I don’t purport to know what it is to be in anyone’s shoes, only to use their circumstances and evaluate what I would do.
I know you’re supposed to stand by your man, and I resign myself to that. I’m fully prepared to be crazy and supportive of husband should he come up with hair-brained ideas or crises, like absolutely needing to pack up and RV across the country or something. I’m down for that. I can provide him logic and play devil’s advocate but really, I’m along for his life’s crazy adventures as well as my own.
I know he’ll count on me when he’s down and when working as a cop starts to take a toll on him, I am more than happy to be the hug he needs at the end of the day. I’ll stand by him if he finds himself on the bottom of a slippery hill, daunted and feeling hopeless. I’ll be there when he wants to crawl in a cave and die.
I’ll be there when he’s on top of the world, under pressure, confused and sick. It’s a partnership and I fully intend to hold up my end of the bargain.
But if he were to renegotiate the terms of that agreement, or violate them without my knowledge, I’m not sure what I’d do. If he were Elliot Spitzer this morning, telling the world he had paid for sex from a call-girl ring under investigation, I’m not sure I’d be beside the podium. Dude is a father of three and while I know being a politician makes him no less human than anyone else, I wonder not what he was thinking (the answer to that, my mother would say, is that he wasn’t) but rather what she is thinking.
What is she thinking standing beside him, following behind him?
Of course I don’t understand what she’s feeling or thinking, I have nothing close to which I can compare shared experiences. But I ask the question: Why is she not holed up with some Kleenex and sweats? Or arranging for their house’s locks to be changed? Or, if she’s going to compose herself and keep a stiff upper lip, why not use that for the good of her children instead of supporting the cheating husband? And not just cheating, but like high-priced prostitute in business trips?
Will she look back on this time and regret standing next to him?
Politics, and especially the life of a politician’s wife, is about keeping up appearances to earn the confidence of constituents. What does it say when she, a modern woman, stands beside her husband as he admits to the world he is rather scum baggy?
I am disappointed in that. Not in her, because I don’t know her. But disappointed that he still gets a wife by his side after doing all that, and that she would model unconditional devotedness to the world. At what cost? Only she will know.
While there are few limits to my own commitment to the husband, and I hope they are never tested, I hope that I can model self-assuredness, confidence and of course love should the situation so require it.
Today, I am glad that their news is a distant headline to my own life and experience. I will drive home after work and feel comfortable in my loving house and share a good hug with him. Understanding of course that a shared human experience dictates the world we live in, I do hope that family comes out of this healthy and happy, one day.

Labels: love, marriage, opinion