re: #35 KGxvi

Perhaps, though I think these cases are mostly about politics and the idea that you criticize your political opponents regardless of what they do. I think in the context of relationships and cheating spouses/significant others, we’ve reached a point as a society where we accept (and even applaud) the cheatee leaving the cheater and are confused by those who stay (30 years ago, it would have been the opposite). And I really don’t think it makes much of a difference which partner cheated. But I’m typically not one to judge people I don’t know (I’ve had some people close to me be the cheatee and as a result there needed to be a third person in the room with me and the cheater at all times, but that’s a story for another time), so if they choose to try and work it out, good for them, and if they choose to go their separate ways, good for them.

That’s where we are as a society, but not where we are in terms of politics. When a Republican man is found to have been screwing around behind his wife’s back, protocol is she stands there on stage with a blank face while he tearfully asks for her forgiveness, which she’s expected to give without fail. Meanwhile, if a Democrat man is found to have cheated on his wife, then his political career is immediately deemed over. She’s expected to leave him and if she chooses to work through it, it’s viewed as being purely politics and she’s somehow failed as a “strong woman” by failing to kick his ass to the curb.