KUDOS: Genuine Support from a Wronged Political Wife

How to Stand by your Cad

Thank you, Jenny Sanford, for showing the rest of us how it’s done. Unlike the relatively recent parade of political wives faced with admittedly unfaithful husbands, you did not stand stoically at your husband’s side as he made his public apology.

You were with your kids on Father’s Day, refusing to say where your philandering husband was spending the holiday. For their sake, you kept the dirty laundry as private as possible.
You’ve also shown the future Wronged Political Wives’ Club (because there will be more of you) the dignified way to handle an intrinsically undignified situation. You stayed away, and let the guy face the music on his own.

Generally, we Americans don’t have a problem with the Wronged Political Wife forgiving her husband, we just get ticked off when she makes it seem easy for him. Of course, we know her "support" is shown for the public’s benefit, often as a prelude to the literal or legal thrashing he’s got coming, but it still garners a measure of contempt for the wife who stands by her man mutely and humiliated, as he makes his apologies sound as sincere as possible.

I’m willing to bet that most American women collectively squirmed while watching Dina McGreevey, Silda Spitzer and even Hillary Clinton go through the dutiful wife act, although all of them later claimed no prior knowledge of their husbands’ extracurricular activities. You, on the other hand, say that you not only knew, but that you had asked him to leave in order to sort things out. You didn’t let him conduct the affair from the comfort of your home, shielding him from the hurt he would cause his children. One last visit with the forbidden fruit notwithstanding, he appears to have ended his affair and returned to begin repairing the marriage. And, because of the way you’ve conducted yourself, Jenny, I’m betting you have a good chance.

The forgiving type of Wronged Wife isn’t often shown the kind of charity she bestows on her errant husband, but then again, it's rarely bestowed this well.