This story reflects Dr. Betty Price’s interview with Terrance Dean and was written for the Michigan FrontPage, a Real Times Media publication.

Over 20 years ago, I started getting letters from women of various churches who were having illicit affairs with powerful married ministers. Then my phone started ringing off the hook. I didn’t know why these women were reaching out to me. I think it was because they were captivated by the televised preaching of my husband, Dr. Fred K. Price.

Dr. Betty R. Price was born Betty Ruth Scott on Feb. 9, 1934 in Gloster, Miss. In 1943, at the age of nine years old, she, along with her siblings and parents, moved to Los Angeles. In 1952 she graduated from Dorsey High School where she met Frederick K. C. Price, whom she later married on March 29, 1953 at the age of 19. Drs. Fred and Betty Price have four children and five grandchildren. Their marriage has spanned 50 years.

Recently I received two anonymous letters within a week apart. Both women shared that they are involved with very high-profiled men. As I read their letters I sensed their deep regret. They expressed that they never intended on being involved with a minister and each woman was seeking a way out.

The first letter was from an older, mature woman. She’d just bought a condo but lost her job after 25 years. Her self-esteem was very low and she reached out to her bishop for counseling. They’ve been having an affair for over three years. The second woman works side by side with her pastor. They began spending long hours together. Now, she is desperately trying to get out but doesn’t know how.

Both of these women know that what they are doing is wrong but don’t have the strength to leave. The ministers have threatened and coerced them into believing that if they left they would be dishonoring God. But both women expressed they were benefitting financially in the relationships. After reading those two letters, my daughter told me that I had to write a book.

I wrote “Warning To Ministers, Their Wives and Mistresses” to help young ministers so that they won’t allow the trappings that their positions bring to make them go in a different direction than what God has planned for them. There are women who come to church specifically for the purpose of sleeping with the minister and in my book I share the anonymous letters from these women who are having affairs with their pastors.

I also want to help other first ladies and women who live right for God and who do not have affairs with married men. I really want to shed light and bring it to the forefront because this secret is very harmful to the church. I want to let people know that the inappropriate actions of some ministers do not happen in every church. Moreover, I wanted to share my story and my experience.

This woman came into my and my husband’s life like a whirlwind. She called herself a prophet and every day she told my husband that she had a prophecy for him from God. At the time my husband was very interested in hearing things from God because he was new in the ministry. This woman always wanted to see him after church and talk with him alone and my woman’s intuition kicked in. I recognized what she was up to because this woman always had a word of prophecy but nothing she ever said ever came to pass.

My husband, however, was caught up. I knew he wasn’t doing anything with her physically because I was taking care of him at home. But this woman was very charismatic. She even enlisted her friends to give prophecies to my husband.

I kept telling my husband that she was not a prophet. I told him, “You’re spending too much time with someone that is not your wife. It does not look good.” But he couldn’t see it. He would get upset with me whenever I would say something. I was very hurt by it because he could not see what she was doing. He figured that she was spiritual and of God. He said he did not have a lot of people to talk to so I told him to talk to God.

At the time this woman was really overweight but then she started to lose the weight trying to get his attention. Then she started dressing like me. Finally, I had enough and I told my husband that I was not going to church anymore. In all my years of attending church I had only missed one Sunday service. I had to get him to see how serious it was for me. Most women would go after the other woman. I never did. I would never run after a woman. No, never. I tell women to go after him. If he doesn’t listen to you and see what it’s doing to you, then you leave.

I was strong enough to go to him and I knew I was a good wife. If it would have kept up, I wouldn’t have stayed in it. When I didn’t go to church he realized what he was doing and stopped talking with her. He cut it off and the woman finally left. They all leave when they can’t get their way.

In my situation it didn’t get a chance to go as far as him sleeping with another woman. I recognized that something was wrong and I spoke up and my husband listened. However, it was enough for me to know that something could go further.

It bothers me on many fronts to know that ministers have mistresses sitting right up in the church. Some have had children with these women and some leave their wives. I have talked to a lot of women and they say all the churches they have been in the ministers have been unfaithful and run around. I personally know so many that it’s scary. These women know what they are doing and I wrote the book because I want to expose the type of men, and women, who do this.

Where is God in their life? What is their commitment to God? Where is their conscience? They don’t think of the consequences and devastation it causes their families, their wives, their children and the church.

(Warning To Ministers, Their Wives and Mistresses is available online at www.faithdome.org.)