Reply #120: Maybe so. I can't complain about how others choose candidates.

[jobycom]

I don't make decisions that way, but I guess I can see how you'd be upset if that was important in your choice. It's a bummer all the way around. I just assume all of them are cheating, so I'm not let down very often, or rather, I assume any of them could be, so I just don't make that part of my decision.

But I don't like people turning on Elizabeth for being cheated on. Maybe she didn't take it as rough as I said in the first post, maybe she did, but it couldn't have been easy on her either way. Also, consider that she may not have known in 2006, as she claims. She may have found out about it when the story hit the tabloids, or even an hour or two before Edwards went public. She would say what she had to. Think of what she has to lose, and Hillary, too. Both of them worked hard to be influential in politics. They sacrificed their chances to be powerful on their own, to be part of a team. With Hillary, she had become one of the top advisers in the White House. With Elizabeth, she had become prominent in all of John's work, and had the outside chance of being what Hillary was.

And both of them would have lost everything they had worked for because their husbands were jackasses. They had no official jobs, they weren't appointed and confirmed by the Senate. Everything they were, in professional terms, was tied to whom they married. Yeah, they could have divorced, started it all over, maybe worked back up to prominence. Hillary was elected Senator, and was a damn powerful one in her own right. But Elizabeth had none of that, and bluntly, she may not have the time to start over.

It's not just about an unfaithful spouse. It's about their ability to accomplish what they've worked for their whole lives, and whether they have to throw all that out because of an unfaithful spouse. I'm not even talking about money and property, but that's at stake, too.

I just can't blame her for what he did, nor for trying to protect herself from what he did. Blame him. He put her in an un-winnable situation, and from the sound of it, he did the same to you.