Replies

No one but the people directly involved in John McCain's first marriage know what really happened. And I'm sure (being divorced myself) that his ex-wife might give a different explanation from his. But the point is, he was captured and tortured by the North Vietnamese and when he came home, he was NOT the same man physically, mentally or emotionally as he had been when he kissed his wife and went to war.

At the same time, the First Mrs. McCain was alone all those years growing distant from the memories of the fighter pilot she kissed goodbye. Her role in her family changed. She changed.

This does not in any way excuse John McCain or his first wife, either, for the way they treated each other when he got back from 'Nam. They were two totally different people who no longer had much in common.

I'm guessing here, so stay with me: She didn't like him acting like a husband and telling her how to do things or putting limits on her activities so she could be with him. He'd been gone a long time and she had developed her own social network and it didn't include him. She couldn't go back to "newly wed" with this man she really no longer knew. He needed more than she could or was willing to give and he needed someone to understand the stress he'd been subjected to in 'Nam. She was not the girl he married. He was not the boy she married. They were two people sharing the same last name and living in the same house. They were no longer a "couple."

Doesn't give him a right to go find someone who'd listen to him and understand him. But he did. And that is all water under the bridge. It's over. There's no going back. I have heard or read people's comments about him, mostly negative, but those people weren't there with the First Mrs. McCain helping her to remain the same person all those years John McCain was gone, were they? No, they had their lives to live. Well so did she. And when John McCain came back from 'Nam, like so many military men, the first marriage was already so changed that he couldn't fit the role his First Wife wanted and she could not fit the role he needed.

I wasn't there, you weren't there, so let's forgive the man his humanity and his First Wife her humanity and allow John McCain to be the man he is and our Candidate for POTUS.