Sociopaths like to cloak themselves in a mantel of respect. They seek careers, or pretend to have careers, in fields that people associate with good character, trustworthiness, and authority, such as law enforcement, the military and the clergy.
Pursuing a career in religion or spirituality is particularly useful for sociopaths. People tend to trust religious figures simply because they are religious figures, which puts a sociopath several moves ahead when trying to scam someone. A sociopath claiming an inside track to God has a very powerful tool when it comes to manipulating people.
Plus, for a sociopath, a career in the clergy is easy—the primarily visible job requirement is an ability to talk. With typical inborn charisma, and a willingness to lie about other credentials, the sociopath is a shoo-in.
Lovefraud has written about several pseudo-members of the clergy whose behavior has certainly flouted the Ten Commandments:
Anthony Owens claimed to be bishop of a fellowship of more than 100 non-denominational churches, which was a lie. He was married to eight women at the same time.
Rabbi Fred Neulander founded the largest Jewish temple in southern New Jersey. He was convicted of arranging the murder of his wife.
Terry Hornbuckle founded a megachurch in Arlington, Texas. He was found guilty of raping three women, two of whom were parishioners.
Then, of course, there’s Fred Brito, who impersonated a Catholic priest, even performing a couple’s wedding, when he had no religious training whatsoever.
Lovefraud readers have told us of more cases. AlohaTraveler says her “Bad Man” had been a pastor for an Assemblies of God church in Seattle. Another woman has built a website about the real reason a reverend abruptly departed from the First Presbyterian Church of Fort Lauderdale, Florida—an extramarital affair with her.
Fake believers
Even sociopaths who aren’t clergy put religion to work in their manipulation. Here are some examples from the Lovefraud mailbag:
- A woman married a guy who was a “Christian” teacher (her quotes) in schools for 14 years. He abandoned her after six months and started an affair with another woman, all the while talking about reconciliation. She then found out she was his eighth or ninth wife, and he had previously been convicted of bigamy.
- A guy met a woman in a Christian chat room on the Internet. He was in the process of getting a divorce; she claimed she was also. He left everything and moved to her state to be with her. She taught at a Christian school half-days, and would meet him—for sex—after work. She was still married.
- Girl starts dating guy when she is 18. They belonged to the same Christian faith, which did not allow premarital sex; all their dates were chaperoned. When she was 20, they had a fairytale wedding. That night, he raped her, then started gaslighting her, and convinced a doctor that she was crazy, until she ended up on psychotropic drugs.
- A woman’s ex-husband claims to be a Christian minister. “The church is a fraud to bilk people out of money. He helps the other pastor get money from poor people who can’t afford it,” she writes. “When he raped me and tried to kill me, and when he and his daughter broke into my house, well the cops saw him wearing preacher pants and didn’t believe me.”
- Woman meets a guy on a Christian singles site—they both sang, did music ministry, and had an “intense desire to serve the Lord.” They married, started their own church, then she finds out he owed $30,000 in child support and was addicted to hardcore porn. He became physically abusive.
- Woman marries a 51-year-old Catholic school teacher who is an Episcopalian priest, retired military, widowed after 29 years of marriage. Two months into the marriage, his son moves in with them. The son was selling and using cocaine, and her new husband—the priest—was in business with him.
Predators are everywhere
Lovefraud has heard of many more cases in which sociopathic predators were fishing for victims in churches and on religious dating websites. We’ve heard of sociopaths who quoted the Bible, prayed every day, and emotionally tortured their families.
And then there are the sociopaths who use religion as a reason to keep bleeding their victims. Christian religions, and New Age spiritualism, embrace the concept of forgiveness. Sociopaths use this to claim that they’ve “found God” who has forgiven their transgressions, and you should too.
The key point here is that just because someone claims to be Christian, religious, or otherwise spiritual, does not mean he or she is automatically trustworthy. If your instincts are telling you that something is wrong, no matter what the context, pay attention.
Henry, my ex had only one friend who had fathered 6 kids by 6 different women and he punched the women and this man, although in his late 40s is like a kid. I kept thinking – now what would my ex see in a friend like THAT??? Now i realise, it is like finding the meaning to all those odd things they did.
[Quote Henry] “all his friends are new friends, they don’t stay around for long.”
When they first meet him they think he is cool and nice, but very quickly they see he is not nice or cool and is a user and they drop him.
[Quote Henry] “he preferred the company of strangers”
Strangers haven’t yet caught on to him and he can get positive feed back from them for a short time. He has found that people who know him quickly move on, so he keeps his ego intact by a continual meeting of new people for a short time. I think people who hang out in clubs or bars on a regular basis use this as a way of life for socializing because it is all so superfiscial and short term. A perfect hunting ground for psychopaths to latch on to new victims.
has anyone ever read When Your Lover Is A Liar by Susan Foward? this is book is great, i suggest everyone read it. they have a section about sociopaths. if anyone has read it let me know what you think?
Beverly:
You read correctly. This S. did come with a log book of sorts. He gave me three of his journals to read over the last 15 years since he haas been clean. In 1999 he had been with well over 300 women he had counted and just lumped all the dial a date meet ups as one. In 2005, when I met him, he talked of repeating the same behaviors over and over, including all the sex to boost his self esteem and trying to keep the lust under control. Without his knowledge, I have read his 4th step which included a list of women he could remember, what he thought of them and what he got from the sex. He also listed the first, second and third woman that he had hit. He seemed remorseful in his private writings. I didn’ t read any of this until the last couple of months and I have not mentioned any of it to him.
Lib, just because in his “private” writings he seemed remorseful doesn’t mean he wasn’t purposely saying these things to SHOW others. My son was really good at that sort of wrting. FAKE FAKE FAKE. But he was good at it.
I just got home from celebrating one week w/o him in my home. One of the comedians I saw talked about part-time christians, fake men, and how sex and weed rules over Jesus for black men. It was really funny, but interesting to watch all the women laugh who could relate to this and seamingly just accept it.
I then took the rest of S’s clothes to his home. He was there. He left work early because he had “words” with the nurse. Big surprise, he’ll probably get fired from this job too. I didn’t turn the van off or get out of my seat. As he took out the large container of clean, folded summer clothes, the hamper full of clean socks and underwear, he complained and tried to argue about the three trash bags of dirty clothes becuase I didn’t wash them. I gave him the facts on his clothes and didn’t buy into his negative stuff. He called before I got home to apologize for “snaping on me” and wanted to see how I was doing. This reinforces what I need to do. Things really happen for a reason.
Dear Oxy,
You are like a mother to us here, (no reference to age implied :D), so incredibly wise. My heart goes out to you so much for having your own flesh and blood turn on you like that. My first husband was just the same way, even admitted years later that he was plotting to murder me (ya think? he was outright practicing)
I remember lying in bed one night and I got this weird feeling. I opened my eyes, it was black dark that night, but I could hear someone breathing. He had climbed in the window. He climbed onto the bed and pulled off my clothes, then put his hands around my throat. He had done this before as a “joke”, but this time I knew he was not pretending.
Even this attempt on my life was laced with psychological terror. He was reminding me that he could get into our house no matter how much I locked it up, because it was so old and there were so many cracks and broken panes (his work as well).
The use of his bare hands was also a message. When we were in karate class together we all used to play a game where we tried to break raw potatoes by squeezing them. He was the only one who could do it, they would not only break they would explode. He was a carpet man for many years and had the strongest fingers I’ve ever seen.
This time I played dumb, I played along, I pretended he was “only” trying to rape me, (one of his favorite pastimes) instead of murder me. I pretended I wanted sex with this murderous man, and I escaped with my life.
But through it all I had one consolation, my kids were faithful. Sometimes they fell for his lies temporarily, sometimes they were confused about what was true, but he never succeeded in turning them against me.
I have one son who is very much like his father. I am trying my best to bring him up right, trying my best to warn him about the consequences of becoming a sociopath. Sometimes he will take one step in that direction, such as putting me down when he is angry about having to do chores.
This used to hurt me, but now I see it for what it is, he’s trying out the persona. So now I tell him, “Nice try, very much like your dad. I hope for your sake and mine that is not the path you choose in life.. but for now, since you are still under my roof, because you chose to show your anger by disrespecting me, now you are doing double chores. (can only hope it all sinks in, but all his sibs are watching him too.. )
And oh .. Lib.. two thumbs up!!!
Dear Kat,
I hope you are successful in directing your son in the proper path, but if he choses not to take the proper path, the only thing I can say is to cut the string when you recognize that there is nothing else you can do. It hurts to “give up” on your kid, but when they are psychopaths there is nothing else to do. Especially if they go the criminal route. Mine chose that criminal route and it was like he was DETERMINED to go to prison.
I don’t take being called “like a mother” as an insult at all, I enjoyed being a mother, and I still do, but now I don’t boss the kids around as they are men and they “boss me around” now. LOL “Mom, get off that ladder NOW” “Mom, quit doing that you’re gonna kill yourself” “Mom, let me do this, sit down and you can supervise me, but let me do it.” LOL
They tell me if I don’t “behave” now, that when I get infirm, they will put me in a nursing home, take my teeth away and feed me lumpy oatmeal with a straw! LOL
Kat, that must have been very scary for you with your X–I can’t even imagine how you kept your cool through that. I hope he has lost his murderous rage at you.
Lib–so he was mad cause you didn’t WASH all his clothes! OH WELLL!!!!! I hope you’ve got all his stuff out of your house so you don’t have to even answer the phone for him any more. Good going!
kat….how absolutely frightening for you….shows how utterly impulsive they are….maybe he came in with a plan and your quick thinking allowed his childish impulses to forget why he was really there…shudderring!!!!!!!!!
and lib you are a far kinder person than i…….i let him know when his junk would be outside and had a prearranged police car there to oversee his picking up his junk and getting out…..i had just bought him a steve mcqueen tag huer watch and decided NOT to put it in the pile nor the very nice ties i had just bought him and he had the gall to leave a message asking for them….and he was going to get an attorney to get his slot cars back……i had taken many items to the salvation army and perhaps these were some of the things……go ahead..i felt get an atty to get back SLOT cars?? i didnt even know what they were…how childish………..what a jerk……i DID get a letter from a WOMAN atty and responded that they could do what they needed, but common sense says why would i return big item and keep stupid childish slot cars….that ended that……..but oh how much that atty really didnt know