Elizabeth Edwards defends drunk, womanizing John, who insists he doesn’t see Rielle

I had the chance to read Elizabeth Edwards’ full interview in People Magazine, which I believe is the second time she’s spoken on the record since her maybe-pending divorce was announced. (I say “on the record,” because People has likely run unsourced quotes from Elizabeth in earlier articles that directly quoted her sister.) Earlier this week Elizabeth made an appearance on The Today Show where she said she identified with Sandra Bullock and the way she wants to “reclaim” her identity after the press covered her husband’s infidelity. Unlike Sandra, Elizabeth hasn’t taken the high road though. She will call Rielle pathetic while praising and making excuses for her lying, cheating husband.

Despite filing for divorce, Elizabeth hasn’t called John out on his blatant lies. She also doesn’t intend to make the divorce final unless he forces her hand, and you know he won’t. In the People interview, she explains away his behavior, including recent reports that he’s been drunkenly picking up women in bars. She even says that John still insists he’s not seeing Rielle, and she doesn’t say she doubts him or thinks he’s a son of a bitch. All she says is that his “conduct through this whole thing was terrible… on a personal level, he’s paid a lot [for it].” On one hand she’s being gracious, on the other hand she never says that she was hurt or devastated or that she didn’t deserve to be treated like this. It’s all about John and how he feels.

When she’ll be divorcing John: when he tells her he wants to remarry
Elizabeth is separated from John (who lives nearby in a gated Hillborough, N.C., neighborhood) but is not bothering with divorce. “I say, ‘Until you want to get married again, I don’t have a need.'”

On National Enquirer reports that John is picking up women in bars
“He’s made friends, and I think it’s important for me to give him room to do that. It was hard [for him] to live with somebody who’s disappointed in him, so to find people who aren’t is a really healthy thing for him.”

On whether John is still seeing Rielle
“I know what John tells me, which is ‘under no circumstances.’ But obviously, I’m the last person in the world who knows the truth about these things.”

An excerpt from her book on “saying goodbye” to John
When I see John, I don’t just see the today that others see. I see all the memories – the look on his face when he held our children as newborns, and embarrassed pride as he showed his parents through our first house, the loving way he looked at me when we were with others, the soft and vulnerable way he looked at me and held me when we were alone. We have raised four children, and we have buried one. So when I closed the door on the John of today, I also had to say good-bye to that sweet man whom I had loved for so long. It was not as easy as it might have seemed to anyone looking in from the outside, who knew only the John of today. And I have to wonder if he is sad, too, when he thinks of that young man.

[From People Magazine, print edition, July 12, 2010]

It’s sad that Elizabeth is somehow blaming herself for her husband acting like a dog in heat. Read what she said “It was hard [for him] to live with somebody who’s disappointed in him.” It’s as if she didn’t have good cause to be “disappointed”! Hell she had good cause to kick his ass to the curb, take half his money and talk smack about him to every outlet in town. The guy lied on national television and continues to lie to her, and she doesn’t even seem to question him. Did she even see or hear about Rielle’s Oprah interview? I understand why this lady is still in denial about her husband’s actions, and I understand that she must be desperate to keep her family together as she faces cancer and perhaps the end of her life. I feel sorry for her, but more than that I want to somehow convince her that it’s not her fault that John did this to her and that she no longer has to worry about him. It’s time she took care of herself, and told John to go to hell. He may have been a great dad and partner for decades, but he’s no longer that person. She realizes that, but can’t let go and see reality.

Elizabeth’s biography, Resilience, was re-released June 29th after first coming out last year.