Now that I think about it, I am all over the map when it comes to affairs and matters of the heart. I know how *I've* felt when it's been personal, but I know of a few occasions when for some reason I've not been as judgmental. Take Spencer Tracy and Katherine Hepburn. Great soulmates, but still...he was married. That shit would never go down that way today. Same with Bogie and Bacall.

I think it's easier for me to feel, from the outside, a little compassion for someone who legitimately fell in love, rather than just had a little sugar on the side. It does *not* excuse him not coming clean with his wife, and certainly makes the betrayal to *her* that deeper, though.

Yeah, this, I think.

Good point, javachik -- put that way, I might call it a bigger betrayal*. It seems to me that a marriage/ primary relationship is more likely to be repairable after a tawdry affair(s), but a love affair will mostly likely be a death knell.

*(Sort of like debating whether it's worse to peel a bandaid off slowly or rip it off quick.)

*(Sort of like debating whether it's worse to peel a bandaid off slowly or rip it off quick.)

Ha! Perfect.

I will say that I've had to dial back some of my general judginess about some of this stuff after a friend of mine married a guy she originally got together with when he was still married to someone else. He DEFINITELY should have broken up with the first wife years earlier, and it was 100% shitty that he cheated, but it's been an interesting perspective, being pretty close but not one of the affected parties. (I will say, the first time she had him meet us girlfriends, we were all geared up to hate the slimy cheater, but he actually seemed OK as a person.)

The thing with Sanford is that he was one of the people calling for Clinton's impeachment, and has generally hailed himself as a perfect Christian. I am one of those horrible skeptics who believes that when people get money and power, they tend to use it to get laid. So I pretty much think all politicians *are* cheating. It's when they're sanctimonious hypocrites that I can't abide by them. Or feel sorry for them because they're truly torn over an emotional affair. If he hadn't impeached Clinton, and if he hadn't gone AWOL for 6 days, I wouldn't read one article on the affair.

Farrah Fawcett died.

I wonder if she and O'Neal were able to marry beforehand.

I am one of those horrible skeptics who believes that when people get money and power, they tend to use it to get laid.

I actually think it's more subtle than that -- I think there's a kind of person who can get money and power by influencing other people/making them like them, and the miscellaneous Clinton-style screwing around is exactly the same thing (to them) as getting the big donations/getting votes. Except, you know, better.

Farrah Fawcett died.

Oh, that's a shame.