Posted on 07/02/2009 1:31:17 PM PDT by meandog
The wife of embattled South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford called his affair with an Argentine woman "inexcusable" but said Thursday she is willing to forgive him.
Jenny Sanford's e-mailed statement was her first public comment since her husband told The Associated Press earlier this week that his mistress is his soul mate but he is trying to fall back in love with his wife.
"My forgiveness is essential for us both to move on with our lives, with peace, in whatever direction that may take us," Jenny Sanford said in the statement. "Mark has stated that his intent and determination is to save our marriage, and to make amends to the people of South Carolina. I hope he can make good on those intentions, and for the sake of our boys."
She said it is up to South Carolina voters and elected officials to decide whether they can "give Mark another chance."
Sanford returned last week from a secret trip to Argentina to see his mistress, Maria Belen Chapur. His staff had told the public he was hiking the Appalachian Trail, and he later apologized for misleading them.
Jenny Sanford told The Associated Press then that she learned of the affair in January when she discovered a letter Sanford had written to Chapur. She said he had repeatedly asked permission to go Argentina to see Chapur, but she denied it.
Spokesman Joel Sawyer said Thursday that Mark Sanford plans to spend the holiday weekend with his wife and sons in Florida, where his in-laws live.
"He remains committed and determined to repair the damage he has done in his marriage and to building back the trust of the people of South Carolina," Sawyer said.
(Excerpt) Read more at townhall.com ...
What a dumb comparison.
If I hear him whinning like a school girl who got caught by mommie and daddy doing it in the back yard, one more time, I’ll puke. “But I really, really love him, mommie.”
The slut and mommie dearest need to step away from the cameras so they can become human again.
Except that adultry is not marriage trouble. It creates the marriage trouble and destroys the marriage. I base that on the fact adultry is the one time God permits divorce. If adultry was the fault of both, He would not have done that.
Rational people who perceive their marriage is not what they want first get the divorce and then move on. Happens a lot. Those who decide to have their cake and eat it too have serious integrity problems and place their children last on their list.
I read her statement and understand her completely.
Anyone who can quote Desmond Tutu with a straight face is OK in my book.
/snort
She is in deep denial and is probably stating what all the Christian counselors are telling her. Enabling is different from forgiveness. Unfortunately this is the kind of counseling many churches hand out to women and it simply makes things worse. Good marriage counselors would tell her that he either stops the relationship or they must stop the marriage and she must face this.
It's just like a kid who keeps coming back for money and never learns. The enabling just makes things worse.
Forgiveness is one thing and breaking the law is another.
Forget about the adultry. He's a liar and a thief who can't be trusted. He hides behind the bible to save his own career.
Let his wife give him a second chance. Not the GOP.
sw
I wonder how this is being reported overseas? Anyone seen anything in the foreign press, UK or European?
“Ya know we really like the salary and the bennies aint bad either.”
“I believe we are saying the same thing...forgiveness is a two-way street.”
No, sorry, I don’t like to disagree with you, but we are not saying the same thing. Forgiveness can be a one-way street. Reconciliation must be a two-way street. You can and must forgive even your enemies. Jesus said so and did so. They remain your enemies until they repent and ask you to forgive them.
But one can and a Christian must (I mean that—it is an absolute obligation to forgive even before the offender asks for forgiveness) forgive regardless whether the offender asks to be forgiven. His asking to be forgiven is a prerequisite for reconciliation but not for forgiveness.
That does NOT however mean that by unilaterally forgiving my enemy I am saying that he did me no wrong or is not doing grave wrong. I can (and must) forgive him even while he remains the worst possible enemy, evildoer.
What I just outlined is what it means to “love your enemies,” “pray for those who persecute you” etc.
Now, what Mrs. Sanford means by “forgiveness,” I don’t know. I’m just describing what Christian faith says about it. It was revolutionary when Jesus pronounced it and it remains so today.
Yes, there can be unilateral forgiveness without the offending party doing anything to make things right. If he does nothing, is unrepentant, he remains a very bad person, sinner, wicked, enemy. But one can forgive him. It takes great love to forgiven one’s enemy. Until Mr. Sanford repents (perhaps he has, perhaps he hasn’t—we can’t know) he remains Mrs. Sanford’s enemy. But she can forgive him.
What she can’t do is be reconciled with him until he genuinely repents. Part of repentance is a genuine intent never to do the wrong again.
She can forgive him while remaining clear-eyed about his great wrong done against her.
Refusing to trust after forgiving does NOT indicate lack of forgiveness. Look, Jesus said we have to forgive our enemies. He himself forgave his enemies. Does that mean he trusted the soldiers who were crucifying him? No. He forgave them but he had no reason to trust them.
I can forgive my worst enemy but I’d be a fool to trust him until he genuinely repents and ceases to be my enemy.
A spouse who has betrayed his spouse is an enemy. He can be forgiven before he repents but reconciliation can’t take place until he repents sincerely. And trust CANNOT be reestablished even when he repents because he has been utterly untrustworthy.
Trust is established by experience. I cannot trust someone I know nothing about. If someone has shown himself untrustworthy, he remains untrustworthy until, over time, he proves that he really meant it when he said he was sorry and asked for reconciliation. Over time, if he proves himself trustworthy, I can once more trust him.
But to immediately trust someone who proved untrustworthy helps neither him nor me. It’s a lie. And acting as if he’s trustworthy when he manifestly is not is living a lie. And living lies never helps anyone.
When we do wrong things, even after we admit it and repent and are forgiven and are reconciled, the wound caused by the wrong done remains. It does not heal overnight but over time. And healing (restoring trust) requires action by the wounder to “make up” for the wrong he did.
This is elementary human relations. But so many people think like you do—that lack of trust indicates lack of forgiveness. They expect to be trusted immediately after doing the most untrustworthy, traitorous thing. If someone can’t see why his breaking of trust makes him untrustworthy for a while, then he hasn’t really grasped the enormity of what he did wrong. He hasn’t really repented because true repentance means I firmly resolve to make for the wrong. If the wrong was breaking trust, then I have to bend over backwards to be utterly trustworthy and after a while, I can be trusted again. But forgiveness and repentance do not automatically bring restoration of trustworthiness.
That’s why it’s so terrible to betray trust, that’s why Dante put trustbreakers, traitors (in business, politics, marriage etc.) in the lowest circles of hell.
I'm sorry, but I just don't believe in quick forgiveness. It cheapens it.
He has also disgraced his office, and should resign. Appalachian hiking trip! By allowing him to stay in office, you condone his actions, and are again telling him it's no big deal. You might also tempt him to stray again.
She is much smarter and more diplomatic than he is.
In sharp contrast to his recent behavior in public, blabbing about salacious details of his private life, she issued a bland and reserved statement, which essentially states that they (she) will decide the direction of their private life in private (if Mark can stop himself from talking more / digging deeper) and that whatever they (she) will decide on should be in the best interests of their children.
She is trying to stop the public “bleeding” and help him to understand what damage he is causing to himself (personally and professionally) and the family, and bring the matter where it belonged from the beginning, in house.
She would probably make a great chief of staff or political advisor, at the very least.
Well. . .no doubt; because she has these four children she is feeling a great sense of responsibility to them.
Was being a bit 'cavalier' in posting; but really; when the Governor garnished with the 'soul mate' thing; he just overloads to point of begging for 'no return'. All to say; where DOES the wife fit in; when her husband has a 'soul mate' in Argentina?
So, yes; there ARE children and because of this; you swallow dirt; if it looks at all as if there is a possibility that you can share a mutual 'life' together. But that said; where in the cosmos does Jenny fit in? She is maybe. . .an extra-special star mate?
Allowing that discretion IS the better part of valor; could this fricking husband not kept his 'star mate' classification to himself? He talks like his foot is caught in an escalator. . .with his brain; and other body parts folowing. . .
That said; the Governor should finish his term; while planning for an early retirement. . .
You don't understand the meaning of forgiveness.
Personally I take it as a political move on her part. What is the sense of putting this stuff out publicly. She could have sent him a letter, called him on a private line, done anything except make this even more public than it has been. I also read it as you do, that she is not willing to take him back, just forgive him, but since she says it in a press conference she has an ulterior motive, one that has little to do with her marriage, except to use it as political gain.
Well thanks for your elitist, nuanced, Kerryesque/Clintonian response. Those of us that don't see things through the rarified air of excuses and moral relativism, but from the earthbound perspective of Joe 6-pack simply conclude that miserable actions are performed by miserable people. Are you making that statement based on that lame ‘excuse’?
To me, what you're saying if follow it to its logistical conclusion, is that there is no hell! I don't believe that nor do I believe one can be forgiven unless one seeks it?
Hell is there for the unforgiven, it may or may not be a permanent place (as I am unsure about its eternity for the tortured souls there but my uncertainty borders a bit on heresy so we won't go there)...Instead let me point out that yes, Christ sacrificed Himself for forgiveness but, only when it is sought with demonstrable contriteness (a penance). To forgive those who are not truly sorry for what they have done amounts to enabling their sin; and, in such cases, one might as well committed it themselves. Gov. Sanford has stated only two days ago that his heart was not with his wife but with his "soul mate"...a "love story" he called it rather than by it's true definition: sinful adultery. To me, that doesn't sound much that he's really seeking forgiveness!
No, that there is no hell does not follow from what I wrote. But since you like to take things and run with them, I won’t give you anything more to run with.
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