Judging the Judgers
by Mira and Charles on August 11th, 2008Well, Mike Lupica and Maureen Dowd have had their say. And while they said it well they said nothing – of course nobody likes what John Edwards did Duh. You’d have to be brain dead not to feel that way. So what’s so smart about asserting that he did a bad thing? Maybe that’s why a lot of people are talking about our previous blog.
The real question is, what does our harsh judgment accomplish? And is our harsh judgement itself a moral act? After all, who are we to judge more harshly than Elizabeth Edwards herself?
And this is what she says: “Our family has been through a lot. Some caused by nature, some caused by human weakness, and some most recently caused by the desire for sensationalism and profit without any regard for the human consequences. None of these has been easy. But we have stood with one another through them all. Although John believes he should stand alone and take the consequences of his action now, when the door closes behind him, he has his family waiting for him.”
And then she talks about the “repair work” her marriage is going through. “Repair work” is a good expression. It captures what my work and my book When Good People Have Affairs is all about: repairing the damage to individuals and marriages when people have affairs.
Cheap condemnation isn’t the answer. The answer is work, patience, and understanding.
Now it may turn out that Elizabeth Edwards will conclude that John is just a heartless jerk who is so self-involved that he just doesn’t care whom he hurts. About 15% of cheaters are like that.
But the rest aren’t. They are just weak, unhappy, and confused, like the rest of us, and with the right kind of “repair work” they can find real healing.
Now here’s who I most want to hear from: anyone who has a story to tell about how a bad thing happened — an affair — and then through “repair work” you ended up with real healing.
