We’ve listened patiently for more years than necessary to the moralizing of the modern Christian Family Values set. As in the centuries before, they’ve told us that there is a way things should be. For example, adolescents shouldn’t be having sex with each other. In fact, if we make birth control methods available to them, they might be tempted, so we’ll have none of that. Instead, we’ll get them all counseled about abstinence and the Christian Family Values rules, [maybe they could sign some pledges], and that ought to take care of any problems.
SULLIVANS ISLAND, S.C. – When South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford disappeared, his wife hoped he was really hiking on the Appalachian Trail as his staff had claimed. Like the rest of America, she was stunned to find out he had dared to go to Argentina to see his mistress, a trip she told him not to take. "He was told in no uncertain terms not to see her," Jenny Sanford said in a strong, steady voice as she sat in her oceanfront living room Friday. "I was hoping he was on the Appalachian Trail. But I was not worried about his safety. I was hoping he was doing some real soul searching somewhere and devastated to find out it was Argentina. It’s tragic"…
In her first extended comments on the affair, Sanford recalled how her husband repeatedly sought permission to visit his lover in the months after she discovered his infidelity. "I said absolutely not. It’s one thing to forgive adultery; it’s another thing to condone it," she told The Associated Press during a 20-minute interview at the coastal home where she sought refuge with their four sons.
The Sanfords had separated about two weeks ago. She said her husband told the family he wanted some time away to work on writing a book and clear his head. The first lady said, "I had every hope he was not going to see her." "You would think that a father who didn’t have contact with his children, if he wanted those children, he would toe the line a little bit," she said…
Sanford said she discovered her husband’s affair early this year after coming across a copy of a letter to the mistress in one of his files in the official governor’s mansion. He had asked her to find some financial information, she said, not an unusual request considering her heavy involvement in his career…She felt "shocked and obviously deeply hurt. I didn’t think he had it in him," she said. "It’s hard to find out your husband is not who you thought he was." The first lady said she confronted her husband immediately, and he agreed to end the affair. She said she wasn’t sure Friday whether he had done so.
"I guess that’s what we will have to see. I believe he has," she said. "But he was down there for five days. I saw him yesterday and he is not staying here. We’ll just see what kind of spirit of reconciliation he has himself."
The governor declined to discuss details of the letter and how he handled it with his wife. "This goes into the personal zone," Gov. Sanford said Friday. "I’d simply say that Jenny has been absolutely magnanimous and gracious as a wonderful Christian woman in this process"…
"When I found out in January, we both indicated a willingness to continue working on the marriage, but there’s not room for three people in a marriage," she said. "I’ve done everything in my power possibly to keep him from going to see her and to really make sure she was off the table, including asking him to leave."
About an hour after Jenny Sanford talked of her pain and feelings of betrayal, her husband brushed aside any suggestion he might immediately resign, citing the Bible and the story of King David — who continued to lead after sleeping with another man’s wife, Bathsheba, having the husband slain, then marrying the widow. "What I find interesting is the story of David, and the way in which he fell mightily — fell in very, very significant ways, but then picked up the pieces and built from there," Sanford told members of his cabinet in a session called so he could apologize to them in person and tell them the business of government must continue…
QUESTION: Did you break off the relationship?SANFORD: The — no, it was interesting in how this thing has gone down, John. I think (inaudible) way more detail than you’ll ever want… I met this person a little over eight years ago. Again, very innocently. And struck up a conversation, and I want to go back to the bubble of politics. This is not justifying, because again what I did was wrong, period, end of story.
…This person at the time was separated, and we ended up in this incredibly serious conversation about why she ought to get back with her husband for the sake of her two boys; that not only was it part of God’s law, but ultimately those two boys would be better off for it.
And we had this incredibly earnest conversation and at the end of it, I said, “Could I get your e-mail?” We swapped e-mails, whatever. And it began just on a very casual basis — “Hey, I’ve got this issue that’s come up with my life,” or vice versa, “What do you think?” … And we developed a remarkable friendship over those eight years. And then, as I said, about a year ago, it sparked into something more than that.
I have seen her three times since then, during that whole sparking thing. And it was discovered… five months ago. And at that point, we went into serious overdrive in trying to say “where do you go from here,” and that’s where the Cubby Culbertsons and the others of the world began to help with, you know, how do you get all this right? How do you — again — be honest?SANFORD: And so, it had been back and forth and back and forth and back and forth. And the one thing that you really find is that you absolutely want resolution. And so, oddly enough, I spent the last five days, and I was crying in Argentina so I could repeat it when I came back here, in saying, you know, while, indeed, from a heart level, there was something real. It was a place based on the fiduciary relationship I had to the people of South Carolina, based on my boys, based on my wife, based on where I was in life, based on where she was in life, and places I couldn’t go and she couldn’t go.
And that is a, I suspect, a continual process, all through life, of getting one’s heart right in life.
And so, I would never stand before you as one who just says, “Yo, I’m completely right with regard to my heart on all things.” But what I would say is I’m committed to trying to get my heart right, because the one thing that Cubby and all the others have told me, is that the odyssey that we’re all on in life is with regard to heart. Not what I want or what you want, but, in other words, indeed, this larger notion of truly trying to put other people first. And I suspect, if I’d really put this other person first, I wouldn’t have jeopardized her life, as I have. I certainly wouldn’t have done it to my wife. I wouldn’t have done it to my boys. I wouldn’t have done it to the Tom Davis’ of the world. This was selfishness on my part. And for that, I’m most apologetic.”
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