Why this long-suffering wife may decide to embrace her cheating husband’s love child
Talk about New Year’s Resolutions. There are some surprising reports this week that Elizabeth Edwards may be softening her position toward the daughter her husband fathered with his former campaign worker, Rielle Hunter. According to The National Enquirer—tempted to sneer? Fine, but remember they've been on top of this story all along—Elizabeth now not only wants to meet 22-month-old Frances Quinn, but is encouraging John to cough up the nearly $18,000 a month that Hunter is demanding in child support.And so we begin another chapter in the remarkable Elizabeth Edwards saga, which often seems like a cautionary Victorian novel wherein, Dear Reader, we ourselves learn how to live.
The story so far: Recovering from the tragic death of her 19-year-old son in a car accident, Edwards goes on, at ages 48 and 50, to bear two more children. Just as her Senator husband’s political prospects begin to blossom, in 2004, she is diagnosed with breast cancer. Three years later, she is pronounced incurable. In public, at least, Ms. Edwards take it all in her stride. Handed lemons, she makes bestsellers—and while she's at it, uses her celebrity to keep her progressive political beliefs in the spotlight.
But not even Edwards, a woman of remarkable courage and strength, could withstand the blow of her husband’s infidelity, long hidden and denied but eventually exposed and finally confessed. At first, clearly enraged, she refused to consider the paternity question. That, she suggested, was John’s problem. Promoting her book, Resilience, Edwards went so far as to insist that interviewers not mention Rielle Hunter’s name. When Oprah asked about baby Frances, Edwards allowed that she’d seen a photo but “It didn’t look like my children.”
Then a paternity test put all doubts to rest, and Edwards was left with living evidence of her husband’s betrayal—and a big decision to make.
What, if any, relationship should she attempt to build with this child?
If this really were a Victorian novel, there would be no choice. Characters like Dickens' Little Dorritt and Lucie Manette are virtuous women, which means, in the context of those novels, that they don't struggle with choices, they simply do the right thing. But Elizabeth Edwards is a 21st century character, so before she can do the right thing she has to define for herself what "right" really is. She has to debate which path to take…just as we would ourselves, if faced with the same dilemma.
