Jenny Sanford: the love of a good woman

Jenny Sanford’s confessional book, “Staying True,†has received a lot of sympathetic press. Why not, considering the circumstances? These being, of course, public humiliation at the hands of her husband, Gov. Marshall Clement “Mark†Sanford Jr. of South Carolina.

He is one of the most recent politicians to immolate his career by straying from his marriage in a spectacular fashion. Who wouldn’t be sympathetic to a woman in her plight?

She was betrayed by her husband, a man she had put front and center both in public and private for all the years of their marriage. It appears she published her book as a focused reply to his heartless public remarks about the “love of his life,†referring to his mistress, not to his wife. Jenny is the woman whose hard work and steadfast character put him first in Congress as South Carolina’s Republican representative from the 1st District and then, in 2002, in the governor’s mansion.

But writing such a book opens up Jenny — and we want to call her Jenny, as she reaches out to a worldwide sisterhood for support — to outside comment and judgment. Indeed, as she is making a case for her choices, she is inviting readers to see it her way. The risk is, they may not.

What has now become painfully obvious to Jenny is that her husband is an incredibly self-involved narcissist (redundancy intentional). Was she blinded by love? She describes her first encounter with Mark Sanford in lukewarm terms and remembers a subsequent invitation to join him and his family for a New Year’s Eve celebration with some ambivalence. Nevertheless, she went on to marry him. She would have done well to listen to herself, admitting that her first impressions of the man were accurate.

One of the fascinating aspects of the book was that it helped me to understand Gov. Sanford’s political stance better. Not being from the state of South Carolina or paying it particular attention over the years, I didn’t realize that he is truly a fiscal conservative. He doesn’t want to spend money he (or the government he represents) doesn’t have. So when he turned down the stimulus money from the federal government for his state, further disenfranchising its many poor and black residents, it really wasn’t racially or class motivated. He was as mingy with his wife as he was with the citizens who elected him.

This is the same guy who insisted on her running his nascent political campaign because she was “free.†This idea was presented to Jenny while she was still in the hospital after giving birth to their second child; she didn’t really see herself as “free.†But he didn’t mean available, he meant affordable.

This is the guy who gave his wife a birthday card with an illustration of half a bicycle. He was planning on giving her the other half at Christmas. And, the same guy who made her return the 40th birthday present diamond necklace he bought her, once he saw it, because he didn’t think it was worth the money.

Now this is where I say, hold the phone, Jen — because, whereas the poor of South Carolina may not have had much sway over the guy, presumably you had a little bit more. The necklace was already around your neck. You might just have told him to live with it. You certainly earned it.  

This is also the same guy, by the way, whom Jenny constantly refers to as restless. He surely did like to travel. Apparently there was money for that. For him.

Money issues are a pretty common trouble spot in a marriage, and Jenny manages somehow to see this as an endearing quirk and finds way to live with it without making herself crazy.

But, the handwriting on the wall was when they were preparing their wedding vows; Mark told her “he didn’t want to use a wedding vow that included the promise to be faithful. He was worried in some odd nagging way, he said, that he might not be able to remain true to that vow.†So in fact, he issued his disclaimer up front. If you were to ask him about it, he would probably say in his defense, “I told her it was going to be a problem!â€

And dear Jenny, she thinks his honesty is “brave and sweet†and chalks it up to pre-wedding jitters. But it is clear she suffers from The Love of a Good Woman Syndrome. The love that can turn a skunk into something sweet-smelling, can make a bad apple shiny … you get my drift.

Women have to learn to take care of themselves as well as they take care of others. To invest in themselves as much as they’re willing to invest in their spouses and mostly stop trying to “fix him.†It’s difficult because we’re hard-wired to be caretakers, and that’s fine, I’m just saying the priority should shift to ourselves a bit more. Perhaps the thinking here applies to both men and women: Listen to what people are actually telling you, not what you want to hear.

Tara Kelly, copy editor at The Lakeville Journal, is an avid follower of social trends. She may be reached by e-mail at tarak@lakevillejournal.com.