Why the Edwards Split Bums Us Out

The peanut gallery cheered when Jenny Sanford left Mark, and it’s been urging Elin Nordegren and Silda Spitzer to follow suit. But for some reason, the Edwards divorce has been greeted as sad news. “No two marriages are alike,” writes Belinda Luscombe of Time. This one had survived so much—the loss of a child, the cancer diagnosis, the affair—that it “had people rooting for its survival.”

Edwards had always seemed such a doting husband that “it seemed plausible that he had made a mistake of weapons-grade stupidity” and was making amends. Besides, this is about the future. Jenny Sanford projects the image of a smart woman embarking on her own career, and we can imagine “gorgeous, alimoneyed Elin Nordegren fending off flocks of suitors with a 9-iron.” But Elizabeth’s a single mom with cancer. Downer.