Elizabeth Edwards "Today" Show Appearance: "I Do Love Him"

WASHINGTON — Elizabeth Edwards says if she had known her husband John was having an affair rather than her initial belief that he'd had just a single betrayal, she would have strongly resisted his running for president again.

Edwards said "I do love him" and also said in a nationally broadcast interview that's the reason she has remained with Edwards despite his admitted affair with videographer Reille Hunter.

Edwards went on NBC's "Today" show Monday to discuss "Resilience," the book she has written about her battle with incurable breast cancer and her discovery last year that her husband had been involved in an affair with Hunter.

Asked at one point if she wrote the book to strike back at her husband, Edwards said she actually had started it well before she learned that Edwards' involvement with Hunter was more than a one-night stand.

Edwards said, "I only knew about a single night, a single moment of weakness." She said that if she'd known about a more involved relationship, "I probably would have been more adamant about his not running."

Comments

[meko]

What a crock. If you love someone, you don't invite the whole world in to see the troubles of your marriage. You don't broadcast every detail of their flaws to the world and your children. You work, in private, to rebuild intimacy. You give the short answer in such a way as to bore people who want more info, "It happened and we'd appreciate the courtesy to work past this in private."

This pity party is about vengeance and that's it.

[Cherubim]

As Elizabeth Edwards has said during her TV interviews,
former U.S. Senator John Edwards is visiting The Fuller Center in El Salvador
Click on the link for pictures and information about the The Fuller Center
http://fullercenter.org/2009/05/former-us-senator-john-edwards-visiting-the-fuller-center-in-el-salvador/

[mostlyindignant]

Yeah, you really need to go to El Salvador and have your picture taken to help people in need.

[ydnas639]

Please!

Why is Elizabeth Edwards still whining, I mean other than to sell her book? She married a narcissistic, almost straight, man, and then says, in a major understatement, “I was probably naïve.”

I, personally, do not text or use texting abbreviations, however picture me Laughing Out Loud.

The narcissistic part: take a look at the video clip of Mr. Edwards at this link:

[devdil]

I think EE motive is simple: she knows Hunter and maybe JE are just waiting for her to die, and she wants to make sure her children (and the world) know what she thinks about the two of them.

Frankly, I applaud her. While John is to blame primarily, Hunter isnt blameless either. I have never understood why a wronged wife can never trash the "other woman"...Hunter knew JE was married; that EE was dying and she still ensnared him. EE's book seems remarkably restrained actually. If calling the "other woman"..(a woman who helped destroy your family)...pathetic is the most she does in her book, then she is being pretty generous.

Maybe she is punishing JE in her own way by staying with him....too bad if he thought she will fade into the background like Spitzer's wife.

[meko]

By publishing the book, she reignited attention in the affair. She encouraged the other woman to get her digs in publicly too. She created a market for the other woman's book deal. No matter how restrained her text was, she opened the door to more.

And as to insisting that her children and everyone they ever meet be informed of what a martyr she is and what a bad man her husband is, not thoughtful. Make sure the kids are teased at school for their parents behavior? Leave them alone in the world without emotional support of any parent when she's gone? Do everything you can to make sure their father cannot earn their forgiveness, and support them as they go through their lives? Teach your children that when there is betrayal in a marriage, you don't leave, you don't forgive, you don't move on, you just seek vengeance? Continue the destruction of your family because your pain is the only pain that matters?

No matter how much pain a parent suffers, their should still consider how much pain they cause their children. She is publicly shaming them and their family name along with her husband. Dealing with her pain privately, acting as if the world is not her therapist, and focusing on her own contributions in the world instead of her pain reflected well on Silda Spitzer. There would have been more dignity in Edwards focusing on healthcare reform than her own pain. But she just wasn't resilient enough.

[Okieborn]

I truly hate the medical situation of Elizabeth Edwards, but these articles on the Edwards are getting to be old hat !!!

[winterclaire]

To be frank, what's surprising about John Edwards' behavior is that he only had the ONE affair (as we understand it today). He's a handsome, intelligent, successful, charming man. He is most definitely not the first and will most definitely not be the last powerful man to give in to the temptation of a "piece of strange."

But I find it curious that in all of these discussions nobody mentions that WOMEN have affairs as well. If I count the number of people I know who have had affairs (myself included), there are just as many women as men.

Human beings are animals...pure and simple. We are not monogamous by nature, yet we force ourselves into social contracts (marriages) that are just outdated ways to control women and children, and property (is that redundant?). We believe in "romantic" love and end up reproducing with someone whose pheromones turn us on. It is the rare couple indeed who have life-long, happy, healthy relationships. I doubt many amongst us can count ourselves amongst those lucky few.

So, am I disappointed in John Edwards? Yep. Am I surprised? Nope. Do I think that John Edwards still has a viable message about poverty in America? Yep. Do I think that Elizabeth Edwards has a right to express her point of view, and perhaps even offer guidance to both men and women who have been involved in affairs, or whose spouses have? Yep.

[Cherubim]

Eloquence is a woman named Elizabeth Edwards.

[BartLA]

What's wrong with John? Is he the male Sarah Palin? Did he have an aversion to condoms? And it doesn't matter if Rielle said whether she was on the pill or not. He couldn't know for sure. Dude, you're older and more educated than Levi. Have some sense.

[smark]

Yep. He played into her "baby trap". RH's trap worked and now she thinks she is set for life. She is just as much to blame for this mess as well as JE, the little golddigger!

[rabiddog6708]

Men cheat on their wives every day in this country, and many of the wives find out and forgive their husbands. Not every woman who catches her spouse cheating divorces him, so all the people slamming Elizabeth Edwards probably know someone (or are that someone) who has done the very same thing. Hypocrites.

[roshni]

Do all victims of infidelity go on book tours and air their dirty laundry?
Are there always children of disputed parentage involved because a person won't man up and settle the issue?

[rabiddog6708]

A lot probably would, if anyone was interested in reading about it.

[meko]

Do they all ensure that the next day at school, all their children's classmates will know the details of their parent's marriages? Yes. Sometimes they do. Sometimes people are narcissistic martyrs who can't see past their own pain.

John Edwards was wrong to have an affair. Elizabeth Edwards is wrong to air her dirty laundry in public.

[cmarmonhalm]

Sad to say but Rielle's probably just waiting for Elizabeth to die.

[jeanrenoir]

Sadder to say that Elizabeth Edwards' personal political ego and ambition was so strong that she was willing to foist her jerk husband onto America as a ticking political time bomb. Like Hillary, she simply couldn't sacrifice her own ambition to the cause of integrity and out this jerk before he destroyed himself and the Democratic Party in living color on Fox News. Can you IMAGINE what Fox would have made of this guy? Elizabeth did all she could to hand the election over to the Republicans, whether she intended to or not, when she made the incredibly selfish decision not to use her cancer as the perfect polite excuse to get Edwards out of the race, and protect the party, and the country, she claimed to love. Cancer is not a "Get Out of Jail Free" card that absolves anyone of anything. Elizabeth Edwards is a sad woman, and I have nothing but compassion for her in all she's suffered in her terrible fight with cancer. But she was completely irresponsible in not getting her husband out of the race for the White House.

[bambilashes]

Give her credit, she is one strong women see the video http://movies09.com/nbc-today-show-elizabeth-edwards-%e2%80%98he-made-this-one-mistake%e2%80%99.php

[amoment]

I think if she was strong, she would get out of the marriage. Most women give their all to their relationships while most men give their all to their egos. It would have been good for Spitzer, Edwards, and Clinton to have said to the world, despite my poor conduct, I love my wife. I believe that even in the 21st century, we think having a man is just the best thing there is.

[HareRaezer]

Elizabeth should have left well enough alone. Hunter now know that John really is playing her and staying with Elizabeth. Hunter will demand the paternity test and we now how that will turn out. I also don't believe that BS story John told Elizabeth about how Hunter was basically stalking him using bad pick up lines. Elizabeth may feel good right now but that other shoe is going to drop pretty soon now.

[smark]

I believe it. Can you say golddigger???

[Retrofuturistic]

Enabler, enabler, enabler.

[ditchdigger]

i admire,and sympathize with you elizabeth.i for gave my wife o 19 years.i spent 15 months trying to put it back together.she was ego centered like john.i got the boot. a women like you sure aren't enough of you.the problem is most of them are like hunter.

[BJD44]

So I guess what I want to know is that if John Edwards had remotely thought to use any type of protection with Rielle Hunter, and no baby had ensued, WOULD HE EVEN HAVE BOTHERED TO TELL HIS WIFE ABOUT THE AFFAIR?

Doubt it...........