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President
Franklin D. Roosevelt
Unfaithful
Philanderer or Alienated Husband?
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History buffs are familiar with the fact that President
Franklin D Roosevelt was involved in an extramarital affair early on in
his marriage to his wife, Eleanor.
The young Franklin was destined early on to play a major
role in the politics of his day. It was his wife's social secretary
to whom he sensed a strong attraction. As a result, Lucy Mercer became
his lover. As with most affairs, their secret was discovered by Mrs.
Roosevelt. In 1919, Eleanor offered her husband a divorce. Louis
Howe, FDR's closest political adviser, and Sara Delano Roosevelt, his mother,
strongly opposed it. Mercer's reaction is unknown, and the records of it
conflict. What we do know is that Mercer was a devout Catholic, who well
knew the church's sanctions against marrying a divorced man with five children.
FDR promised his wife that he would never see Mercer again. Less than a
year later, Mercer married Winthrop Rutherfurd, a 56-year-old widower with
five children of his own.
In time, FDR became one of the most effective and loved
presidents of all time, second only to Abraham Lincoln. It was he
who guided the nation to economic recovery through the Great Depression
and also served as our Commander in Chief through World War II. In
fact, she was so successful as our president that he was elected to a third
term.
In the meantime, Eleanor had become a politician in her
own right. Having become quite savvy to politics; not to mention
her commitment to women's sufferage and the early women's rights movements
of her day, she found herself just as busy as her president husband.
The result was that the two became like ships passing in the night.
After President Roosevelt experienced the passing of his
mother, Sarah, he began to experience a deep need to evaluate his relationship
with Eleanor. So much of their lives had been committed to public
service that they had lost track of each other over time. In fact,
Franklin approached his wife for the specific purpose of asking her to
work with him to rebuild their relationship. Not wanting to make
her feel pressured, he asked her to think about it and that they would
talk about it later. When he broached the subject a short time later,
she responded by asking him if he wouldn't mind her going on a tour of
the war front in the Pacific. They never talked about the need to
restore their relationship as husband and wife again. |
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Shortly afterwards, Lucy's husband passed away.
In the meantime, President Roosevelt found himself completely
alone.
His mother had passed away. His wife was on an extended
term on the other side of the world having rejected his offer to rebuild
their relationship. Having heard that Lucy was now a widow, he contacted
her. She accepted his offer to reestablish their relationship.
During the last years of Roosevelt's life, she became his most trusted
and beloved companion. They often spent time together in what was
called his Southern White House in Warm Springs, Georgia. In fact,
she was with him when he suffered a fatal cerebral hemorrhage in Warm Springs
on April 12, 1945.
Eleanor could not be with her husband because, once again,
she was pursuing her own personal politial agenda. Upon arriving
at Warm Springs following the passing of her husband, she was devistated
to find that Lucy had been with him during the last hours of his life.
The historical irony here is stark. In the hands of biographers
and scholars, the FDR-Mercer relationship is most often used to explain
Eleanor's activism rather than FDR's character. Either he was driven to
Mercer because his wife was so little fun, or Eleanor was driven to activism
because she was "a woman of sorrow," heartbroken by her husband's devotion
to another woman--a woman she had brought into her home as an employee.
Furthermore, when Eleanor's close relationship with Hickok (her personal
secretary) was revealed, many assumed that the FDR-Mercer love affair was
sexual while Eleanor's with Hickok was not. In both cases, letters were
burned, the record obscured and stereotypes triumphed. |
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The fact that gets lost in the historical record is that
of Eleanor's later realization as to how beloved her husband was by the
American people.
Following his death, there was hardly ever a moment when
she ventured out into the public that someone expressed their love for
her husband. A taxi cab driver told her, "I didn't know Franklin
Roosevelt, but he knew me." Everywhere she went, those with whom
she came into contact expressed their deep admiration and respect for her
husband, the late president.
It was during this time that she admitted having forgiven
her husband for his affair with Lucy Mercer Rutledge. However, those
of us who commit our lives to continually exploring the human condition
in how it relates to others, find ourselves taken back by her admission.
No one can object to the major contribution that Eleanor
Roosevelt made to the cause of women's rights in her day. Furthermore,
no woman should ever be critisized for being involved in any movement,
cause, or initiative that benefits human beings. However, once having
entered into a marital relationship, isn't it just as true that both have
a responsibility to either work on building the relationship or have the
courage to end it if one or the other refuses to cooperate?
History has a way of judging the actions of those who
we find worthy of including in our narratives of the rise, fall, and successes
of those who stand out from the rest of us. In this case, we find
ourselves more than willing to lecture a young politician for his indiscretion
with his wife's social secretary. However, can we truly justify Eleanor's
reaction that included staying married to Franklin to protect both his
political career and her desire to further her own agenda more effectively
on the coattails of his success in the political arena? In truth,
Eleanor Roosevelt was even more of a political opportunist by staying attached
to her husband's rising star while denying him the normal and natural relationship
of a wife to a husband.
When a wife is approached by her husband with a heartfelt
request to rebuild their marital relationship, the only correct answer
is and emphatic "Yes." Eleanor said no and then expected her husband
to go on alone as the president of this nation during the most stressful
time of World War II.
Despite anyone's moral values, the reality of such a rejection
is that of necessitating the dire need for the warmth of another human
being. Thus, the widow Mercer easily accepted the offer of FDR to
become his friend, companion and mistress.
Their story serves as a real life illustraton of how it
is that men and women are more than capable of screwing up their relationships
so badly that driving a beloved mate to consider options becomes a justifiable
option.
The historian's montra continues to be that they who do
not learn the lessons of history are doomed to repeat them. The same
can be said about couples who enter into a marital relationship, only to
find that one has cut the other off along the way. The absolute need
of every human being to love and be loved will, without a doubt, express
itself one way or another.
If you are one of those who is guilty of alienating your
mate, be warned.
If you think that he or she is going to put up with your
independence, you are kidding yourself. In fact, you have probably
already been replaced and you don't even know it. |
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© all rights reserved - 12/14/2009
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The mission of this not-for-profit website is to promote clear insights
and toleration regarding the many variations of primary relationships that
exist in our world. We ask for neither acceptance or approval but
hope that each visitor who reviews the pages of this site will leave them
with a better understanding of the numerous cultural, historical, preferential,
religious, sexual, and sociological approaches to coupling that have always
existed and will continue to exist as long as there are at least two human
beings living on this planet. If the effort put into creating and
maintaining this site results in others coming to the realization that
the basic human need to love and be loved takes on many forms which are
accepted by those who practice them, whether right or wrong as determined
by the personal belief system of others, then it will have served it's
purpose well. |
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