This Associated Press story leads off with Gov. Mark Sanford saying he'd "crossed lines" with lots of other women but never had sex with any of them until he met his Argentine mistress, Maria Belen Chapur. But to me the really interesting nugget is a bit further down:
During an emotional interview at his Statehouse office with The Associated Press on Tuesday, Sanford said Chapur is his soul mate but he's trying to fall back in love with his wife.
The story says the governor and his wife have not lived in the same house for several weeks. She did not respond to the AP story.
I've been trying to imagine how I would feel if the man I was married to announced to the world that some other woman was his soul mate, but he was going to "try" to fall back in love with me. It's been a long time since I was married, and my long-single head is in a very different place now than it was then. Older but wiser, and all that.
I suppose the answer would depend in part on how much I might be in love with this hypothetical husband. But love can die, and I think hearing my husband say that the other woman is his soul mate would amount to a big bucket of ice water dumped on whatever was left of my affections.
The standard apology line in movies is "Honey, she meant nothin' to me. You're still the woman I love." I understand most cheated-on women stay with their husbands. Maybe that's what the husbands say. Maybe the wives believe them.
But if I were Jenny Sanford -- only in her 40s, I believe, still very attractive -- I'd be thinking real hard about long years ahead with a husband who didn't love me, but was just staying with me out of some sense of duty. And then I'd see a good divorce attorney.
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It's not hard to be soulmates when your time together is vacation spots and unencumbered sex,rather than kids, money, work, and the day-to-day monotony of reality.
So, what, if she was in her 50s or 60s and downright ugly you'd recommend she stay with him?
Point taken. But please note that I am closing in on 58 myself. At 58 I'd still leave him.
I was just thinking that she has a good chance of finding love with someone else. Older women who find themselves alone are more likely to stay alone. That's the reality.
And truly he can't understand why wife doesn't accept this with joy.
Still, neither the governor nor his wife should be in this marriage any longer.
You're right Barbara, the hopefully soon to be former Mrs. Sanford is an attractive white woman- that's the problem, too many RepukeKKKans still have jungle fever, a depth shrink's dream case.
Of course, once you stray and are caught, it's pretty much no-win. I have heard from many women that the standard "She didn't mean anything to me!" just makes it *worse*. (The fact that it makes it less worse in the minds of most men is as succinct a statement of the gulf of understanding between the sexes as I think anyone can come up with.)
"Fall back in love with my wife." Why on Earth would anyone want to hang around waiting for that? Yeesh.
Who cheated who and who was in love with who and whether Jenny Sanford should stay in this marriage for the sake of the kids is nobody's business but that of the people involved.
wearing spit-up on one's sleeve and trying to keep all the plates in the air one is not quite as exciting as a paramour who offers full and unconditional acceptance, attention and sympathy. My cheating spouse ended up marrying his soul mate-and guess what-things aren't quite so exciting now that the hard cold light of reality has set in. However, I really like the sentiments expressed by AshKW. Good idea!
Interesting how long THAT lasted, huh?
Another one is:
"..Gov. Mark Sanford saying he'd "crossed lines" with lots of other women but never had sex with any of them..."
That marriage was in trouble a long time before the "soul mate".. I don't know, maybe this was a marriage of convenience for a rising political figure...who is to say?
But now that he's a public figure with a sordid past and present, I would think leaving is a good option. He deserves to be left, and she--no matter what age--deserves happiness and sharing with people who care about her.
People rarely change, which is why I was not surprised to find he'd been over the line many times before. His behavior is not about his wife, or his 'soul mate', it's about him. Given that, looking on the situation from afar, I would wonder why his wife would want him back. Rejection coming not as a matter of cynicism, or rage, or hurt - but simply - that IS who he is. A repeat cheater, and self-deluded fool.
Another thing I've noted - reading the emails, while he calls it love, it's pretty much about sex. Note what HE notes - the tan lines, the soft kisses, the beauty, "your voice, your body, the touch of your lips, the touch of your finger tips ..."
That "deeper connection to your soul" apparently can only be reached via her body.
So much for love.
However, Sanford and other Promise Keepers did. They said: "Behold, I am a strait male who loves my wife unlike you wife-swapping liberals." He invited my discretion into his life by saying they were the standard of morality. He made it my business. When someone says they're a vegetarian, I reserve the right to call BS on them when I see them eating a cheesesteak.
rated
I really think that would have made it easier for me.
I also read this article about their spiritual adviser and his intense bible based boot camp that the Sanfords attended, I forgot if yearly or just one year. Anyway, the spiritual adviser is a trip b/c they are really, really concerned about married men cheating and spend an inordinate amount of time discussing that in boot camp and otherwise. One more weird thing, the Governor's policy is never to dine alone with a woman and to always have the door open in case he was having a meeting with a woman b/c he is so scared I guess of his lust? I dont know.... they need to split up and find happiness elsewhere, live a little.
(No I haven't cheated on my spouse, by the way).
It doesn't make him evil (a hypocrite and lousy husband, but not evil) - rather, he's a flawed human being that screwed up royally.
It is quite possible that this woman is his soul mate - at this time in his life, for whatever reason. That doesn't mean Jenny wasn't his soul mate at the time he married her. We change over the decades.
It's so easy to cast aspersions, to conclude he's just a horndog looking for tail outside his marriage, etc.
He IS cruel and stupid to tell the public anything about this woman being his soulmate. He seems more interested in saving his career than being a real husband to Jenny (see how heroic he is, trying to fall in love with her! /snark).
But none of that means necessarily that he is not actually in love with Maria.
Ever since the story broke I've thought that as a wife, I would be far more hurt by what Mark Sanford or John Edwards did than by the "pay to play" sex of Elliott Spitzer or even (heaven help me) David Vitter.
Sanford put his business in the street by taking off without letting anyone in the state know where he was and using taxpayer funds for his liasons and everything he says makes him look even worse.
He needs to be talking to a psychiatrist, not an Associated Press reporter.
Have we reached the point at which we're willing to talk about this commonality and what it means?
And going forward, he - and others - shouldn't hold themselves up as paragons of virtue when discussing politics.
http://open.salon.com/blog/bobbyg/2009/06/16/to_my_wife
How did I know this? I went through the same thing with my husband Chuck seventeen years ago. Exactly the same, except that Chuck was a big-time businessman and we had two sons, not four. Chuck realised he was madly in love with his (female) stockbroker in NYC (we lived in Chicago), and for a year he carried on a long distance affair with her, seeing her every two weeks on "business trips" to NYC, until I found out about the affair by looking in his briefcase and finding love letters.
Thus began a year and a half period when we tried "working on our marriage" and I tried "winning him back". Months of him sitting weeping in his bathtub at night because he couldn't be with her. Well, you can't win back someone who's madly in love with someone else. Ain't gonna happen. I could tell Mrs Sanford that fact, but I think she's already discovered it. Their marriage is over, done, kaput, and the best thing for all involved would be for him to resign the governorship, work out a quiet divorce, and go off to Argentina and try life with Maria. Maybe she really is the love of his life, maybe she's not, but he really should take the chance and go find out.
Even if the Sanfords stay together - "for the boys" of course - their life will never be the same. He'll always wonder what he missed and she'll know that the same thing can happen all over again.
We ended up getting divorced thirteen years ago - a great thing for all involved - and Chuck and I became very good co-parents and good friends. Our marriage had been crappy before Chuck met Leslie - he was extremely verbally and emotionally abusive - but discovering his true love affair really hit me hard. It was the stone that brought down the house, so to speak. He ended up breaking up with Leslie, after realising they probably wouldn't be any happier together than he was with me. He married, for ten years, a real dingbat he met at the bar at the LA Peninsula (well known hooker hangout). They had a child together, they divorced, and now he's on wife #3, a really cute girl we all like a lot. Hopefully, this marriage will work.
I honestly don't know why I felt compelled to write this. Obviously the pain has worn off after all these years for me - and the pain was excruciating - and I feel sorry for Sanford. Unlike the other hypocritical "Christian Republicans", he really seems like a tormented man. Truly and massively "in love".
Do you go to London or Paris with YOUR "kiddies?" I am in Paris most of the time and would like some hints on where to take my "kiddies." Do you have four "kiddies," like Jenny? Do you like "kiddies?"
May be Jenny does not want to leave that stupid, ignorant motherfucker she married. May be she is sooooooooo stupid to have married a republican fuck in the first place.
Sanford makes my blood boil. He's a total tit. He's ruined his wife's life.
Man, what is the deal with these Republican Christians and sex? Why don't they just admit that they like it? Just like everybody else likes it.
I love the latest-- he needs to remain as governor so he can "learn his lesson." Hey, Mark, you learned your lesson, you just don't want to hear it. Leave your wife and her money, and go be with the woman you love. (Assuming she'll have you now, you pathetic putz.)
i'm normally very big on honesty and candor, but some thoughts you DO have to keep to yourself--or very close friends or your shrink. if you're afraid you don't love your spouse anymore, that is a tough problem, that you do need to work out--PRIVATELY. gawd. what kind of dufus can't get that he has no business saying that.
how much can he be thinking about the feelings of his wife to humiliate her that badly? who would not be embarrassed to have someone publicly proclaim they weren't really that into you but were going to try to force themself? ugh.
what a dick.
Not to mention heiress to the Skil power tool fortune! She'll land on her feet more securely than he, I dare say.
I guess it all depends on whether you're a subscriber to the one soulmate or the many soulmates theory of romance.
He should marry Maria. They'll both get exactly what they deserve in life: she'll get a husband who would cheat on his wife, and he'll get a woman who would sleep with a married man.
Sure, he's trying to save his marriage out of a sense of duty. Even when marriages are in desperate trouble, and people want out, they should try to repair it. But make no mistake. He went AWOL from his job, indeed jeapordized his entire career, to visit this woman in Argentina. He is even now calling her his "soulmate." This is NOT a casual affair, and the likelihood that he is going to fall back in love with his wife is small so long as he is still in love with the other woman.
I agree with Dave that at this point what bothers me is his lack of understanding that what his wife most needs right now is his discretion. Having the whole world know the intimate details of their marriage is not helping their marriage, however good the public confession and contrition may be making Sanford feel.
Intimacy can only happen in private, and when what is private between a couple is shared with others, that is a betrayal of that intimacy. In essence, this press conference is a continuation of the betrayal of his wife. He's still sharing things with outsiders that should stay within the confines of the marriage. He is still "cheating." And in front of everyone.
You'd think that both of the Sanford's would stop confiding themselves to the media. But one of the things I've learned from living in the South is that a lot of Southerners are contemptuous of the stiff upper lip, self-control idea.
You'd think that both of the Sanford's would stop confiding themselves to the media. But one of the things I've learned from living in the South is that a lot of Southerners are contemptuous of the stiff upper lip, self-control idea.
Mark is toast.
Jennifer Sanford is the heiress to the Skil fortune? Well, she *did* marry a tool, after all.
Like I said: sorry.
Ah yes, nothing says love like the threat of violence. Thanks Lorena.
did you know sanford asked his wife for "permission" to visit his lover? now that would have been an interesting conversation.
but the one dimensional media, and one-dimensional humanity, will not grasp the point Im making here. oh well, maybe in 50 yrs.
Hardly the issue, for me, anyway. Consenting adults can do whatever they wish. Key word, "consenting." Moreover, even if -- big stretch here -- Mrs. Sanford had consented to his partaking of paramours, that still doesn't go to the core issue, the one regarding which any of the rest of us have any legit concern: the preening and phony holier-than-thou hypocrisy of a public official who routinely used his political celebrity to lecture others on moral matters.
Priceless. You got no game. Spare us your special psychology insights -- and your tu quoque canard. Some things are rather simple, lacking any ostensible nuanced subtext (to which you alone are apparently privy). This dude rarely passed up an opportunity to rub others' noses in his marital (and broader) piety. That is only only salient issue.
But you seem to miss the point that this wasn't an out of the blue Cupid attack - he was well practiced in going over the edge, with MANY women. That makes this behavior very specifically about him. And since this was repeated across many individuals, I would guess it wasn't about love of any individual in particular. (Wouldn't you ?)
Now, if this was a one time event I ***might*** give the self-reported love angle more credence.
But not only can people be driven by things of which they are unaware, they ARE driven by these things. For example: the motor areas of the brain that move the right hand will light up by fMRI BEFORE the person decides to move that hand. While they think they freely 'decided', and will give reasons why they 'decided' to do it - in fact the decision was made early and elsewhere, and their conscious 'decision' - and rationale - merely cosmetic add-ons after the fact.
I don't give much credit to his thoughts about this. Not b/c he's a liar but b/c most people aren't credible in that regard.
"It doesn't make him evil (a hypocrite and lousy husband, but not evil) - rather, he's a flawed human being that screwed up royally. "
Not sure who you're replying to here, I certainly didn't call him evil, or even come close to it.
"It is quite possible that this woman is his soul mate - at this time in his life, for whatever reason. "
Sex ?
"It's so easy to cast aspersions, to conclude he's just a horndog looking for tail outside his marriage, etc. "
Again, this was REPEATED behavior. You seem to miss that detail.
"But none of that means necessarily that he is not actually in love with Maria"
Well, I'm sure we all have out ideas about what is 'love.'
"tu quoque". wow. ok, you've successfully bludgeoned me with your superior vocabulary.
if sanford is the holier-than-thou, I guess that make you the holier-than-the-holier-than-thou. I scurred to the online dictionary and came up with this.. latin,
"a retort by one charged with a crime accusing an opponent who has brought the charges of a similar crime."
this is interesting, but Im not accusing anyone else of any "crime" .. just intolerance. would you say you are exhibiting intolerance?
as for "tu quoque"..
again a concept very similar to psychological principles. coincidence/synchronicity, someone else brand new on OS had an excellent post on the psychology of all this, he's getting his Phd. Id give you the link, but that would be too much of a favor. I suspected it is called "reaction formation".. I didnt want to give you the wrong info, but thats what he called it. its the tricky one.
of course, feel free to ignore all this and bone up on your obscure latin put-downs instead.
Even in more traditional monogamous settings, it is often the intimacies beyond sex with a misstress that cause a wife the greatest pain. The sex act itself is a matter of hydraulics and mechanics. It need not be personal. It's when a man starts sharing his heart and soul with another that the betrayal starts to get personal. And thatis precisely what Sanford is owning up to.
I don't know vzn at all, but in my experience people with no respect for monogamy are afraid of intimacy. I've heard of people being happy in open marriages, and that's their business, but for most of us monogamy is more about sharing deep intimacy with one person than it is about jealousy.
In any event, in spite of whatever "permission" Sanford might have had to see his mistress -- I hadn't heard that one, but I'll let that pass -- clearly Mrs. Sanford was not OK with the mistress. And that's her business.
I stumbled into this thread thinking nobody would take me seriously or reply & just ignore & let a little cyber-graffiti stand. so, Im surprised. I give some credit for that.
Ive studied [serial] monogamy vs nonmonogamy [polyamory] for many years, over a decade now. barbaras original post, while short, touches on so many issues and [like the chaotic replies] its hard to untangle them all. I may post on the subj in the near future, or you can comment on similar posts in my blog, & I will reply.
I think there is partly a generation gap going on here. younger generation is more casual about hookups much to the horror of the older one. & grandman & grandpa are freaking out. I can cite stuff on this sometime.
barbara is right, she doesnt know me.. and I dont know her. however, I respect [serial] monogamy. I respect polyamory. sound countradictory? yeah there is a great quote that a sign of intelligence is being able to have two contradictory ideas in your head at the same time.
the truth is that nobody would vote for an openly polyamorous politician for that reason alone.. which verges on discrimination and intolerance. its like a unicorn. they barely exist. they exist, but they are in the closet.
its similar to the music biz-- the gays had to be in the closet or discreet, not "flaming" or "flamers", if they wanted to keep their career.
did sanford not love his wife, no longer love his wife? he didnt say that. its barbara and all the women putting the words into his mouth. "you cannot love her and love me at the same time". that is your decision. fair enough. but who is breaking up the marriage then? a zen/rhetorical question. of course I know your answer.
sure, sanford is like a train wreck. but then, who are the rubberneckers, the oglers, the pilers-on?? you can see them all in this long thread.
sanford had a semidiscreet affair with a beautiful, intelligent, accomplished, exotic woman from argentina.. he had a wild vacation.. hmmmm, whats not to like about that?? oh yeah I forgot, right, oh yeah, HE'S MARRIED :p
bobbyg says to me, "youve got no game". oh really, what exactly is the game here? who is taking their eye off the ball?? for example, guess what spitzer was tackling right before his own spectacular train wreck?? get this-- PREDATORY BANK LENDING PRACTICES. he wrote an excellent NYT editorial and continues to write others...
so while the public is titillated with details of sanfords sex life, ie a shiny clown with his pants down on the left, the bankers on the right, in the shadows, are still robbing our country blind... or maybe the country is already blind, thats the point :p .. I guess they are actually robbing the BLIND COUNTRY instead, to be precise...
liz writes "The sex act itself is a matter of hydraulics and mechanics. It need not be personal." I understand your point but tend to disagree-- sex always tends to create an emotional bond, esp over time. ppl that argue otherwise I would argue are in denial. sex is natures way of creating intimacy/bonding!! the science confirms this!!
barbara writes-- "for most of us monogamy is more about sharing deep intimacy with one person than it is about jealousy"-- but it seems, that is exactly the mechanism how, generally, both married/unmarried women ENFORCE monogamy. ie JEALOUSY along with INTENSE/STINGING COLLECTIVE SOCIAL STIGMA as seen in this thread.. [ironically-- stronger than that reserved for gays!! and even _by_ gays!!] jealousy is usually, virtually, socially defined as, intolerance for nonmonogamy!!!
ps barbara, you hazily insinuate-- polyamorous ppl, or me? afraid of intimacy? its quite the opposite, "we" embrace it in a way that serial monogamists cannot experience or comprehend. Ive had many very rewarding, intimate relationships, more intense than you can imagine .. I would blog about them sometime, but alas, the piranhas would eat me alive :(
yep. the intimacy I speak of is on all planes.. physical, mental, spiritual.
anger? sometimes, but not in what I just wrote. I dont see it. anger against parasitical bankers, maybe.
the anger I see is in all the stone-throwing against sanford. what is teh difference between disapproval and intolerance? which is better? seems to have been crossed a lot in the replies here.
you take care too.
I have no problem with polyamory. I think every relationship is a bargain, a negotiation, and the parties to that relationship decide what is and is not out of bounds. Even in polyamorous relationships, people can make choices that constitute "cheating" because they violate the trust placed between partners.
Sanford and his wife may have had an agreement that he could see a mistress. But does that mean it was okay for him to create in her a "soulmate" relationship? Based on Sanford's wife's reaction, my guess is no. I know couples who have no problem with there being outside sexual encounters, so long as they do not involve emotional bonding beyond what might normally occur during sex.
One of the big trends right now is the discussion of "emotional affairs" where partners do not have sex with another, but form strong emotional bonds that end up threatening the marriage because they represent going outside the marriage to get something the spouse has a right (based on their bargain intheir relationship) to expect would only be provided by them. I think this expansion of the notion of cheating has some issues, but the point being is that what constitutes betrayal is a highly personal thing, based on each relationship and the bargain struck within it.
You are the one who seems to think that somehow your definitions of what is and isn't appropriate should apply to everyone. Exactly how is that any less judgemental? Perhaps you should look to the log in your own eye....
now, how is it that all the comments in here do not fall into this pattern?
there is not really an option for most men to practice nonmonogamy because the Union is universal, yet at the same time, unrecognized. nonmonogamy is not an attitude chosen by almost any women-- arguably they are on average, not genetically _capable_ of choosing it.
I encourage nonjudgement of sanford in the following way-- just dont VOTE for him. but, skip the social stigma, the intolerance, the purient fascination. try to find political issues of greater significance to focus ones attns on than the sex lives of politicians. learn some basic evolutionary psychology and that there is an "alpha male" who behaves in a stereotypical way. dont act surprised if your alpha male chomps at the bit for a multidimensional sex life. surprise!! it goes hand-in-hand with his other characteristics, eg, believe-it-or-not, strong executive ability!! strange that after millenia, humans are still trying to figure this out....
now, lets me see if I can have a guy's girls night out. I hang out with other women, not my wife. OOOPS. bzzzzzzzzzt. I just crossed the line. I got some emotional sustenance, connection, bonding from someone who is not my wife.
looks like I just
"form[ed] strong emotional bonds that end up threatening the marriage because they represent going outside the marriage to get something the spouse has a right (based on their bargain intheir relationship) to expect would only be provided by them."
so my question is, why is it illicit if done with women, or it involves sex, but not with guys when I go bowling??
if so, then why not my girlfriends? no? sound preposterous? who is the hypocrite? who has contractory thinking here?
I think what you are struggling with liz, & others, is that maybe loyalty is not a mechanism of who I see outside of marriage. women in particular seem to assume that all outside "participation" is a threat to marriage. just eliminate the threat, and it will go away, right? & ok, I admit Im trying to formulate this in the best/most intuitive form as I go along.
On the contrary, I think if you look at many recent corporate scandals (Enron comes to mind) and the ongoing financial crisis, you find that aggressive, dominant alpha male types who become heads of big companies often have really, really bad executive ability and shouldn't be in those jobs.
I think humans do have a tendency to defer to the most aggressive and domineering people in a group and make them leaders, and this may be a tendency we inherited from our more primitive hunter-gatherer ancestors. Unfortunately, dominance and aggression are not the same things as intelligence and prudent judgment.
I actually have a lot of sympathy for a man, or woman, who genuinely falls in love with someone who is not his/her spouse. I don't think Mark Sanford is a "bad" person for being in love with Maria and not Jenny. However, clearly a plural marriage is not what Jenny signed up for, and you have no right to judge her on that.
And personally, I think Jenny and Mark both are being extremely foolish not to just divorce already, because I suspect trying to revive that marriage is just prolonging their unhappiness. But ultimately that's up to them, of course.
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I guess the google robot is smarter than the ppl posting here :p
it is your definition of love, imposed on the relationship. it is a womans definition of love. look, I understand how love is DEFINED socially, but individual definitions may vary. a man may have a mistress, and say he still loves his wife, and his wife may say, [similar to your original post] NO YOU DONT LOVE ME BECAUSE YOU HAVE A MISTRESS. so, the definitions of love disagree & they split up. *poof*