If Your Beautiful Spouse Was Disfigured, Would You Leave Them?

[lame54]

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-1024927/The-wife-John-McCain-callously-left-behind.html
But there is another Mrs McCain who casts a ghostly shadow over the Senator’s presidential campaign. She is seldom seen and rarely written about, despite being mother to McCain’s three eldest children.

And yet, had events turned out differently, it would be she, rather than Cindy, who would be vying to be First Lady. She is McCain’s first wife, Carol, who was a famous beauty and a successful swimwear model when they married in 1965.

She was the woman McCain dreamed of during his long incarceration and torture in Vietnam’s infamous ‘Hanoi Hilton’ prison and the woman who faithfully stayed at home looking after the children and waiting anxiously for news.

But when McCain returned to America in 1973 to a fanfare of publicity and a handshake from Richard Nixon, he discovered his wife had been disfigured in a terrible car crash three years earlier. Her car had skidded on icy roads into a telegraph pole on Christmas Eve, 1969. Her pelvis and one arm were shattered by the impact and she suffered massive internal injuries.

When Carol was discharged from hospital after six months of life-saving surgery, the prognosis was bleak. In order to save her legs, surgeons

had been forced to cut away huge sections of shattered bone, taking with it her tall, willowy figure. She was confined to a wheelchair and was forced to use a catheter.

Through sheer hard work, Carol learned to walk again. But when John McCain came home from Vietnam, she had gained a lot of weight and bore little resemblance to her old self.

[no_hypocrisy]

1. Hey, it's almost a republican tradition. Newt served divorce papers on his

first wife personally when she was having a chemo session. Here, sign this.

[KittyWampus]

17. many men leave their incapacitated or infirm wives. Nurturing isn't instilled into boys

to the extent it is girls.

[BlooInBloo]

2. I doubt if anybody can accurately say for sure without being in the situation....

This pair broke up, for example:

http://www.antiwar.com/photos/perm/The+Face+of+War.jpg

[BlueIris]

4. They broke up? Damnit.

It's time for me to cry now.

[BlooInBloo]

7. Yah - I lost the link to the story (think I saw it on Atrios)....

But apparently he had/has psychological problems now (duh) as well, and it added up to their getting separated.

The true cost of war. Sigh.

[lame54]

8. That is sad

[Indenturedebtor]

3. I wouldn't leave my wife

But she's my best friend too. She would want me to leave her though. That's the kind of person she is.

[hisownpetard]

5. I wish the MSM would spread this story to the masses. Most people think McCain is very moral

and know little about his skirt chasing. What he did to his wife was really reprehensible,
and it takes a pretty selfish and heartless person to do that.

[magellan]

6. Neither of us is beautiful

We have a marriage based on something more important than what McSame bases his on. Love and respect.

[Blue Belle]

18. He bases his marriage on esthetics...

looks, money, and political connections.

[ayeshahaqqiqa]

9. Beauty lies within a person

My dear sweet husband may not be a "looker" but his character, his soul--they are very beautiful. He is my most sacred trust and I love him deeply--more so, I think, than when we married 19 years ago. I could not imagine not being by his side. I'm lonely if we are apart for even a day. So the actions of McCain are ones I cannot understand or comprehend.

[Happyhippychick]

10. No. I adore my husband and my children would be devastated.

[papau]

11. Leave someone willing to put up with me ? - that would be crazy! - besides Love and respect are nice

[lldu]

12. I didn't....

My wife became disfigured and ended up losing a leg. I never left her. I was there near her bedside 8 years later when she passed away.

She asked me why I stayed when many men would have left.

I told her because I loved her and our wedding vows said "In sickness and in health". But that didn't matter. I loved her. On her gravestone is a saying that says "He is her guardian angel". Her family told me that was what I was.

[stray cat]

13. Disfigured and disabled while he was a prisoner of war and disabled-

Both people had certainly changed a great deal - under the circumstances I won't pass judgement. I've seen fewer life changing things ruin marriages.

[lame54]

14. This guy is the front-runner of a party that does nothing but pass judgement

[elehhhhna]

15. I suspect both their lives fell apart while he was a POW

I loathe the man but, hey -- just sayin'.

[Contrary1]

16. I definitely don't fall under the "beautiful" category...

However, I am disfigured for sure. Lost two breasts due to cancer. What's left is sunken and scarred. I have had so many surgeries, you could play connect the dots.

My beautiful spouse told me that it did not matter. He wanted to spend the rest of his life with his best friend. That's the nicest thing anyone has ever said to me. :)

[Deja Q]

19. Physically, mentally, or emotionally?

[LynneSin]

20. Depends if I have an available, super-rich, almost 20 years younger sugarmamma as a backup wife

other than that - I'd stick with the current one.