My John Edwards Failure, Ctd

A reader writes:

As someone who has experienced the awful pain and humiliation of infidelity I can't bring myself to blame Elizabeth at all for making decisions she saw as benefiting her family and not necessarily the country.  I spent one terrible night reading emails from my husband to his internet lover, looking at the dirty photos they sent each other and reading about how he would ditch me and she would ditch her husband and live happily ever after.  The next day I woke up and could not remember a single thing about it.  I walked through my house not recognizing anything, like I was in a dream. 

And to think that infidelity is the very least of the trifecta of heartache and bad luck this woman has endured is just beyond my comprehension.  I imagine that losing a child fundamentally changes who you are.  It changed both of them.  If Elizabeth tried to pretend that her world was not falling apart, that her husband of 30 years did not just rob her of the chance to die well-loved in the bosom of an intact family, I can't fault her.  The mind does funny things to protect us.