Is he the child of a nasty divorce, or something else in his childhood flipped the sociopath switch?

the sad but honest answer is he is terrified of losing the perceived status of having a wife and he would rather not have to worry about his behavior losing him that status.

I mean, I'm the child of parents who went through a nasty, long and drawn out divorce and it was still better than having my parents together when they clearly hated each other. Don't stay in abusive relationships for the kids, folks! We never wanted you to!

he grew up very poor in a very broken home amongst a lot of violence, and it shaped him unfortunately, into a broken vessel

He gets into how incredibly messed up his childhood is in the book, but one easy indication is that he's had three different surnames (belonging to his biological father, his mom's third husband [out of 5], and maternal grandfather, respectively) as a direct consequence of his unstable upbringing.

He hates his mother, and he's pretty open about that in his book!

Yes, there is definitly something #sociopathJD is hiding..it can't just be his upbringing from a strict grandma

His grandmother literally liter his grandfather on fire and he acts like this relationship is something to which we should aspire.

His parents divorced when he was small, then his mom divorced his stepdad and got strung out on pills, and he and his sister went to live with their grandparents. He has serious mommy issues, and once you know that about him, his extreme misogyny makes even more sense.

Yes, his childhood notably difficult.