The Sanfords: they sure lost that lovin' feeling.
I've seen this happen over and over to wealthy, "perfect" families. I'm sure it happens to less perfect families, too, but not in such a noticeable or attractive way. So here, without peer-reviewed underpinnings of any kind, is my take on the situation.
It's pretty clear that the Sanfords shoveled all the passion out of their marriage over the years in order to float the boat of ambition and deal with the practical concerns of their life. (Think of their statements: "He was told in no uncertain terms not to see her." "I'm trying to fall back in love with my wife." This thing got reduced to a business arrangement, perhaps to the consternation of both partners.)
The sad truth is that creating the illusion of the All-American family is so much work that it tends to suck any real joy away from the project. Over time, the partners close off to each other emotionally in favor of the appearance of love. The result is two people who are barricaded off from each other far more than they are to anyone else. Which is how they get into trouble. There's nothing wrong with Jenny Sanford--she's a beautiful, smart woman with, one presumes, some "magnificent parts" of her own. And even Sanford seems, if not the brightest bulb on the tree, a guy that some woman could love. But these two sure don't seem to love each other now.
The male midlife crisis is one endgame of this dynamic--there's another one in which the last kid leaves for college and the wife files for divorce with little explanation. "Mom moved out and she won't even tell Dad why!"
I guess my point is that it takes years in a failing marriage to get to this stage. Despite a surfeit of programs that are supposed to teach people how to stay happily married, "marriage counseling" is still jokingly referred to as "divorce preparation." Most of us are just not that good at being married, overall, and it's hard to figure out why.
The saddest thing about this whole situation is that I'm pretty sure that the sweeping love affair probably was doomed from the start, if not by circumstance, then by the sheer difficulty of maintaining a loving relationship for any length of time in reality. My take: if Sanford and Chapur thought that their relationship, however passionate, had a chance of surviving the harsh day-to-day challenges of reality, he wouldn't have come back from Argentina at all.
There are two parts integral to any lasting relationship. Loyalty and commitment. The governenor is lacking in both departments. I don't knwo about his Mrs. or how their marriage came to disintegrate, but unless people are loyal and committed, it is doomed. The Clintons made a commitment. So they survived the disloyalty. Gov. Sanford need sto be committed. Oh, that's punny!
July 2, 2009 2:08 PM | Reply | Permalink
I like your insight, Erica, not merely because it's intelligent, but also because it's compassionate. Are you taken, by the way?
Just kidding.
I see an additional sad element to this already pathetic scenario. Based on Sanford's embarassing public confessionals recently, I suspect that Maria may not love him any more either.
That leaves just you.
July 2, 2009 8:05 PM | Reply | Permalink
Thanks for the nice words.
Don't know that I'm any more intelligent or compassionate than average, but resonated with your post on hypocrisy because I did spend time working as an actor. It's a great job in some ways, bad in others, but few leave the profession without an understanding of the sheer amount of derring-do it takes to conjure up intimacy for the first time and then night after night with a fellow actor, let alone share that intimacy with the hundreds of people watching the thing. (For those who haven't had the pleasure, it's a freakin' LOT of derring-do. Or seems like it, anyway.)
Fortunately the theater has a set of rules and practices that support performers, if they care to use them. Marriage, not so much--especially, as Barack08 points out downthread, if you have kids. There are just so many socially sanctioned ways to fritter away the energy that two people ought to give each other to keep the thing alive.
Anyway, I'm right there with you on the Maria piece of things. In fact, I'll go you one better; I bet she breathed a secret sigh of relief when Sanford headed home to his job and wife, and is now praying that he won't come back to discover that she poops and has bad hair days just like Jenny does.
As for loving Sanford, I'll pass--I've got a Rick Sanford type in my past and once I got over mooning about what might have been, ended up very glad, in retrospect, that somebody else has to deal with him day to day. Ah, maturity.
But I digress, and have strayed from the larger point, which is that despite Gregor's perfectly fine points about loyalty and commitment, society doesn't seem to be that great at explaining how people ought to go about keeping a marriage juiced up.
July 3, 2009 12:28 AM | Reply | Permalink
I think Gov. Sandford (and Elliot Spitzer before him ) is merely reflecting something innate in marriage that kills passion pretty quick: the boredom. Marriage is both fruitful, satisfying and tedious. Things become especially boring and repetitive with kids. And while that sounds like a great thing for some people, for most, it is the ugly shed hiding behind the pristine white picket fence. And before you know it, that shed falls on the house and all the dirty laundry spews onto Main Street.
July 2, 2009 10:44 PM | Reply | Permalink
It's true. What I find fascinating is the way in which two really smart, interesting people can become "bored" with each other. Which leads to my theory that it's actually a closing off--maybe people just come to depend on each other so much that they can't bring themselves to share deep stuff after a certain point.
July 3, 2009 12:37 AM | Reply | Permalink
When you have children, and you do what you must to give them all they need, this is what happens to time:
It takes 2 committed adults to see the big picture and realize that it is worth it, and also to acknowledge that every minute isn't fun, or even interesting. There are an awful lot of people who just can't do it. Mark Sanford seems to think that his Argentinean experience is extraordinary -- he even described another couple looking at them, marveling at how wonderful they were. Who wouldn't like to interview that guy to find out what he was really thinking?!
The Mark Sanfords of the world really need to understand that keeping a marriage alive with effort and love is what is really extraordinary -- affairs are as ordinary as can be.
July 3, 2009 11:11 AM | Reply | Permalink