I COULDN’T HAVE SAID IT ANY BETTER!  RIGHT ON, AS USUAL, LIZ!

Oh! My:  How is Elizabeth to blame for John’s affair???  Mr. John should have just gone to the "john" and taken care of his "ego" problem and left the "pathetic person" alone. You should obviously take a good long look in a mirror and try to figure out who or what the hell you are.  The elevator is obviously stuck in the basement. Back to my earlier opine, Why do women still blame the other women or the wife.  JOHN is the real DICK here.  GROW UP!

I totally agree with what Liz wrote. Elizabeth is continuing to enable John and that is sad. But she did really screw up by allowing herself, her family, and their history to be used for his selfish purposes. If the Edwards had it their way and McCain had it his, this country may have been left in Palin’s "capable" hands. Because John would have been caught had he gotten the nomination; no way that the Republicans would have let that affair go by and John’s not smart enough not to get caught.

Having lost a child myself, I did understand what Elizabeth had to say about dying and the fact that the fear of death is lost. It then becomes the rejoining with your child. So in her own sense of the world that she knows she is leaving, she may be doing what she feel will serve her living children best when she is not hear to defend herself and their lives together. She is leaving her public record that no one can change or reinvent for their own agenda (as in John and baby momma’s future). She is making sure that HER last nail is driven in that relationship’s coffin. Her children will never accept that woman into their lives. I do feel for the baby girl in the story though. John sure has no trouble throwing his children under the bus for his own purposes at any given point of time. I hope that little girl is able to suck as much money as possible out of John’s little estate there in the future. She will have earned it.

The untold story lurking here is the one behind the bedroom door of millions and millions of men and women cancer survivors and their partners. Eventually, the non-diseased spouse, begins to regard the other as a patient than a real alive sexual being. This degree of separation helps make it easier to deal with the loved one.  Sex suffers so much during cancer diagnosis, treatment and recovery. I was diagnosed at 27 with thyroid cancer, 22 months after we were married.  It was supposed to be curable. I had 3 recurrences every 5 years and we thought I was cured. It recurred a 5th time after 9 years. Each surgery required more devastation to my neck (I lost all sensation in my neck and my vocal chords were severed as well for example). Each treatment required me to get off hormones that sent my emotions reeling. At my 6th recurrence in 2005, I could no longer breathe on my own, so I had so get a permanent tracheostomy. Talk about body issues! For my 50th birthday last year, I got a stomach tube because I couldn’t swallow enough nutrition anymore. By then, we hadn’t had sex in almost 2 years.

My husband has been wonderful, always dressing post surgery wounds and emptying drainage pumps. He’s been by my side but that has a price—it objectified me into a "patient." I am learning this through thearpy and other books. He has also had to work very hard to pay for our astronomical insurance so I gone to doctor appts. alone and went through radiation after a 7th recurrence and surgery in 2007 in another city alone for 7 wks. And honestly, I haven’t always been able to be there for all his needs. Although I have made attempts to come on to him, he has brushed me off and I did not know why.

Well, it all came out in therapy. He’s not turned on by me, he says. I’m too delicate. He’s afraid he’ll break me. He sees me as a patient. Not like a wife. He said he had to put up a screen because it hurt too much he was going to lose me.

He has been faithful to me. But I did find some porn. I was insulted at first. But with the help of an Oncology Therapist, I am talking and most of all, writing things through. And she referred us to a to a Specialist.

This specialist is helping to save our marriage of 25 years (I will be 51 next week) She is an Oncology Sex Therapist. Chronic illness takes a toll many places—it is easy to point out the obvous ones.

The most insidious damage cancer or any chronic illness produces is the lack of sexual intimacy between of partners. I believe this is often the first chip in the block that can lead to divorce and infidelty.

If only more oncologists took the whole body approach and led their patients to these therapists.  It makes all the difference in living life to the fullest no matter what happens next.

It is so sad Elizabeth and John Edwards did not explore these kinds of options.  I thought she was getting the best of care.