Staying True with Jenny Sanford

I just picked up a copy of Jenny Sanford's book, Staying True. I finished it in two days. That's how easy a read it was. It wasn't particularly enlightening, either. But it did give me a positive impression of the woman who wrote it.

Jenny Sanford, as you probably know, was married to South Carolina Governor Mark Sanford. He was the guy who claimed he'd been "hiking the Appalachian Trail" last summer, when he was really "visiting" his Argentinian girlfriend. His trip became national news because the guy had disappeared for a while, and his state department people didn't even know where he was.

From what Jenny says in her book, it wasn't the first time he'd disappeared. He'd done it before. Apparently, he'd slipped away after a business trip, flying into New York to see this same woman.

Sanford's book isn't a tell-all, so don't buy it if you're looking for hot, juicy details about what happened to the crazed governor. Instead, her book takes you through the life she made with this man, including some of the clues she missed that could have warned her of what might occur in the future. She acknowledges it's just speculation, and you can never predict the way a person will behave.

What kept her married to him all those 20 years of sometimes really bizarre behavior on his part--he left an old clunker of a vehicle for her in the airport parking garage with directions to a party on her first visit to meet his family in South Carolina; he opted to leave town when she once had surgery; he kept asking for her advice about how much detail she should tell the press after they'd discovered his affair--was her faith. She believed in love. She believed in him and their family. And most importantly, she believed in her God to show her the way.

She portrays very eloquently how she winds up losing the life she expected to be her future, how her ideal was changed by her husband's adulterous ways. She doesn't do it in a way that makes you cringe. She's very matter-of-fact and accepts her own responsibility for this marriage gone wrong. Not that she made her husband cheat on her. Women cannot do that. We just don't have that much power, unless it's criminal. But she accepts that she might have created room to allow it to happen, mostly because she didn't believe it ever would--or could--and she had become far too independent of him. Perhaps she didn't need him, as she'd learned how to live without him because he traveled so much. The contradictory truth here seems perfectly normal to me, another former wife who lived that way with her former husband.

I did not find the book particularly moving, in that it didn't delve deep into the emotion. Even during the moment when she shares how she had to reveal what dad had done to her boys does she take the story where it could have gone. Simply put: I think she did more telling than showing. But it is told nicely, and in such a way that you understand exactly how her story unfolded. And you do feel sympathy for her, and even sympathy--some--for her now ex-husband.

I must confess that I hate seeing these stories in the news. I read them, however, because it seems to me to be part of my research for the work that I do here. I also hate knowing that men can cheat so easily. I know there are women like this as well, but I am just not friends with them, and you rarely read about them, anyway. I especially hate hearing the line, "once a cheater, always a cheater." I'd like to think this is just the media promoting this view, giving these guys a bad name. But I know better. These type of men do that to themselves.

The ones who will continue to do this to themselves--and others--are those who continue denying their own responsibility. Once they start playing the blame game, I think, they are in trouble, and they've already lost.

If you've been wondering whether or not you should read Jenny Sanford's book, let me tell you I think it is her attempt to explore her marriage and the husband she had in it and why he did what he did. She couldn't. So the book ends with her accepting that his values just don't match her own. She had to let him go so he could figure out his stuff, and so she could figure out hers.

You know she will. You close the book wondering if he can do the same.

I hate adultery

I'm not one to use strong language, such as the word "hate." I'm not a fan of it. I like to be middle-of-the-road, not so judgmental. But there are things in life you can't help but judge. For me, adultery is one of them. I absolutely hate it.

I'm sure it's because I was married to a man who committed the act. Perhaps if I hadn't experienced it first-hand, I wouldn't feel so strongly. But I did, and I do.

I think adultery is one of mankind's worst excuses for bad behavior. People like to tell you men will commit it because man is not able to live the monogamous life. They'll point to research that says this. I think that's hogwash. Stupid, really. If man is not able to live the monogamous life here on earth, then man should find somewhere else to live.

I mean, you have to question comments and research such as this. You have to, because it's so one-sided.

If man can't live the monogamous life, then why get married at all? Why have children with the woman you know intends to spend the rest of her life with you--and expects to be honored and cherished, as the vows might go? If you promise to love this woman through the good and the bad, till death do you part, in front of all of your friends and family, your witnesses expect you to keep those vows, as well as your new bride. And if you don't? If you know it right then and there, then say something, for goodness sakes. Don't just stand there with that "deer in the headlights" look. Say something. If you don't intend to keep this vow, why lie to yourself? There's no harm in changing your mind. Or, if you feel coerced, there's no harm in standing up for yourself. You need to live life differently than what you think society expects? Do it. Just don't drag other people with you if they don't know what you're thinking.

I'm not saying there's anything wrong with living an uncommitted life. There isn't as long as the women you're living it with understand your position, and they're okay with it. Otherwise, it's only fair to spare the woman in your life you'll hurt. There's just no good reason to purposefully hurt another human being--in any way.

If you think adultery occurs because of something your partner did or did not do, you're lying to yourself. If you think adultery occurs because the two of you grew apart, you're kidding yourself. If you think a man cheats on his wife or his partner because he can't help it, that it just happened, wasn't planned? That's a lie. Adultery occurs for one reason; the person let it happen. Maybe there was no orchestrated plan, no outline drawn on lined paper. But there was a plan. You had to plan it in order not to be caught. So any excuse you come up with is just that--an excuse. It's a reason to be selfish.

If you think otherwise, then you're saying man has no free will. And we know that's not true because free will is exactly what sets the human being apart from the animal in this kingdom we've been given. Man has free will. We get to decide. We get to choose. We get to make up our own minds.

When we cheat, we've decided to do it. Plain and simple. And that's pretty much why I hate it. It can be avoided with a simple decision not to. You can save a person's pain by making a simple decision.

Should you ever come across a person who claims otherwise, that person is trying to trick you into believing a myth. If you fall for it, you just perpetuate the myth.

That's why I hate adultery. It's an excuse for bad behavior, and far too many people buy into it. If I could have anything in the world, anything at all, it would be for man to admit responsbility for this kind of behavior and begin to change it. From my perspective, it would salvage relationships and families. It would stop the hurts that serve no good purpose. It would save kids' lives. It would give meaning to marriage and family again.

When I hear people say they've been married for so many years, more than 10, more than 20, and so on, I'm so jealous of them. And then, at the same time, I wonder how they survived that long. Did either spouse cheat on them? Did either spouse know? I am skeptical about long-term marriages. I question their validity. And I hate that adultery did that to me.

Would it be better not to know, if cheating occurred? I wonder...

I hate adultery because it changed my way of thinking. It made me question the sanctity of marriage. It made me not able to trust in the union of two people. It made me wonder if long-term love is real.

But why can't it be real? Why can't two people fall in love in the beginning, build a family and last. Why can't that happen? I want to believe that it can. I really want to believe that we can choose to love one person and one person only. We can choose to work through the challenges in a marriage--just as we can choose to overcome the challenges in life, in general. We have the ability to commit ourselves to many things: our lives, our careers, our marriages, our families, our health. We have the ability to do that.

And that's why I hate adultery. It threatens all of my beliefs. It's like a boil on our skin about to burst. It threatens to burst. It threatens to break through the skin. It threatens to spread it's poison and create more boils. But there's a cure. There's an ointment you can use. You can do something to stop it. You can make a choice. You can turn the trouble around so that you have to face it.

That's what I hope happens. I want to see people live a more conscious life, a life that matters, a life that depends on decisions rather than on "it just happened" moments.

"It just happened" is an excuse I'd like to see disappear. "It just happened" is a lie. "It just happened" means you didn't think about the consequences. "It just happened" hurts someone. And there's no good reason for that. None.

What do you think?

Jenny Sanford will write her memoir

A news report today says Jenny Sanford, the wife of South Carolina governor Mark Sanford, the man who publicly claimed his mistress as his soulmate, will write her memoir. It is scheduled to be released in 2010.

Her focus will be about how one can maintain integrity and a sense of self during troubling times. It will be motivational in tone.

I suspect some will question her judgment about this book, but I don't. After I found out my ex was cheating on me, I knew there were lessons to be learned--and I opened myself up to learning them. Some made me proud. Some made me cringe. And most were soul growth moments. I realized the lessons I needed to learn had very little to do with him and much more to do with me. I, too, am writing a book about this.

I suspect Jenny Sanford has been learning similar lessons. For one: how do you get back up from such a fall? When you're right in the middle of it, it doesn't seem possible at all. Unless you intend to stay down, you quickly learn what you're made of and what you need to do to pick yourself back up. And if you have it in you to push back, you do. You become much more methodical, making choices more carefully, more consciously--and, of course, with dignity, if you have any sense of self left. If not, you dig deep to reconnect.

That's something I've grown to respect about his woman--her dignity shines, from my perspective. When she speaks out, she simply states the truth. She doesn't give her husband any more or any less than he deserves. And she stands tall, because she knows what he did was not about her. For many, that's the hardest lesson to accept...and it may not come quickly. For some, it never does. In this case, I see Jenny Sanford as a reluctant role model--someone, nevertheless, to watch down the road. I see her taking charge of her new role.

She is not a woman who will ever be hiding under the covers.

When faced with the unexpected knowledge that the love of your life, the person who you looked up to, leaned on, and depended on as a source of strength has betrayed you in such a personal way is one of the hardest things, I think, a woman can bear. It knocks you in the gut, over and over again. It does, indeed, make you question your very sense of self.

Ultimately, it can make you stronger. Troubling times, no matter what they are, test your strength, your inner core, your judgment. How you respond to them definitely tests your integrity. Even though I've never met her, I believe her to be a kindred spirit, and I eagerly await Jenny Sanford's take on this topic.

What about you?

When is adultery okay

When we learned last week that John Edwards did, in fact, commit adultery against his wife in 2006, someone posted a link to the news report on a forum to which I belong. It attracted more than 90 posts from a few dozen or so women, debating whether the story was news or not.

Some thought absolutely not. Others weren't so sure. But the posts that really attracted my attention were the ones that pushed the affair aside altogether and thought the news was more about the lies than the cheating, if there was any news here at all.

Granted, they were making the point that the affair is private business, to be handled by the husband and wife, and I agree with that. And I'm sure it will be. But to so nonchalantly push the affair aside, to say that it's immaterial to the life and ability of a politician, I confess, disturbs me. From where, I had to wonder, did they think the lies came?

Without the adultery, my friends, there would be no need to lie.

But some of these women couldn't or wouldn't connect the two. They insisted on separating the cheating from the lies, to compartmentalize, as if they had something to protect. That, in turn, made me wonder if they understand that's the modus operandi a cheater uses to save his butt.

He may think, "What she doesn't know can't hurt her." But it can.

He may think, "As long as I don't get caught..." But he generally will, some how, some way.

And even though it may look from the outside that he's doing well, the inside tells a different story.

So, maybe he can compartmentalize for a while. Maybe he can, like my women friends, separate the lies from the cheating for a while. But the underlying message is still there. Elizabeth could sense it on some level. He knew what he was doing on all levels. And his colleagues more than likely witnessed his character flaw in ways they may be discussing and hashing out right now at this very moment. Compartmentalizing only works so well for so long.

What I mean is that the choice Edwards made to take part in a sexual relationsip outside of his marriage--clearly without his wife's permission--illustrates a serious character flaw that cannot be solely contained within the bounds of adultery. Just as I've discussed here so often, character represents who we are at our very core. And if his belief system allowed him to get away with adultery, you can imagine he's gotten away with much more than that. And, unfortunately, he probably had plenty of people to shield him from his own truths, to allow his lies to continue, to act as enblers. The betrayal, unfortunately, extends beyond the marital bed.

So that's why the adultery matters. Not for the need to know what goes on inside someone's bedroom in a voyeuristic sort of way. But to know what a person is really made of, to know who he really is at his core. If he's not honest, and we can know about that ahead of time, I think it's something voters are entitled to know. That's why I would agree with the media that this is news. Is it news I want to hear? No, no way. I'd prefer we never heard such stories again.

But I refuse to believe as some of these women also believe--that politicians can be expected to cheat, that it's the nature of man to cheat, and other myths to which I refuse to subscribe. I may be naive, but I believe in the ability to choose. And I believe that marital vows mean something. And I'd like to think that there are men out there who believe that as well.

And for the women who think otherwise, I hope you're not speaking from experience, because adultery is never okay in my book.

Your thoughts?