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The Preacher
and the Hooker
Chapter IV
How Did I Do It?
Manipulation
It becomes too easy.
I used my ability to please to my own advantage. I was introduced to the word power by Dr. N.P.
When I first heard that word I thought, I never used physical power. I never overpowered anyone.
But, then I realized, I can control an audience, that’s power, that’s control. I used
that ability with prayer to encourage people to come to the altar.
Then a friend of mine made the statement, power can be very gentle. He was correct.
When we use our power to control others we have power over them. When we use our power to control
to satisfy our own wants that is manipulation.
Whenever I found people in need I always helped them. There have been hundreds over the years
that my former wife Julie and I have helped, legitimately helped. But, then there were those that
I continued to help without Julie’s knowledge. This is when my addiction to please took control of
my life.
How
did I do this? I used manipulation and my gift of communication as a power to fulfill their needs to ease
the pain of their hurts and feelings of rejection. The reason my crime was so bad was that I manipulated
in such a way, that the person in need felt they had come on to me, by controlling and manipulating. They
had a need and were even questioning their own sexuality. I misinterpreted their need as a need to be fulfilled,
this I encouraged through manipulation. When I encountered someone who was even slightly sensual, promiscuous
or sexually corse with their remarks, I encouraged it. They responded because I was pleased, and also because
they needed a friend. I bastardized the gift that God had given me for helping, yearning for others and
used my power to gain control.
I so wish that we could have gone for counseling when I first starting having trouble pleasing in the bedroom, but by this
time I was experiencing the terrible feelings of rejection that I could not handle. It wasn’t that
I went looking as I was already helping someone when all of the triggers (rejection, financial problems and opportunity) had
been pulled. My wife did not know just as I didn’t know.
Since they were hurting within just as I was, they may
not know how to rid themselves of this feeling of guilt.
Note: Writers liberty has been taken as to place, time and fine details for the protection of those
involved. Facts as to how I manipulated are 100% true.
Patterns of how to please and finding opportunity to please were set by the time
I was thirteen years old. What brought me to this in my life will be covered in the chapter about family
influences. The common thread in the following cases I did not fully understand until weeks and weeks into
my search. You must look for key words that have become a part of your thinking and your conversation.
The key word for me in all the following incidents are: I can handle it, pleasing (to receive love,
acceptance hoping someone would love me) hurting (people with problems and loneliness) rejection (trigger) rejection (I can
handle it or I handled it) This one put the power in me instead of God (looking to please another after the feeling of rejection
or to elevate the pain of rejection I was carrying inside.) The final common thread in all of these incidents
was there was never intercourse, except with the one I was planning to marry. I never questioned why until
my search for answers (reasons) for my distorted thinking.
After weeks of counseling, the answer came to me. How could I have had a sexual encounter
and never had intercourse? I am a pleasing addict. In twenty four years of marriage
I can only remember asking for sex for myself four or five times. My only thought was for my partner.
My only thought was to please them. How could I ask for something for me? I was
unworthy to receive. The cycle of pleasing others only made me more unworthy which pushed me more to please.
A frown would totally devastate and destroy me. A negative word would drive me harder to please.
I tried to please in finances, so as to buy the world. That failed. Everything
I touched failed. Failed in school. Failed in friendships. Failed
in dating. Failed to please my father.
Through all this failure and the failure I felt as a child, I met Laura. My
mother whom I protected and loved had left my Dad. I had left my school where I had just met a girl who
liked me. The first girl who ever liked me. The first girl who gave me nice letters
was in the seventh grade when we left. Moved to an inner city ghetto for three of four weeks.
I missed school this whole time. Never went out because of the knifings and shootings.
I just got saved several weeks before moving. Lived with Mom and Shawn for four weeks until we left
for the deep-deep South, another 125 miles and we would have been in the Gulf. It was at this time I met
Shawn’s six kids. I had one sister of my own, and really never felt neglected. I
was happy we could help these hurting kids. Five girls and one boy. I found out for
the first time in my life how to go to the bathroom in a corn crib while sitting on a 2 x 4 that was up on two blocks.
There was a well with a bucket for water, which you had to check for snakes before it was brought out of the well.
There was a kitchen, living room and one bedroom. As I recall we stayed one night. Seven
kids, Shawn, Mom and Nee-no-nee . We were so far out of town that the kids got dressed up just for the
long trip into town. The common thread was these kids had been away from their own mother and had been
told she had deserted them. Actually she had been told that if she showed up at Nee-no-nee’s
home she would be shot. Laura had a fall that had caused a deep cut in her arm that had three stitches
in it that had become infected and had to be repaired again when we arrived back in the Southwest. It took
sixteen stitches to close the butcher job the country doctor had performed. Laura was crying in the front
seat because of pain. She did not know my mother and no doubt missed her own mother.
Laura climbed into the back and sat by me so that I could read to her. Laura was several years younger
than I, Laura really liked me and began to be very friendly and calmed down. Mom and Shawn thought that
was great. Hurting, comforting, hugging, then into trying to please with what I thought would make them
like me. Laura my mother told me followed me around like a puppy dog and Shawn and Mom just thought it
was cute. Laura was as I saw it the only person in the whole world who was pleased with me.
I had parallel love. I truly loved Laura and wanted to see her go to church with us and at the same
time I loved how she loved me. She hugged me when we were alone. I learned how to do
things to please Laura. I did special things for Laura. But what started in the car
that I should not have been doing continued from the end of the seventh grade until the end of the eighth grade.
I had read Romans 7:24 where Paul says I do what I don’t want to do and what I don’t want to do I do, oh wretched man that I am.
Over that 2 year period while I was thirteen, fighting started as Shawn drank more and more. Car
after car was wrecked. Shawn held a gun to my mother’s head and one night when Shawn fell into a
drunken sleep, my mother tied him to the bed. The idea was to show Shawn what using an equalizer meant,
as Shawn himself described it. Mom stood over Shawn with a rolling pin, to tell him this is what it feels
like to be helpless. She wanted him to see how he made her feel. Her thought was to
then untie Shawn. It didn’t work. Shawn got one hand loose and grabbed hold of
my Mom. Shawn was drunk and furious with her. Mom in terror defended herself.
I was a horrible bloody mess. Mom ran screaming, I killed him, I killed him, to the house next door
to call an ambulance. When Shawn was taken to the hospital, they all knew him by his first name because
of the many car accidents he’d had in the two years we lived there. A policeman was trying to calm
my mother down. I heard one of them say, You didn’t hit him hard enough. Maybe
if you had hit him harder you might have knocked some sense into his head.
In all fairness to Shawn I would like to state for the record, Shawn was one terrific
guy as long as he was sober. He was fair minded and fun to be with. He would dance with
all of us in our living room. He’d play Hide and Seek with the little ones outside and let out a
blood curdling scream as he jumped from behind a bush like a Cherokee Indian which he was, we all loved him, my mother loved
him, his children loved him, my sister and I loved him and I still to this day say, the word stinkin’ this and stinkin’
that, in my sentences, that I had picked up from Shawn. The only problem was when he drank, which was nearly
every night, at that time he was not the man I just described to you. Shawn told us himself he started
drinking moonshine when he was ten, and was an alcoholic by the time he was thirteen.
My mother hitting Shawn with the rolling pin did not change anything but to make
a mess. I made the kids stay in bed while I cleaned up the blood from the bedroom floor the hallway and
then put the bed sheets into the tub to soak in cold water. There I was again, rescuing my Mom like I had
when I was eight and ten and twelve years old. A house full of kids that were all hurting.
We turned to each other for love and protection. We learned what to say to keep peace and what not
to say to trigger Shawn the giant. The girls learned to say as soon as Shawn came in the door, Can I get
you some coffee Dad? If we could get him to sit down he may fall asleep or pass out. The
object was to get him to bed. We all loved each other and pulled close together. As
we clung together, one thing lead to another, sitting close then touching and touch went to (fondling) them whenever I got
the chance. I did not understand what manipulation was at the age of thirteen or fourteen years old, but
I was fast learning how to please to receive what I thought was love and how to stack the deck in my favor. I
learned while talking with another step-sister (we had not played around) that her younger sister Lynn has been through a
divorce and years of psychotherapy, thinking she had been the cause of all her problems. I was told this
about three years before I started this book and I was crushed, though it had been more than twenty-five years I wanted to
tell Lynn I was sorry. Terra would not allow me to talk to Lynn although Lynn was visiting Terra at the
time. I wanted to tell Lynn I was very sorry.
I got a glimpse at what I had done and this was the beginning of sorrow for the terrible heartache I
had caused through my addiction to pleasing (dependency) to just get somebody to like me. Lynn, I am very
sorry. Please try to forgive me.
By the time I had reached my fourteenth birthday I moved out of my mother’s house using
the excuse about cleaning up blood and fighting. I moved back with my father and my grandmother.
About four years later my mother divorced Shawn and my step brother and step sisters moved to the Southwest to live
with their mother and step father. I tried to stay in touch with phone calls every two or three years for
the first ten years after they left. I truly do love them. I really do miss them but
why would they ever want to see me after turning true giving love that I had into twisted taking love because of my need?
All through high school I dated Christian
girls. The relationships didn’t last long because (I believe now) of my inability to make close friends.
I did date eight or ten girls during those years. Then I met Julie A (Julie A was a high school
sweetheart, Julie B, same first name was the girl I married who again I was madly in love with.) The first
one who like me in return lasted about 2 months but I never let go of her (in my mind) for more
than twenty years. Julie made me feel very good about myself and as I look at it now, Julie accepted me
with unconditional love. I believe now that is why I fell so hard when it did stop. I
never had any kind of sexual thought about Julie A because that, I felt would not have been something Julie would in any way
be pleased with. To my understanding there ain’t a boy alive that ain’t undressed his girl
at least once in his mind. I never did. She was the girl of my dreams, and literally
continued to be the girl in my dreams at least once a year for twenty-two years. I never had sexual dreams
about Julie, just dreams of wanting or trying to talk with her, dreams in which my children always seemed to interrupt just
as we were about to talk. Julie A was the only girl in my life to this day who did not need to be rescued.
We just had fun together. For a total of 2 months.
I fell hard from Julie A. I cried. I shook my head at God and
said, thanks a lot God. I thought Julie was going to be the one to play the piano for me so I could sing
for you, went out and bought a pack of cigarettes and smoked from 1967 until 1993. I felt rejected.
After Julie A broke it off with me
I had some pretty wild fantasies, trying to figure out ways to make her want or love me for maybe a month. Even
thought of an insane way of rescuing her that would make me her hero. The Lord woke my grandmother with
part of the details to cause her to pray. My grandmother knew just enough to tell me how she was impressed
to pray for me. I thanked my grandmother and told her that yes it was the Lord that impressed you to pray.
That was the end of that.
I
needed to rescue somebody else, then there was Dela, one year older than I and hurting. She had been taken
advantage of by some lying sailor on his way to Vietnam. When I met Dela she was seven months pregnant.
I felt so sorry for her but I didn’t date her until after the baby was born. She needed (that
word again) help, she needed a rescuer. Her baby needed a daddy. Nineteen years old
and I was willing. I was ready. Nineteen years old had never had sexual relations, Dela
jumped my bones. (I now wonder about the Navy guy.) I was drafted into the Navy myself
and within three months Dela met another guy.
The next girl to come into my life was my future and first wife Julie B. She had
just been saved the week before I met her. I was high the day I met her (the first and last time).
I came back to the lord again got saved again, as I had been taught I must be. Julie needed me,
I could help her- I could encourage her in the faith. I could help her grow. We were
married for twenty-three years. After three years of marriage and trying to start a construction business,
financial problems, tears and childish behavior in both of us (as I read it now), I began to feel rejections.
But I did not recognize it as rejection. Then, I gave up. Then I had problems
of pleasing Julie. I had problems (as I saw it) of giving her the lifestyle she was accustomed to, a beautiful
house with one inch thick carpets (white). I had seen Dad’s slide show of Julie and her parents in
Europe. I fantasized for years of taking Julie back to the castle and staying with her there.
These fantasies drove me to make my business work. When I was put down for any reason about my business,
it was a put down of my dreams of being able to please Julie with the beaches of the world, as one business promised.
I do not think Julie ever knew although I tried for years to tell her. Everything I do I do it for
you. I bought educational tapes to get my mind working correctly so I could obtain for Julie, Julie told
me I spent all my money on tapes. All the tapes together averaged out to $3.00 a week.. The
tapes would be for her benefit in the end. I now understand it was the fantasies that drove me which made
the rejection hurt even more. I was being rejected in my attempt to do something to please Julie.
By 1981 we had moved to California.
There was no work whatsoever in the Southwest. I thought maybe this was the time to go out and minister
full time. I had asked God’s forgiveness for an episode that happened just before we left which I
thought nobody knew about. This one I also confessed to Scotty and my pastor. I believed
God forgave me and he did. The only problem was (I will explain in a later chapter) I still had no accountability
to anyone. I had not confessed my faults and did not understand pleasing (a dependency) or that rejection,
money problems and opportunity were triggers. My wife loved me in the midst of her own cycle of being a
victim. She found friends to be her rescuers against me the pleasing addict, co-dependant, perpetrator
of her hurts. Julie talked to anyone who had an ear that could give her comfort. Since
I wasn’t able to please her including in bed unless the domains that had all been set up on their ends that made a line
to the bedroom were not knocked down before we got there, then maybe I could perform. How, can I blame
her for needing comfort from her friends. To be short and to the point; we lost our house in the Southwest.
Christ for the Nation told us after we performed there in their Children’s Church, You don’t need to come
here for training, you’re already doing it, go do it. God would not allow it. We
went back for the offering two days later and received $13.00. Julie fell apart with fear and she ran from
the car into a field. I picked her up and took her back to Cedar Hill, our hometown. I
gave up and took a job as a security guard since I had a tense elbow and could not swing a hammer. My father-in-law
back in our hometown believed a man claiming to be a prophet said, God told him that he was to move into our house, rip out all the walls and rebuild it. This prophecy
came to him when he had just left his wife and moved in with a new (because God told him to) woman. He
couldn’t get his mortgage loan for the house, which he had gutted so the bank took it back. The man
gutted the house while still in my name without me knowing it. The bank told me I could move back into
it and just continue to pay and move in. Then I found out from a friend the house was gutted.
I had to stay another year in California because of it.
By this time in my life the triggers were pretty well set.
Betty was a very dear friend to Julie and I. She too was from
the Southwest. Betty had been living in California for some time when we arrived there to enroll at Christ
for the Nations for their training session. Betty had also been attending school in California before moving
back with her family shortly before we moved back. Betty was hurting from a relationship that had gone
sour, while Julie and I were having major problems of our own. Betty and I were two hurting people.
I took advantage of her. I was once again wanting someone to like me. Betty already
liked me, I was the one who was guilty. I had manipulated her, and I got caught. I said
I was sorry, but sorry was as selfish as the prayers of the people in the first prayer in the book of Hosea, I suffered remorse
and sorrow but for the pain I was feeling. I even asked God, and expected God to make it all better in
two days or three at the most. I asked God to forgive me and asked Julie to forgive (Okay all better now,
let’s put it behind us and go on.) I did not seek counseling. I did not confess
my faults to another human being, thereby making myself accountable. I did not understand any of the triggers
of rejection or the triggers of financial difficulties that had made me feel like a total failure and loser. Now
I was a failure to Julie, Betty and God again.
I did ask Betty’s forgiveness and I felt a deep sorrow, because I realized
just how much I had hurt her. Betty did forgive me and we have remained friends in spite of the past.
Betty truly understands forgiveness more than anyone I have ever known. I believe the forgiveness
is what allowed the healing. There has never been another incident nor even a thought of an incident.
By me taking the blame and asking forgiveness I made myself totally accountable to Betty for the wrong.
Leaving Betty free to heal without feelings of guilt. I realize how blessed I have been to have
been forgiven since it is only in Betty’s forgiveness that healing was able to take place in her as well as in me.
I have been welcomed into her home and remained quite friendly with Betty, her husband and their children.
This has helped me understand why God wanted Hosea to forgive his wife as God forgave. It is freeing
to both the offended and the offender.
Though there has not been so much as a temptation in the last 2 years of my life, Julie and I had major problems
in our marriage. The incident with Betty has been brought up on many occasions and used for ammunition
to throw stones in custody battles. I moved to the Southeast in June of 1991 and though I was alone I was
not looking for someone to please. My youngest son and daughter were sent to live with me in October of
1991 and in five years I never had a woman in my house except for a neighbor who brought us a pie. I dated
several ladies two or three times who were very nice and a member of our church. All were after my divorce
had been finalized. Once I got away from Julie the feeling of rejection ended.
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