Standing By Your Sex-Hobbyist -Man; Because It's Your Fault Too?
Eliot, I accept your apology. I won't forget your behavior and hypocrisy but I am starting to forgive because of the stand-up way you've handled everything Because you did something very few men who get caught do. YOU OWNED YOUR BEHAVIOR. You didn't deny or act like it didn't happen. You didn't project that you were targetted and harrassed. You didn't put it all out there because of your family, that's understandable - but you admitted you did something wrong and you showed a lot of class in resigning.
Now, work with your wife to heal your marriage, please. And don't cover up or smear anyone involved in this investigation. You seem to be a guy who made a HUGE mistake rather than one of the pathologicals running rampant in politics (and many other places) today. FACE those you hurt, admit what you did, ask their forgiveness, make amends, reframe the relationship, realize some people will never trust you again or ever get over it, but move forward. Godspeed.
Why wives stand by scandal-stained husbands
It’s instinctive, says the ex-wife of New Jersey’s former governor
By Mike Celizic
It was an all too familiar scene, a set piece that’s played out with metronomic regularity in American politics.
The elected official — this time the governor of New York — stands at a lectern, apologizing for a sexual indiscretion. The stoic wife, her face a mask, stands just off to his side. The viewers watch in morbid fascination, wondering how this wronged woman can appear to support her cheating rat of a spouse.
“It’s very easy for people on the outside to criticize and say, ‘I wouldn’t have been there. Why is she there? He disgraced her,’ ” Dina Matos told TODAY’s Matt Lauer on Tuesday in New York.
Three years ago, when she was the wife of then-New Jersey Gov. James McGreevey, Matos was playing the role of stoic wife. She understands what the wife of New York Gov. Eliot Spitzer must be going through now that he’s been linked to a prostitution scandal.
“But you don’t know what the marriage is like,” Matos continued. “You don’t know what their relationship is like. They’ve been married over 20 years. I’m sure they have a long history together. There’s love there. There’s obviously now betrayal.”
Familiar scene
It was in August 2004 that Matos stood by her man, staring in apparent disbelief as he told the nation that he was a “gay American” and had engaged in an affair with a male member of his staff.
And now she was watching it happen again, as another political wife, Silda Spitzer, stood by her husband he apologized for his sins, without specifically mentioning the prostitution ring to which federal prosecutors had connected him.
She said that she still believes she did the right thing — for her and her daughter. Some day, she said, “My daughter probably would thank me and acknowledge that I was there for her father.”
Matos emphasized that she was speaking for herself. “I don’t know what’s going through her mind,” she said of Silda Spitzer. “But I’m sure that her family certainly played a role in the decision, her role as a mom to protect her daughters, to do whatever it takes to try to keep the family together, at least to have some semblance of normalcy.”
The Spitzers have three teenage daughters, ages 13, 15 and 18, and Matos said she couldn’t conceive of what it is like for them and their mother.
“My heart ached for her when I was watching her,” Matos said. “I could see the pain in her face, and I certainly know what that feels like. She’s there physically, but I’m sure she’s not absorbing anything that’s going on.”
“It’s almost like an out-of-body experience,” the former Mrs. McGreevey continued. “You’re there physically, but your mind is elsewhere. You can’t even think.”
SOURCE
I just gotta say, before you read this next bit - I have NEVER LIKED DR. LAURA. And this proves she's a complete psycho in my book. Only her outrageous bull keeps her in the media. She and Ann Coulter are cut from the same cloth of babbling nonsense.
She also gets it DEAD WRONG. If he's a sociopath or narcissist, Laura? He's going to lie, cover up, tell you lies about it all, love-bomb and/or sex-bomb you back into his web and the marriage, use you as a human shield for anyone who tries to tell the truth about him ("you're hurting my poor wife by telling!") Yeah, he's going to be a jerk - but he won't let you come up for air long enough to find out until he's got you back in the marriage or relationship and has sucked your mind & soul dry.
Check out her latest gag-o-gram from the TODAY Show:
Dr. Laura: Women share blame for cheating men
Syndicated radio talk show host stirs controversy with remarks about wives
By Mike Celizic
Dr. Laura Schlessinger has never been one to shrink from controversy, and she leaped headlong into one on Monday when she said that if a husband cheats, his wife may share some of the blame.
The comment touched off a storm of protest, both from other members of the panels and from viewers, who flooded the show’s online mailboxes with mostly conflicting views.
Schlessinger later emphasized that she was not excusing Spitzer’s behavior. Nor, she said, was she saying that his wife, Silda Spitzer, was in some way to blame for his indiscretion.
“I do not know anything about their personal lives,” she said.
But, she persisted, frequently when there is infidelity in marriage, both spouses share the blame.
“I refuse to believe that this adultery is the wife’s fault,” said anthropologist Helen Fisher, who had discussed the evolutionary reasons for infidelity.
Dina Matos, who had stood by the side of her former husband, then-New Jersey Gov. James McGreevey, when he announced in 2004 that he had conducted a homosexual affair with one of his advisers, also took strong exception.
“The point is, what he’s done is wrong. The point is, what she’s done is wrong,” she said. “I have kept marriages together after affairs because I have reminded women that you have the power to turn this around. He had his children with you. He has his future life plans with you, his dreams, his whole mind, body and soul was wrapped up in the promise of you. If you now turn that back on, all that stuff you turned off because ‘I’m busy’ or ‘I’m irritated’ or ‘I’m annoyed’ or ‘I’m self-centered’ — if you turn that around, you have that man back.”
She said that there are reasons why men look outside the marriage for sex and companionship.
“I would challenge the wife to find out what kind of wife she’s being,” she said. “Is she being supportive and approving and loving? Is she being sexually intimate and affectionate? Is she making him feel like he’s her man? If she’s not doing that, then she’s contributing to his wrong choice.”
Viewers react
The comments sent viewers to their computers in droves, flooding the TODAY Show with e-mail within minutes.
“How dare you sit there and smugly say women are responsible for their spouse's cheating? If a husband is not getting what he needs at home, he has a responsibility to discuss and communicate this with his wife. If that doesn't work, seek counseling. Not getting your way is not an excuse to break a wedding vow. I am APPALLED!” wrote one New Jersey woman.
“I take offense to Dr. Laura’s response about women being the reason men cheat on their wives, as I am trying to help my sister get through a very difficult time with her own husband right now,” wrote a viewer in Philadelphia. “I can tell you for a fact that she has done everything a wife could possibly do to make her husband feel as though he is the only man walking this earth, but instead of him reacting to this in a positive way he goes out and cheats on her …
“Dr. Laura is correct. Men cheat and women cheat. I wish everyone would stop acting like Dr. Laura has done something wrong when all she has done is point out the obvious,” wrote a viewer calling herself Heater. “It is human nature to seek out comfort when they are not receiving what they need at home.”
Schlessinger said later in the show that there are some instances in which it doesn’t matter what the wife does.
“If I had been a truly loving, caretaking, supportive wife, and my husband did such an egregious thing, his butt would be standing there by itself,” Schlessinger replied.
SOURCE
Hey Laura, can we get your ex-boyfriends to review YOU HERE??
DBKP has a great take on the 'rationale' behind Dr. Laura's drivel - I think they're right on the money!
Now, work with your wife to heal your marriage, please. And don't cover up or smear anyone involved in this investigation. You seem to be a guy who made a HUGE mistake rather than one of the pathologicals running rampant in politics (and many other places) today. FACE those you hurt, admit what you did, ask their forgiveness, make amends, reframe the relationship, realize some people will never trust you again or ever get over it, but move forward. Godspeed.
Why wives stand by scandal-stained husbandsIt’s instinctive, says the ex-wife of New Jersey’s former governor
By Mike Celizic
It was an all too familiar scene, a set piece that’s played out with metronomic regularity in American politics.
The elected official — this time the governor of New York — stands at a lectern, apologizing for a sexual indiscretion. The stoic wife, her face a mask, stands just off to his side. The viewers watch in morbid fascination, wondering how this wronged woman can appear to support her cheating rat of a spouse.
“It’s very easy for people on the outside to criticize and say, ‘I wouldn’t have been there. Why is she there? He disgraced her,’ ” Dina Matos told TODAY’s Matt Lauer on Tuesday in New York.
Three years ago, when she was the wife of then-New Jersey Gov. James McGreevey, Matos was playing the role of stoic wife. She understands what the wife of New York Gov. Eliot Spitzer must be going through now that he’s been linked to a prostitution scandal.
“But you don’t know what the marriage is like,” Matos continued. “You don’t know what their relationship is like. They’ve been married over 20 years. I’m sure they have a long history together. There’s love there. There’s obviously now betrayal.”
Familiar scene
It was in August 2004 that Matos stood by her man, staring in apparent disbelief as he told the nation that he was a “gay American” and had engaged in an affair with a male member of his staff.
And now she was watching it happen again, as another political wife, Silda Spitzer, stood by her husband he apologized for his sins, without specifically mentioning the prostitution ring to which federal prosecutors had connected him.
“She’s doing what’s right for her,” Matos said of Silda Spitzer. “We have to remember that this is a real person. Her husband is a politician, but this is a real woman who’s experiencing some very, very, very painful times and having to deal with three teenage daughters.”Matos said that for her, the decision to offer support to a husband in disgrace was made because of their own daughter, Jacqueline, who was just closing in on her third birthday at the time.
“It’s a very personal matter,” Matos told Lauer. “For me, I thought about my daughter. This was a man that I loved, whom I had taken a vow to stand by in good times and in bad, and that was the right decision for me at the time. It was very personal. It was not about the politics.”
She said that she still believes she did the right thing — for her and her daughter. Some day, she said, “My daughter probably would thank me and acknowledge that I was there for her father.”Matos emphasized that she was speaking for herself. “I don’t know what’s going through her mind,” she said of Silda Spitzer. “But I’m sure that her family certainly played a role in the decision, her role as a mom to protect her daughters, to do whatever it takes to try to keep the family together, at least to have some semblance of normalcy.”
The Spitzers have three teenage daughters, ages 13, 15 and 18, and Matos said she couldn’t conceive of what it is like for them and their mother.
“I can’t even imagine,” she said “For her as a mother, she’s trying to protect these three young girls, from the public, from the rumors, the innuendo. It has to be very, very difficult. Here she is dealing with her own pain, but also trying to protect her children.”What Matos could imagine was the emotional trauma Silda Spitzer must have felt on Monday as she listened to her husband attempt to apologize for a sin that the American public has rarely found forgivable.
“My heart ached for her when I was watching her,” Matos said. “I could see the pain in her face, and I certainly know what that feels like. She’s there physically, but I’m sure she’s not absorbing anything that’s going on.”
“It’s almost like an out-of-body experience,” the former Mrs. McGreevey continued. “You’re there physically, but your mind is elsewhere. You can’t even think.”
SOURCE
I just gotta say, before you read this next bit - I have NEVER LIKED DR. LAURA. And this proves she's a complete psycho in my book. Only her outrageous bull keeps her in the media. She and Ann Coulter are cut from the same cloth of babbling nonsense.
She also gets it DEAD WRONG. If he's a sociopath or narcissist, Laura? He's going to lie, cover up, tell you lies about it all, love-bomb and/or sex-bomb you back into his web and the marriage, use you as a human shield for anyone who tries to tell the truth about him ("you're hurting my poor wife by telling!") Yeah, he's going to be a jerk - but he won't let you come up for air long enough to find out until he's got you back in the marriage or relationship and has sucked your mind & soul dry.
Check out her latest gag-o-gram from the TODAY Show:
Dr. Laura: Women share blame for cheating men
Syndicated radio talk show host stirs controversy with remarks about wives
By Mike Celizic
Dr. Laura Schlessinger has never been one to shrink from controversy, and she leaped headlong into one on Monday when she said that if a husband cheats, his wife may share some of the blame.
“When the wife does not focus in on the needs and the feelings, sexually, personally, to make him feel like a man, to make him feel like a success, to make him feel like her hero, he’s very susceptible to the charm of some other woman making him feel what he needs,” the popular psychologist and radio personality said.More commonly known as just “Dr. Laura,” Schlessinger made the remarks while participating in one of several panel discussions on TODAY dealing with the breaking news that New York Gov. Eliot Spitzer had been connected to a high-priced prostitution ring.
The comment touched off a storm of protest, both from other members of the panels and from viewers, who flooded the show’s online mailboxes with mostly conflicting views.
Schlessinger later emphasized that she was not excusing Spitzer’s behavior. Nor, she said, was she saying that his wife, Silda Spitzer, was in some way to blame for his indiscretion.
“I do not know anything about their personal lives,” she said.
But, she persisted, frequently when there is infidelity in marriage, both spouses share the blame.
“You’re saying the women should feel guilty that they somehow drove the man to cheat?” asked TODAY co-host Meredith Vieira.Others who participated in the panels disagreed strongly.
“The cheating was his decision to repair what’s damaged and to feed himself where he’s starving,” Schlessinger replied. “But, yes, I hold women responsible for tossing out perfectly good men by not treating them with the love and kindness and respect and attention they need.”
“I refuse to believe that this adultery is the wife’s fault,” said anthropologist Helen Fisher, who had discussed the evolutionary reasons for infidelity.
Dina Matos, who had stood by the side of her former husband, then-New Jersey Gov. James McGreevey, when he announced in 2004 that he had conducted a homosexual affair with one of his advisers, also took strong exception.
“This is absurd,” she said. “It’s just like blaming a rape victim. And we see this all too often. It’s just insanity.”
Another relationship expert, psychologist Jeff Gardere, said that trying to decide who’s at fault is beside the point. “It’s not about the blame game,” he said. “It’s about looking at what’s going on in this marriage that may have been ripe for this to happen.In a final appearance with TODAY’s Ann Curry and Hoda Kotb, Schlessinger stuck to her guns.
But the person who cheats is doing it for a very selfish reason. It’s a very selfish act.”
“The point is, what he’s done is wrong. The point is, what she’s done is wrong,” she said. “I have kept marriages together after affairs because I have reminded women that you have the power to turn this around. He had his children with you. He has his future life plans with you, his dreams, his whole mind, body and soul was wrapped up in the promise of you. If you now turn that back on, all that stuff you turned off because ‘I’m busy’ or ‘I’m irritated’ or ‘I’m annoyed’ or ‘I’m self-centered’ — if you turn that around, you have that man back.”
She said that there are reasons why men look outside the marriage for sex and companionship.
“I would challenge the wife to find out what kind of wife she’s being,” she said. “Is she being supportive and approving and loving? Is she being sexually intimate and affectionate? Is she making him feel like he’s her man? If she’s not doing that, then she’s contributing to his wrong choice.”
Viewers react
The comments sent viewers to their computers in droves, flooding the TODAY Show with e-mail within minutes.
“How dare you sit there and smugly say women are responsible for their spouse's cheating? If a husband is not getting what he needs at home, he has a responsibility to discuss and communicate this with his wife. If that doesn't work, seek counseling. Not getting your way is not an excuse to break a wedding vow. I am APPALLED!” wrote one New Jersey woman.
“I take offense to Dr. Laura’s response about women being the reason men cheat on their wives, as I am trying to help my sister get through a very difficult time with her own husband right now,” wrote a viewer in Philadelphia. “I can tell you for a fact that she has done everything a wife could possibly do to make her husband feel as though he is the only man walking this earth, but instead of him reacting to this in a positive way he goes out and cheats on her …
I guess this is her fault for not bowing down and kissing his feet when they BOTH get home from work!”Although they were in the minority, a few viewers supported Schlessinger’s position.
“Dr. Laura is correct. Men cheat and women cheat. I wish everyone would stop acting like Dr. Laura has done something wrong when all she has done is point out the obvious,” wrote a viewer calling herself Heater. “It is human nature to seek out comfort when they are not receiving what they need at home.”
Schlessinger said later in the show that there are some instances in which it doesn’t matter what the wife does.
“If he’s sociopathic or narcissistic, all bets are off,” she said. “The woman can be the best person in the world, and he’s going to be a jerk.”Kotb asked her if she would stand by her husband as Silda Spitzer and Matos did by theirs in a similar situation.
But most men aren’t like that, she said, adding, “The average husband longs for one thing, and that’s to be special to his woman.”
“If I had been a truly loving, caretaking, supportive wife, and my husband did such an egregious thing, his butt would be standing there by itself,” Schlessinger replied.
SOURCE
Hey Laura, can we get your ex-boyfriends to review YOU HERE??
DBKP has a great take on the 'rationale' behind Dr. Laura's drivel - I think they're right on the money!
Comments
See? I remembered not to call you Barb!
I came over to grab your link for our new blogroll at the new site and wow!
Nice shout-out on the Dr. Laura story! LBG will be so pleased! She's wondering why people didn't beat down the door over this?!?
Hey! I like Dr. Laura: she's entertaining and not a wuss, but boy! Is she ever wrong on this one and after looking at her background--geeeeesh! I can see why she said what she did!
Okay back to the grind! We should be back to normal in another week! We're just starting to post regularly again!
Thanks and by the way: very evocative graphic in your header!
She was talking about "in general" - Dr. Laura says that ***IF*** you choose a GOOD man ***AND*** you treat him right, he will not stray. Nowhere does she excuse men for their decisions to commit adultery. However, she recognizes that if a wife isn't living by her marital vows (which are more than just "forsaking all others"), THEN a man is more likely not to live by his, either.
I've forgiven Eliot Spitzer too for the deep disappointment. I do give him credit for no belaboring this mess with public denials and lies ala Bill Clinton.
Dr. Laura has an appalling lack of empathy and understanding and is trying to psychoanalyze Silda Spitzer without knowing the facts or her family dynamics.
Spitzer may be a narcissist.
But Dr. Laura? Is a complete sociopath and LOON!
Dr. Laura, Ann Coulter - women like them are an embarrassment to women everywhere IMHO.
I am sure the TODAY Show only had Dr. Laura on to grab ratings over her outrageous comments. BLECH!