Excerpt: eleanor stayed married for the kids but later regretted her choice

Excerpted from Why They Stay: Sex Scandals, Deals, and Hidden Agendas of Nine Political Wives (Ogunquit Press, March 2017).

The marriage between Eleanor and Franklin Roosevelt has served as a template for political couples who search for a way stay together through the husband’s serial infidelity. As the story has come down to us, the Roosevelts suffered a rift over his affair and then went on to live separate, successful and very public lives under the same roof. But a closer look shows that their reality was very painful, messy and human.

By staying in the marriage, Eleanor believed she was doing right for their five children and for her husband. Just as she was experiencing her own deep sense of betrayal, she was called on to rally behind Franklin as he stepped onto the national stage as the Democrats’ vice-presidential candidate in 1920. She traveled on his whistle-stop tour, monitored his press coverage and gave him advice on his speeches. Her patriotic devotion to the public ideals the couple stood for revealed itself in her own design for a fulfilling life outside of her empty marriage. Using her position first as the wife of New York’s governor and then as first lady, she advocated for safe housing, laws against child labor, wider voter registration, birth control and civil rights. Her determination to rise above personal pain gave the world one of its great leaders.

“Never for a minute would I advocate that people who no longer love each other should live together because it does not bring the right atmosphere into a home,” she wrote.

Yet the manner in which Franklin dealt with his marriage and his own needs for intimacy reverberates throughout the lives of his children. They chose spouses with the right pedigree. Infidelities abounded. A partner who didn’t fulfill one’s needs was shortly substituted for another. And worldly success often took precedence over happiness at home. It’s almost as if the children of Eleanor and Franklin were trying to work out in their own lives the issues that their parents left unresolved in their marriage.

“At first, each of us married into moneyed families. Not because we needed money, but because we were exposed to moneyed people,” James wrote. “Eventually, we made other marriages. Some of us married outside the social register…. Hopeless romantics, we Roosevelt children married again and again.”

The eldest, Anna, briefly attended college at Cornell University but quit to marry Curtis Dall, a successful stockbroker, in 1926. She said that she married to “get out of the life I was leading,” a reference to the Roosevelt’s difficult family situation in the aftermath of Franklin’s affair with Lucy Mercer.

Anna and Curtis separated as Franklin was entering the White House in 1932, and Anna moved there with her two children. She met and married a reporter, John Boettiger; it was a second marriage for both. Eleanor felt Anna and John entered this marriage having learned from their sufferings and mistakes, and she commented to a friend in a letter that marriages shouldn’t be preserved for the sake of the children. “Never for a minute would I advocate that people who no longer love each other should live together because it does not bring the right atmosphere into a home,” she wrote, adding that it was very sad when a couple was unable to make a success of marriage, “but I feel it is equally unwise for people to bring up children in homes where love no longer exists.”

Excerpted from Why They Stay: Sex Scandals, Deals, and Hidden Agendas of Nine Political Wives (Ogunquit Press, March 2017). To read more about the book, and for links to purchase, click here.

Melania Trump tests First Lady waters cautiously

There’s one Trump whose approval ratings are climbing fast, and it’s not the guy in the Oval Office.

First lady Melania Trump has picked up 16 percentage points since before the inauguration, according to a recent poll by CNN/ORC. Fifty-two percent said they have a “favorable” opinion of Trump, even as her husband’s numbers remain mired in the low 40s.

Americans, it seems, are getting to know the former model from Slovenia. The same poll found that 23 percent had “no opinion” of her before President Donald Trump’s inauguration; afterward, only 12 percent hadn’t yet made a judgment.

This first lady is like no other in recent memory. She had no experience in the political spotlight before landing in this high-profile, if poorly defined, role at the top of American public life. She was known in New York celebrity circles, of course, and pictured in society coverage as the wife of a publicity-loving billionaire whose name adorns skyscrapers, hotels and golf courses.

Trump’s visit cast her as nurturing and selfless, with little risk. No tyke was going to pop up and ask whether she had permission to quote Dr. Seuss. 

But national politics, unlike celebrity and fame, often demands more gravitas and homage to tradition. Melania Trump is navigating this all in real time, without the training wheels her predecessors had, and with a partner whose political brand is built on upending Washington norms.

Before becoming first lady, Michelle Obama was the wife of a state senator and then a U.S. senator. Laura Bush was married to a Texas governor and a member of a family steeped in politics. Hillary Clinton’s husband had been the attorney general and then governor of Arkansas. Barbara Bush had a wealth of experience as the wife of a former CIA director, ambassador to China, congressman and vice president.

As political spouses, these women made mistakes in early roles and learned from them.

Trump’s first major foray was publicly bruising. She was the wife of the candidate then, supporting him as he accepted the Republican Party nomination. Her speech at the convention was cribbed from her predecessor’s — and the plagiarism was rightly blasted.

It’s enough to make a person want to hole up in a posh Manhattan penthouse and tend to her 10-year-old son. Get back to basics.

Now, though, there are signs that Trump is testing the waters as first lady. Earlier this month, she visited a hospital in Manhattan to read to sick children. She chose the classic, “Oh, the Places You’ll Go!” In the lore of first ladies, this is public relations gold.

Trump’s visit cast her as nurturing and selfless, with little risk. No tyke was going to pop up and ask whether she had permission to quote Dr. Seuss.

Last week, she hosted an invitation-only luncheon at the White House in honor of International Women’s Day and spoke about equality, freedom and women helping each other achieve success. Also, the Trumps will honor the 139-year-old custom next month of rolling Easter eggs across the White House South Lawn.

Step by step, Trump is adopting traditions we associate with first ladies. Her next challenge will be the gravitas.

Before Election Day, Trump said she was interested in working to combat cyberbullying, but she hasn’t begun, at least not publicly. Nancy Reagan is remembered for her anti-drug message, Obama for encouraging kids to exercise and Laura Bush for reminding children to read. Must each first lady have a cause? It will be interesting to see how Trump answers that question.

For now, she’s made it clear that she will remain in New York until son Barron finishes his school year. This also allows her to approach her new role with caution.