Former wife of a pedophile preacher speaks up

[EowynW]

I've been reading this story, shared on the blog A Cry for Justice. 

I have shed so many tears over this story. The  sick, twisted teachings of Lori Alexander and the church contribute to women feeling powerless and enabling wicked men in these situations. 

 

 

http://www.findingahealingplace.com/2013/05/15/chosen-to-be-a-child-molesters-enabler-the-beginning-of-my-story/

[purplepeony]

That poor woman. I found the 1 in 2 girls and 1 in 6 boys being abused before 18 as an amazingly high number though. I followed her source for these stats and it was a blog that just states them without evidence also. Does anyone know if this is a realistic figure?

[livinginthelight]

Numbers vary wildly of course because so much is unreported. But as a mental health professional I've been most commonly told in seminars that the statistics are approximately 1 in 4 girls and 1 in 6 boys.

[slp]

Her son travels around speaking out against sexual abuse now. Jimmy Hinton is his name I think.

[Carol]

 I read approximately 20 of her blog entries, that was all I could stomach.  It's really hard for me to have much empathy for her.  Her writing reminds me of Jill's...dramatic, blaming and loaded with excuses.

I get that people can overlook odd or disturbing behavior for a time, maybe many years.  But 40 years?!  There were red flags, early on, all over the place...getting caught in parks, spending all his time with children, being told that girls were no longer allowed to visit their house, getting caught looking at child porn, knowing he had a history in his teens of looking at child porn, having a locked room that no one could enter except him??  IMO she buried her head in the sand and didn't try to look deeper into what was going on.  And all the while she bore child after child knowing her marriage was shit.

My empathy is with his victims and his children, very little for her.

I also felt she was trying too hard to sell her blog.  The whole thing is sickening.  

[livinginthelight]

I've read just a couple of the entries. I have compassion for her desperation to be a godly Christian wife. She clearly had little ability to think or advocate for herself.

The thing I want to point out is, she keeps blaming his behaviors on being a pedophile. And some of his behavior IS because of his pedophilia. But he also sounds very sociopathic. His manipulation and lack of moral compass are hallmarks of sociopathy. Not every sociopath is a pedophile and not every pedophile is a sociopath. She confuses the two.

I'm glad she's speaking out and I hope her blog encourages others to listen to their quiet internal alarm bells.

[hoipolloi]

33 minutes ago, livinginthelight said:

The thing I want to point out is, she keeps blaming his behaviors on being a pedophile. And some of his behavior IS because of his pedophilia. But he also sounds very sociopathic. His manipulation and lack of moral compass are hallmarks of sociopathy. Not every sociopath is a pedophile and not every pedophile is a sociopath. She confuses the two.

I'm glad she's speaking out and I hope her blog encourages others to listen to their quiet internal alarm bells.

These are good points. Her ex-husband sure sounds like a classic narcissist in addition to his pedophilia. 

I don't know that Clara Hinton is any more to be blamed than the mothers who sat in exam rooms while Larry Nasser molested their daughters. She apparently had a terrible childhood & then somehow became enmeshed in a fundie "Christian" mindset & lifestyle which definitely impaired whatever innate ability for critical thinking that she possessed.

If there is a heaven & hell presided over by Jesus, fundie "Christians" will have a LOT to answer for, IMO.

[EowynW]

1 hour ago, hoipolloi said:

These are good points. Her ex-husband sure sounds like a classic narcissist in addition to his pedophilia. 

I don't know that Clara Hinton is any more to be blamed than the mothers who sat in exam rooms while Larry Nasser molested their daughters. She apparently had a terrible childhood & then somehow became enmeshed in a fundie "Christian" mindset & lifestyle which definitely impaired whatever innate ability for critical thinking that she possessed.

If there is a heaven & hell presided over by Jesus, fundie "Christians" will have a LOT to answer for, IMO.

Emotional abuse also warps your critical thinking skills. There are tons of stories just like hers over on various survivor blogs. It messes with your head and you start to wonder if you're the crazy one, after all. These abusers are masters at their craft. 

[Four is Enough]

What caused her to reevaluate, I wonder? I only read the first entry.

[hoipolloi]

2 hours ago, Four is Enough said:

What caused her to reevaluate, I wonder?

Reevaluate what? 

The tl:dr of the many, many blog entries is that her submissive fundie Christian personality was a great cover for her husband's pedophilia of which he took full advantage, being a master manipulator, like many pedophiles. He began spiraling out control (and becoming more obvious) during the last couple of years of their marriage when they were separated. He was finally caught when a former victim came to see her & then her son, pastor Jimmy Hinton. He & she reported her husband to the police.

[Four is Enough]

22 hours ago, hoipolloi said:

Reevaluate what? 

The tl:dr of the many, many blog entries is that her submissive fundie Christian personality was a great cover for her husband's pedophilia of which he took full advantage, being a master manipulator, like many pedophiles. He began spiraling out control (and becoming more obvious) during the last couple of years of their marriage when they were separated. He was finally caught when a former victim came to see her & then her son, pastor Jimmy Hinton. He & she reported her husband to the police.

So at some point something caused her to separate from her husband. Was it physical or mental abuse, or the growing suspicion that he was a pervert?

Why did she believe the victim? So many times, people don't believe the victim when they say they've been molested. 

I'd just like to know more about her thought processes and how she came to the understanding that he was a molester and she needed to separate herself from him. I mean, I'm glad she did, but..how did it come about? 

Her histrionics about "Please! STay away from people like this!" leave me a bit cold.

[hoipolloi]

58 minutes ago, Four is Enough said:

I'd just like to know more about her thought processes and how she came to the understanding that he was a molester and she needed to separate herself from him. I mean, I'm glad she did, but..how did it come about? 

Sorry, but you'll probably have to read through her blog posts to learn all that you want to know.

IMO, the key thing to understand is that the guy is a narcissistic sociopath. From her descriptions, his behavior over the course of their marriage was at best odd and at worst cruelly abusive -- no physical abuse but lots of emotional & psychological abuse. She was a sitting duck for this, given her background & beliefs. It took her a long time to realize that her life with him was very wrong on many levels though she still didn't catch on to the pedophilia. 

Several years before his arrest as a pedophile, he was sentenced in Federal court for taking part in an insurance fraud scheme. According to her posts, he was far more involved and far less repentant about the scam than his court appearance at sentencing would suggest. This was also the point at which she finally went for counseling by herself and through that pulled herself out from under his influence. 

 

[AuLait]

This story has some similarities to my Mothers situation, though my father was not a Christian and didn’t abuse us but his grandchildren. Fundie Christianity made my Mom stay with someone who for nearly 40 years treated her like dirt on his shoe, made her believe she could convert him and change his ways, that divorce was NEVER an option, to only think the best of her husband and to not do so was disrespect. So much got overlooked and swept over because of that mindset. I cannot judge these direct and indirect victims because I saw firsthand how my Mom was fooled for so many years and how in turn we excused my fathers behavior as well. Unlike the bloggers experience, my father did NOT exhibit signs of sexual deviancy but he absolutely had signs of dysfunction and addiction which we wrote off as “bad childhood” “poor social skills”, etc. Later on, after he was convicted of child molestation, we found out that he had a drug dependency, gambling addiction, and most likely has a personality disorder as well. He also had been committing tax fraud and improperly running his business.

[hoipolloi]

4 minutes ago, AuLait said:

Fundie Christianity made my Mom stay with someone who for nearly 40 years treated her like dirt on his shoe, made her believe she could convert him and change his ways, that divorce was NEVER an option, to only think the best of her husband and to not do so was disrespect. So much got overlooked and swept over because of that mindset. I cannot judge these direct and indirect victims because I saw firsthand how my Mom was fooled for so many years and how in turn we excused my fathers behavior as well.

In many ways, this is an accurate summary of what the blogger went through & tries to describe. 

I am so sorry for what all of you went through & hope that you have healed.

[katilac]

Wow, she has balls the size of China calling out Dottie Sandusky. Not the first time she talks about her, but later. She says "shame on you" and that she no longer feels sorry for her, that she has blinders on, and so on. Apparently, she is far superior, because she took off the blinders . . . after her husband 100% admitted that he molested children and did so for many years. That's not taking off the blinders, that's having them knocked off. 

Sandusky did not admit to being pedophile, so Dottie's blinders were not knocked off. Hinton watched again and again over the years as her husband pulled his pants down in front of children and "tweaked" the breasts of young girls, along with the million other freakish acts. She has no reason to feel superior. 

Edited to add link: 

http://www.findingahealingplace.com/2014/11/06/married-to-a-pedophile-shame-on-you-dottie-sandusky/

[BobTheWalrus]

On 2/10/2018 at 2:27 AM, Carol said:

 I read approximately 20 of her blog entries, that was all I could stomach.  It's really hard for me to have much empathy for her.  Her writing reminds me of Jill's...dramatic, blaming and loaded with excuses.

I get that people can overlook odd or disturbing behavior for a time, maybe many years.  But 40 years?!  There were red flags, early on, all over the place... 

I think it's hard to overstate the impact that her life has had on her, and so I have a lot of empathy for her. The brainwashing of some fundie Christian groups, and the pressure to conform, be a good wife, that you husband is the head of the home and shouldn't be questioned, because God has given him the authority to run the family. Put all that together with the way emotional abuse messes with your head, and I feel for her. All those red flags are easy to spot when you're on the outside looking in, but not when you're being manipulated by your own husband.

On 2/11/2018 at 6:33 PM, AuLait said:

This story has some similarities to my Mothers situation, though my father was not a Christian and didn’t abuse us but his grandchildren. Fundie Christianity made my Mom stay with someone who for nearly 40 years treated her like dirt on his shoe, made her believe she could convert him and change his ways, that divorce was NEVER an option, to only think the best of her husband and to not do so was disrespect. So much got overlooked and swept over because of that mindset. I cannot judge these direct and indirect victims because I saw firsthand how my Mom was fooled for so many years and how in turn we excused my fathers behavior as well. Unlike the bloggers experience, my father did NOT exhibit signs of sexual deviancy but he absolutely had signs of dysfunction and addiction which we wrote off as “bad childhood” “poor social skills”, etc. Later on, after he was convicted of child molestation, we found out that he had a drug dependency, gambling addiction, and most likely has a personality disorder as well. He also had been committing tax fraud and improperly running his business.

There's always an excuse, isn't there? Women in these groups are expected to do stuff that even God doesn't do. Converting the unwilling, for example. They're pressured to act a certain way and taught to think that if things go wrong it's their fault for not submitting enough. Or even if it's acknowledged that things aren't right in a marriage, you have to stay because God HATES divorce and how do you know you won't save him by your witness, and anyway you just have to put up with it. And you're not perfect either, so if you don't forgive him Jesus won't forgive you. All used to keep women subservient and quiet.