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Whether Jenny thought Mark was the most wonderful man in the world is secondary to making him feel that way-- telling him, showing him. Mark suggested that Jenny was never a loving and affectionate woman and that he only realized that mattered recently, and while he was in politics. Jenny has her good qualities, but Mark was never emotionally connected to her in a soulmate kind of way. And, I'm not really blaming Jenny for that (the victim, as you put it). Jenny is who she is. It's quite likely that the girl from the rich family was raised to be a cold fish, intentionally or unintentionally. Mark was young and stupid when he met her and married her and didn't ask himself basic questions that a pre-marriage counselor would ask. He may have been attracted to her wealth, her family's power and influence, her beauty, whatever-- but he didn't realize that is all superficial. He may have even married her for even less worthwhile reasons, like she was there and he thought marriage is what he was supposed to do around the age he was at the time.

I empathize with many of the things Mark wrote in those emails because I could have written them, too. I totally understand where he's coming from. I understand how a part of him wishes he could hit a reset button on his life so he'd be free to make the right decision and be with someone he was in love with and not merely loved, and for that someone to feel the same way about him-- and to not have all of the collateral damage from going in that direction at this stage in his life.

Frankly, sir, I think you are dragging your own admitted marital issues into your interpretation of this regrettable situation in South Carolina. And because you are sympathetic to Sanford, you are indeed blaming the victim. You have inserted all sorts of information into your post that go far beyond what we, the public know, so either you are close to the Sanford situation or you are dramatizing about feelings and situations about which you have absolutely no knowledge.

I reiterate, as other posters have done: don’t be naive. You have absolutely no reason to suppose that Jenny Sanford was ever unaffectionate, unsupportive, or unsexy. Since she has money and he didn’t, she surely would not have married him if she didn’t love him. So please don’t blame her for her husband’s disgusting transgressions unless you have some firm evidence that she is and has always been a cold wench or nasty or abusive. My sympathies will change if it is indeed shown that she’s a beast.

(It is not, by the way, fair to suggest that because a person is raised with money that she is therefore unloving. I’m acquainted with many wealthy people who are among the most tender, loving, and/or passionate you would ever want to meet—not a cold fish among them. To suggest otherwise smacks of class envy and liberalism.)

And if as you say you could have written those emails, let me give you a piece of hard advice: get the divorce first; then go hunting for love. You will be thankful later, your lawyer and your wife’s lawyer will be much poorer, and your kids won’t be quite as contemptuous of you.

In the long run, though, you will be the one disappointed if you think there is some glorious perfect woman out there who is going to make you happy. Ninety-nine percent of the men who leave a loving spouse for someone they think they adore end up being sorry about it, because situations like that are inherently unrealistic.