Why we love trashing Rielle Hunter
I’ve been browsing the blogs all morning for every morsel of gossip about Rielle Hunter and her scheme to overthrow democracy, kill our grandparents and take away our health insurance.
What? You mean she’s just a New Jersey single mom with a cute toddler, hazy job prospects and a scumbag baby daddy?
Like you, I scarfed down yesterday’s New York Times story by Neil A. Lewis like a bag of Doritos. It was so salty and delicious: the revelations that the former presidential candidate John Edwards is “considering” whether or not to claim paternity publicly; that Elizabeth Edwards just won’t get with the program; that the former senator begged his former aide Andrew Young to pretend the baby was his.
But the tastiest bits of all were about Rielle Hunter, John Edwards’ lover. The blogs are loving the news that Edwards promised her a rooftop wedding accompanied by the Dave Matthews Band (the hubris!), just as soon as old Elizabeth kicked off (the gall!). Web sites like GossipGirls published photos today of Hunter (the skinny bitch!) strolling in New Jersey with her baby Frances on her hip (poor baby!). The site HollywoodGossip has even compiled a whole gallery of candids (ha — wrinkles!). The news that she may move down to North Carolina (they’ll be neighbors!) isn’t actually news; the National Enquirer had it last month.
The Enquirer calls Hunter a “45-year-old blonde divorcee.” (And doesn’t even that pat description feed into all our stereotypes about husband-hunting marriage wreckers?) But beyond that, I don’t know Rielle Hunter. You don’t know Rielle Hunter. So why do we hate her so?
Speaking for us married women, I think she embodies our worst fears. In our collective minds, we are all Elizabeth Edwards. We suffer (if not from cancer and lost children, then from laundry and fatigue). We stand by our man, shits though they may be. We love — dammit, we love. And yet one day, along comes a 45-year-old blonde divorcee to drive a steak knife through our hearts.
So trash to your heart’s desire. Because next time, ladies, she’s coming for us.
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Your “shit” husband’s finger prints would be all over that steak knife.
These narratives so interestingly leave out the issue of…volition. Men chase other women for a range of reasons, leaving their loyal wives in the dust. It’s easy and comforting to totally blame the “other woman” but every failed marriage has a wife who played some role in its failure, if only by choosing or choosing to stay with a shit.
It’s even more interesting when your husband leaves you for someone really mean and ugly.
To Caitlin’s point, I give you Camilla Parker Bowles. Which one is worse?
Camilla’s situation is quite different, because she was Charles’ longtime lover, and he was not allowed to marry her way back when. But also to Caitlin’s point, Diana was a real handful.
To get back to Rielle…I’m afraid I reserve my contempt for John.
In response to another comment. See in context »There’s a parking spot reserved for John in hell.
In response to another comment. See in context »Every marriage has two people in it. The man may stray, but blaming the other woman exclusively is BS. These guys can easily keep it zipped, but they don’t. So what role are these wronged wives playing? Been there, lived it – and had to face my own role in it as well.
Caitlin, I guess it’s hard for me to blame the victim — in your case or in the Edwards. Should Elizabeth face her own role, as you put it, in John’s infidelity? What — she couldn’t have sex with him during chemo, so who could blame him for looking elsewhere? Likewise, hard for me to believe you forced your partner to be unfaithful (if that’s what happened).
In response to another comment. See in context »I can’t speak for anyone else (Edwards), and I don’t think highly of adultery, believe me. You always have a choice not to act on it. But the wronged wife drama gets old; not every man is de facto a shit nor every wife a saintly angel. If a guy is determined to seek out something he feels is lacking in that marriage, the wife has to examine her role in that as well. (Ditto for women who stray.)