"Wife" imitates life
In The Good Wife, the fictional Alicia Florrick sells their beautiful suburban home, downsizes to an urban apartment and begins work at a law firm. Her reasons for staying married to Peter unfold.
The Good Wife debuted in 2009, shortly after the real-life resignation of New York Governor Eliot Spitzer. Like Spitzer, the CBS series' errant politician Peter Florrick is discovered hiring hookers. District Attorney Florrick goes to jail, not for the sex but on corruption charges, and the show – as its name implies – revolves around how wife Alicia and their two children cope with the crisis. Creators Michelle and Robert King, husband and wife, say they drew inspiration from imagining the life of Silda Wall Spitzer after her husband's downfall. Like Alicia, Silda had given up work as an Ivy League-educated lawyer earlier in the marriage to raise her two children.
As Alicia sells their beautiful suburban home, downsizes to an urban apartment and begins work at a law firm, her reasons for staying married to Peter unfold. First, there's his assumption that once he beats the corruption charges, their life will go "back to normal." His mother, who's now helping the family care for their young teens, tells Alicia, "he's hurting, and he needs you to forgive him." And, naturally, the children want their father to return and their family to be reunited. When Peter finally leaves jail and decides to run again for office, his sharp political adviser tells Alicia he has no chance of winning without her Good Housekeeping stamp of approval. In other words, she can choose to stand by him or deny him his redemption.
As the writers of this show would have it, Alicia/Silda acts out of concern for everyone around her. The insights about her feelings for her husband are rare – at one point, she suggests separate bedrooms, telling Peter she still loves him but that she's been deeply hurt.
The political limelight bends couples
Real-life political couples have learned to perform for the media and, at the same time, to distrust media reports. They turn intensely inward toward each other and a few close advisers for counsel. They lose touch with what's considered normal in marriage.
Our public conversation about politically married women who remain in the marriage after infidelity has remained frozen in place. When the Monica Lewinsky scandal broke, we asked, "Why does Hillary stay with Bill?" And we are still asking essentially the same question. When Anthony Weiner's sexting came to light, we wanted to know what kept Huma in the marriage.
It would take a lot for me to leave my marriage, which I love, but the repeated public humiliations these wives have suffered would have been enough to break me.
So, I wrote a 260-something-page book called "Why They Stay: The Sex Scandals, the Deals and the Hidden Agendas of Nine Political Wives." I concluded that the spotlight changes how these couples react to infidelity. I'm sure you've heard references to politicians living in a bubble or an echo chamber. I feel that applies to their marriages. We can't judge them by normal standards.
For one, they've often lost touch with normal. These couples have learned to perform for the media and, at the same time, to distrust media reports, so that they turn inward toward each other and a few close advisers for counsel. Also, couples in public life fend off repeated political attacks, and the furor over an infidelity can elicit the same defensive crouch. The women who stay in these marriages are often described in the media as loyal, selfless, "a rock" -- which again distorts what's going on. The temptation to buy into that role, and inflate one's already powerful sense of patriotic purpose, must be enormous.
Publishing in March 2017, Why They Stay explores the possible reasoning and motivation behind why political wives stay with their husbands after the husbands cheat. For updates on the book launch, sign up at whytheystaybook.com.