth — is definitely not the life that I prayed about since I was a kid. It’s not the life I asked God to bless my children with — not even close to my prayers for them or for myself. And, yet the harsh reality of it all is that this is the life we now have. It’s up to me to learn how to pick up the broken pieces and go on with some kind of grace and strength. It’s up to me to try my best to keep it together for my kids and grandkids that I love with every ounce of my being. It’s up to me to love myself enough to build some kind of a life that can serve as an example to others who also are going through the fires of hell on this earth — and I am convinced there are many who suffer through horrible pain every day of their lives.

That being said, thank you so much for continuing on in this journey with me. What was it like? What was it like living with a man who was a practicing pedophile for almost forty years? How does it feel to know now what I didn’t know then? Continue reading →

Married to a Pedophile: Year Two is Harder Than Year One!

Posted on August 10, 2013 by Clara Hinton

This week has been a horribly heavy week of grief. Rather than picking up where I left off last week in this journey of being married to a practicing pedophile for almost forty years without knowing it, I thought I’d get a few things off of my heart. Sometimes the pain gets so bad that we just have to release some of it.

This week was bad. The tears would not stop. I work in the field of supporting families who are going through the grief of child loss, so I knew that year two would be worse than year one in this grief of finding out that the father of my children — the man I was married to– was a practicing pedophile for almost fifty years. But I wasn’t prepared for the flood of emotions that would come pouring from deep within my soul.

This week was John’s birthday. I thought I had worked through most of the emotional wreckage of John’s arrest and conviction for child molestation. But, I was so very wrong!

It’s strange to say, but prior to hearing about John’s investigation, I honestly didn’t know what a pedophile was. I had never spoken the word, nor did I ever talk about child molestation. It was a topic that was foreign to me. So, when I first learned that John was under investigation for child molestation I went into a state of shock. I couldn’t imagine in my wildest dreams that he would commit such acts. Deep in my heart I knew it was true. The red flags as we’ve been discussing for several weeks were there. In fact, by the time of his arrest, he might as well have been wearing a sign that said, “Child Molester.” He was so caught up in what he was doing that he got sloppy. He didn’t cover all of his tracks. Several of the children he was molesting began speaking out. They were telling. But, he was so deep into this perverse, dark life that he didn’t notice. And, he didn’t care.

Thank God he was arrested and stopped!

But, the thing that is so hard to grasp is the level of pain that my children are feeling and the way John treated them as well as all of his church family and the community as a whole. He was wonderful to them! He really, really was! He was kind. He was compassionate. I’ve watched him cry over the hurt and pain of others. I saw him wrestle with how to help families who were hurting financially and emotionally. I’ve seen him sacrifice so much for his children.

And, yet…..this same man….this kind, generous, caring man was also the emotional abuser, all-controlling husband, and the one whose very heart, mind, and body abused countless young children throughout his lifetime.

It’s so hard to try to balance the scales. So much kindness on one side, and so much evil on the other. How can this be? How does this happen?

As I struggled through this birthday week, flashes of the “good John” kept sweeping through my mind. I saw him at the beach with the kids, taking them on walks finding salamanders, barbecuing chicken and burgers for summer picnics. I saw him laughing with the kids and I remembered past family birthday parties — we had so many wonderful family traditions that we carried out for birthdays!

I woke up several times this week in a drenching sweat as I saw him in the courtroom looking at me with a smirk on his face showing no shame whatsoever over what he had done to so many little girls. And, I cried. I sobbed. I buried my head into my pillow and cried until I thought my insides were falling out.

How can so much evil and good come from one person? It just doesn’t make sense! I try to understand it, but it’s so big — so hard — to try to grasp!

I felt lonely and dark and blue this week. I struggled with what to say to my children when I talked with them. Do you say it’s going to be okay when you know it’s not? It’s never, ever going to be okay in the sense of family life as we once knew it.

I felt like screaming so many different times this week, “Where’s the help? Who knows how to do this? How do you travel this journey?” And, so I cried more, and begged God to please feel real to me and to my family and to every little child who is struggling day after day with emotions that are so scarred and broken brought on by the abuse of this man — this kind man and this very evil man.

Brokenness. It’s not a hard word to type out on paper, but when you think about its meaning, it’s one of the most difficult words of all to say.

bro·ken

[ brṓkən ]

no longer whole: in two or more pieces, e.g. after having been dropped or struck with something hard
out of order: no longer in working condition
not kept: not honored or fulfilled

Synonyms: wrecked, fragmented, shattered, cracked, smashed, damaged, ruined, destroyed

And, so I write these words. I did not send them, but I felt them. Continue reading →

Married to a Pedophile: The Mystery of the Elder’s Meeting

Posted on August 5, 2013 by Clara Hinton

Thanks so much for your interest in keeping our children safe from predators! It has been so encouraging to me to see so many of you reading this blog, posting comments, and sharing this valuable information with your friends!

If you are new to this blog, I would suggest you start reading here. It will give you a much better feel for the way a pedophile works very hard to target and ensnare both the child victims as well as the adults.

I’m going to skip over several months of activities in our married lives in order to move on to what I think were the biggest red flags in our almost forty years of marriage. Trust me when I say now that I’ve been reading, studying, talking with victims, and gathering information, there were hundreds of red flags along the way but unless you have some sort of base knowledge of how pedophiles work you will remain naive, like I was, to the pedophilic behaviors happening right before your eyes.

By this time in our married lives, John had graduated college with a degree in Religious Education. He was the first student graduating from Oklahoma Christian University with such a degree. He persuaded his professors to allow him to change his major from business to bible in his senior year of college, and then to go overseas one semester living in Israel with his parents while “studying” (I honestly don’t know how he got this approved yet!), and then when he came back to the states he would need an extra semester of bible in order to get his self-made degree in religious education. As he put it, his job would be to “coordinate bible curriculum” for churches from nursery classes through adult classes on a rotation basis. Sounds pretty good, doesn’t it? Funny thing is he never used that degree! What he wanted to do was become a youth minister! His focus was working with young children!

Notice once again the manipulation of his professors! John was never overtly confrontational but he was quietly stubborn. Once he said something that was it. That’s how it was and he would not back down. Interestingly, he could manipulate the most intelligent of people without them ever knowing it!

I was well into my role as a mother by now, and I loved every second of it. John was away from home so much that I called the church his “first home.” He loved being out with the youth. He no longer had college classes to attend, and he was now officially on the payroll as a youth minister for a large church. He was happy! And, I was happy staying home with my little girl!

Let me insert something here. By “happy” I mean I was happy that I had someone to hold and love and cuddle. I did not get those things from my husband. He remained distant and very quiet with me. It boggled my mind (and at times it still does) when I think of his two very distinct personalities. When he was among the kids at church he was energetic, full of laughter, and always the life of the party. When he was home, he would slump in a chair, his eyes would roll back in his head and he’d fall asleep. Night after night after night I’d wait up for him, but it was all in vain. He didn’t speak to me more than a “yeah”, “no”, “okay”, “I’m tired” and “I’ve got to get up early. I’m going to bed.” It was noticeable to anyone who knew us. I was asked many, many times what was wrong with “us.”

After a while, you just grow to accept that this is how things are going to be. My life and my focus was my daughter. And, oh how happy that must have made John! I had plenty to occupy me right at home in our apartment while he was out and about.

Note: It is not normal for a husband to desire to be with others more than his own wife. It is really not normal for a husband to desire being with church youth more than his own wife and daughter! Mental abuse is real, and it does a lot of harm. I liken it to training a pet. After a while, a pet learns to accept a little pat on the head and not ask for more attention, but that pet is always there ready to shower his owner with affection. I felt dehumanized on so many levels. I felt like a dog who was always begging for crumbs of time and affection. Little-by-little any self-worth that I had was being stripped away. It’s humiliating to beg for affection!

John was busy planning a huge week-long youth event that was to take place at a camp about four hours away from the church. He had a large group of youth going, and a host of parents were also attending as chaperones and bringing their young children. It was going to be a family affair. You guessed it! Just as happened with the New Year’s Eve party, I was not invited to go along!!! Why? John said it would be too hard with me and our daughter there. He said it was his job to keep things going all week-long and he was going to be too busy taking care of all of the details to have to deal with us.

I cried until my heart felt like it was broken in two. We had never been separated since getting married and I didn’t want to be away from the man I loved — not even for one night. This was going to be seven long nights alone! I cried and begged some more, but to no avail. The answer was a firm “no.”

Note: John never, ever raised his voice. He always seemed so “in control” no matter was situation arose. However, he would never bend once his decision was made! This is master manipuation and control at its best!

Something wasn’t adding up. Why were others going as a family but we weren’t? Why didn’t John want me with him? I wasn’t some monster or some nagging wife who would have hung all over him. I just wanted to spend the week with the man I loved!

Instead, John came up with a wonderful plan. “Why don’t you and the baby fly to New Jersey for the week?” “What? How can I handle her on a plane by myself?” He assured me I could do it, so I called home and asked if that would be okay. Somehow my family managed to get together the money for a plane ticket and off to New Jersey we were going during the week of the youth camp.

Note: Never once did John call me during his week at camp! This is a huge red flag! This practice became routine for him throughout our years together. He would go away for a week at a time and never call home, nor would he give me a number of where he was staying. My coined phrase became, “I could have a child dead and buried and you’d never know it. I have no idea how to track you down.” His secrecy was another huge, ongoing red flag!

Timw went by ao slowly for me that week. I missed having John home at night. Strange, you might be saying. But, not really. I had been conditioned to think I couldn’t survive by myself. I somehow felt like this trip was a “punishment” rather than a special treat. We were just two years into our marriage and my strongest desire was to be a great Christian wife and mother. I wanted nothing more. How could I do that when it felt like we were growing further and further apart?

I still remember so many details of that week. I remember that by Wednesday I wanted to go back to Oklahoma early. I would sit by the phone praying that John would call. Even a two minute call would have been fine. But nothing. Absolutely nothing. Not one word!

Finally, on Saturday night my daughter and I flew into Oklahoma City Airport. Sadly, were not greeted by John, but rather were greeted by a lady from church. John was with his youth group, of course.

Nothing felt peaceful or “right.” I felt like I didn’t even know this man who married me. Where was he? Why couldn’t he be there to meet us? Did he miss us? Did he even care? Why did he send a lady from church to get us after an entire week of silence? I felt like our marriage was crumbling. We were drifting further and further apart. In fact, it didn’t even feel like a marriage and I was sick about that. My insides were knotted up and once again the hot tears began streaming down my face.

Note: If something feels wrong, it probably is! Learn to go with your gut feelings, especially when there are obvious red flags dangling right before your eyes!

From the book, “Not With My Child”, ‘ Skillful abusers can easily provide youth with seemingly genuine attention, companionship, love, emotional rapport and a sense of belonging that they crave. Youths are accustomed to spending time alone and are not afraid to be alone with someone they like (especially in a church setting). Parents and protectors responsible for the youths are more than willing to be relieved of responsibilities so that they can have time of their own.’

Please listen carefully to what I’m about to say. John was called into an elder’s meeting on Sunday night after church. I didn’t think anything of it. I thought they’d probably go over the details of the week at camp. When John came home from the meeting he went straight to bed. Little did I know what news was going to be given to me in the morning!

John got up early as usual on Monday morning. He spent his two hours in the bathroom. But, he did not go to work. He said he had some news to tell me. “I was fired last night! Those elders are total jerks. They said I’m not communicating good enough with the kids or their parents, so they fired me as of last night.”

I was in shock. Total shock. His life was those kids and the church. How could those elders do that to him? Why would they do something so wrong to a man who gave so much to the church? I pulled him close and sobbed, but he would have none of that. He said, “I don’t need them. I’ll find another job. We’ll just use this as our chance to move back closer to home.”

Notice the control? Notice how I stood by him? Notice how I didn’t press him for answers? I sided right with him saying the elders were horrible men to do that. Never, ever would I have questioned if something went wrong during that week! This is what total control over a person does! He had masterfully contolled me just as he controlled the children he molested throughout the years. I stood up for him — not questions asked!

As I look back now, there were patterns that had formed already. John was permanently kicked out of Boy Scouts. I never learned why. He was kicked out of church camp. I never knew why. He was fired from a previous job working at Wilson Meat Company. I never knew why. Something was very, very wrong, and it would be almost forty years until I could begin to put the pieces together!

Grooming. Control. Manipulation. Mental abuse. All of these are characteristic of pedophiles.

Thank you so much for following along on this journey of me being married to a practicing pedophile for almost forty years without know it. Please pay close attention to the intertwining of events, the red flags that were overlooks, and the tightening control over the years. Sadly, I was the perfect mate for a pedophile! I have cried millions of tears over this, and I pray that nobody else will ever fall into the same horrible trap!

For the children, let’s get educated! For the children, let’s stop this type of control and abuse! For the children, let’s not allow these predators to ever get to our children again!

Next week we will talk about the job search and our move. In the meantime, please keep your eyes open. Be aware of the things that just don’t seem right! Ask questions. Speak up. Speak out. Set boundaries. Keep your children safe!

Love,

Clara

PS It is my sincere belief that something happened with one of the children at church camp that week. I believe it with all of my heart! I have tried to locate the elders, but unfortunately cannot. Most (if not all) of them have since died.

Married to a Pedophile: The Missing Wedding Ring

Posted on July 25, 2013 by Clara Hinton

Thank you so much to all who have been faithfully following along with this blog, and a special thanks to those who continue to share this blog with others. As we learn and grow together about how to spot a pedophile in the grooming process before sexual molestation takes place we are taking some very real steps towards helping to save our children from a lifetime of heartache and struggles.

Please note that this continuing story is not written by a professional counselor or any such person that proclaims to have a degree in sexual molestation behavioral therapy. I am a woman who was married for almost forty years to a practicing pedophile and I didn’t know it. It is my heart’s passion to share with you the information I now know that were “red flags” that I should have recognized. It is my intent for you to learn from my experiences so that we can prevent pedophiles from committing their heinous crimes against children.

If you are new to this blog, please begin here. I’d like you to get the full story so that you can understand just how crafty pedophiles are. You might already be sucked right into this web of manipulation and maybe there is something here that is said that will click with you and empower you enough to stop the perpetrator in his tracks!

Let’s pick up where we left off last week. John and I were the proud parents of a baby girl. She was beautiful and so special. Even though John didn’t seem to have the social skills to know how to treat me he was very at home when with our baby daughter. He talked to her, he played with her, and he seemed so openly at ease with her. In fact, it didn’t take me long to feel a slight bit of jealousy of the attention he was able to shower on her with ease while he seemed to be cold, unfeeling, and emotionless when around me.

My world seemed upside down in so many ways. The man I loved was so affectionate and different with others — outgoing, happy, talkative — when around children and his church friends, but when he was around me he was withdrawn, gloomy, and out of touch. You have no idea how many times I tried to greet him at the door with a hug — a simple hug — only to have him say, “Please don’t touch me like that! I don’t like that. It gives me a weird feeling like I can feel my blood being squeezed through my veins.”

I have no idea what that was all about, but after trying time and time again, I finally backed off and learned John wasn’t a hugger — except with children. He literally pushed me aside and would remove my hands from attempting to give him a hug. How degrading! How humiliating to continuously be shoved aside!

Even more odd to me was the way John showered attention and affection on kids at church. My goodness! There was no holding him back. He tickled, he squeezed, he picked up and twirled kids around, and he loved rough-housing with them!

NOTE: It’s normal for adults to interact with children, but there are safe boundaries. If you see someone moving beyond the normal boundaries using unusual touching, extra close hugging, propping children up on their shoulders, or rolling on the floor using tickling techniques consider these all red flags!!!

I’ll give you a prime example of what I’m talking about. John was now well established with the church as their fill-in youth pastor, and soon-to-be full-time youth pastor. The kids loved him. He was fun! He was full of jokes, and he was always coming up with new, creative games for them to play — all in the name of “church youth activities” to keep the youth group active and alive. The more fun they had, the more they wanted to go to church. That made their parents happy, and they would host youth parties, and allow John to take the kids on special youth outings. *NOTE: Can you see how easy it is for pedophiles to work their way into the “trust” of parents at church?

John often brought kids home with him to hang out and have fun. He seemed to have a knack for finding the shy kids, and one boy in particular that I remember was an asthmatic who didn’t have many friends at all at church. In fact, he was a rather thin, very short boy for his age who was pretty much a loner. John was his hero.

One Saturday afternoon during the summer John went to the church building while I was giving our baby daughter a stroller ride. The next thing I knew, I saw him driving up to the apartment with this boy in tow. As I walked to the apartment John announced (he never asked — always “told” me), “Hey, Tom’s gonna spend the afternoon with me. We’re gonna practice playing ball and we’re just gonna hang out for the afternoon.”

“Fine”, I thought. But, really it wasn’t fine. It would have been nice to spend a fun afternoon together — just the three of us. John never seemed to have time for “family” — it was always the church first! This youth pastor stuff was driving me nuts. He practically lived at that church building. If he wasn’t there he was “hanging out” with kids from church having fun. “Hey, that’s what the parents want me to do. That’s my job. I need to make church fun for these kids.”

So, this boy and John went into the yard that was part of our rental. Since the windows were open I could hear the loud laughter and squeals coming from outside, so I went to the window and just stood in shock. Here’s this man who nearly plays dead when he’s near me and who pushes me away because he doesn’t want to be touched. And, what do I see? He was on the ground, rolling around, tickling this boy, grabbing him from behind and lifting him up onto John’s stomach (very, very weird to me). And, John got him in some kind of arm lock and had this kid tight up against him and they did rolls all across the yard! There I stood watching this craziness from the window all the while thinking, “This is not tossing a ball. This is a big bunch of nonsense!”

In looking back, I can now see the huge red flags all over the place. I know that John’s “preference” at stated in his investigation and conviction was “young girls”, but I have no doubt in my mind that he did his fair share with little boys, too. This is not uncommon for pedophiles to experiment with both sexes until they find the “sex of choice.”

During those hours of horse-play two things happened. That boy had a severe asthma attack and I had to get his mom on the phone and ask what we were to do. He literally couldn’t breathe and he didn’t have his asthma inhaler with him. She was furious! Absolutely furious as she said she had given her son explicit instructions he was to be kept quiet and to stay inside. The Oklahoma heat was detrimental to his asthma.

The second thing that happened was John lost his wedding ring that afternoon. That’s how much rough housing was being done! I’m talking about more than two hours of tickling, rolling together in the grass, tossing this kid around, lifting him up and down, grabbing and holding him until he was so sick that he had to be given a special treatment at the hospital to get air in his passageway.

Life was very fuzzy for me at that time. Fuzzy in the sense that nothing made sense. I saw a man I was married to who was like two different people. He was the glum, quiet, man who ate and slept at home, but rarely contributed to any conversation except to answer in “yes” or “no” words to my attempts to get him to talk to me. His mind always seemed preoccupied with others. At this time in our married lives, his focus was that church youth group. I’ll be honest with you. I was sick of hearing, “I have to go spend time with the kids at church.” I often felt of the church youth group as his adulterous affair, and come to find out, I wasn’t off-base with that thinking!

The “other John” was this crazy, funny, comedian who entertained young teens and children with his jokes, who was loved and adored by the parents of these kids, and who always seemed to charm people. He wasn’t shy or quiet at all when in this type of group situation and it truly baffled me.

NOTE: John did not feel at all bad or apologetic about the boy getting the asthma attack. In fact, he told the mother, “I told him he needed to calm down, but he was too excited. He should have known better.” The mother ended up yelling long and hard at her son. The son just looked at John and never said a word. He had already been groomed enough to not speak up. He craved the attention and affection of John. There was no dad in this home, so the mom was more than willing for John to serve as the male role model in her son’s life.

John did not at all feel bad about losing his wedding band. It would be two years until he replaced it — only because I kept after him. I was a newlywed, for Pete’s sake, and I wanted others to know we were married! I searched on my hands and knees outside for hours trying to find his ring. It was the sentiment that meant the most to me. That was the ring I placed on his finger the day we were married. The emotional loss meant nothing to him. A few years later he went to JC Penney’s to purchase a cheap band in order to keep me quiet. Again, I felt like our marriage was low on this list of his priorities. The more he pushed me away and the more he diminished the importance of our lives together, the more I focused my attention on our daughter. She always had a smile for me. She loved to be hugged. She filled in the gaps for the emotional bonding I was not getting with my husband. Not healthy for any relationship, by any means!

So, what does all of this mean in terms of how to identify a child molester? Where are the red flags?

There are many! John had an almost “giddiness” about spending time with the young kids from church. He neglected his wife and daughter in order to spend time away with others. This is a huge red flag! His priority should have been at home!

He was two different personalities — outgoing, fun, the life of the party with those he was trying to impress (in this case, this was his “grooming” time). At home he was distant, did not talk, private, and very unaffectionate. This drove me about crazy! It made me feel once again like an “ugly, unattractive, wife.” Often, he looked at me with a look that I could only call disgust. Sadly, I spent many hours sitting at home crying as I held our baby close. She was my only comfort at this time.

John thrived on being a hero to others! Beware of this!!! A husband should be a hero-type to his wife first. All others (except God) should come second. This was never the case in our marriage.

His tickling, touching, and game playing went well beyond normal boundaries with children. Again, stand back and watch for this because it is a big clue that is often overlooked! There are right and wrong ways of interacting with children. A pedophile’s hands are quick! They have studied long and hard how to touch in erogenous zones in order to arouse the child without the child knowing. Later on this “touching technique” will be used to proceed ahead to further sexual stimulation while making the child feel responsible and guilty. This one thing causes life-long problems for victims of sexual molestation — being groomed to feel that they are responsible for this sexual exploitation and molestation.

Our married life was broken. I felt alone. We were not communicating. John was distant. He had a quiet, controlling way of making me feel belittled and ashamed that I wasn’t the wife I should have been. I was wrecked — “damaged” as he often called me. A term I would learn was part of a pedophile’s vocabulary. He often reminded me that I came from a broken, dysfunctional family and I didn’t know a good relationship from a bad one. There were days I felt like I was crazy. And, that is just how he wanted it!

Next week we will talk about his job — the mystery of the “elder’s meeting” and the lies that were told to me!

Thank you so much for following along. Often, we really do feel crazy for questioning the motives of others, but I can’t repeat it enough. If it doesn’t feel right, it probably isn’t. Pay attention to your gut feelings!

Emotional abuse is very intentional, and it cripples your ability to think and to take action. Once you’re caught in this horrible web of intentional abuse, it’s so hard to find the strength to get out — and that’s just what the pedophile is counting on! The weaker you get, the stronger the pedophile gets!!

Let’s be smarter! Let’s get educated! Let’s look for those red flags! Let’s speak out loudly! For the sake of the children, let’s stop these molesters in their tracks!

Thank you for reading. Thank you for sharing this blog with others. Thank you for caring enough to get educated! For our children, we must stop child molesters in the grooming stage — before they reach our children! And, that means being smarter than they are. Together we can do it!