Should More Wives Kick Out Their Cheating Husbands?

This article from Politics Daily is a bit disturbing: it claims that women should kick out their husbands when they discover their husbands have been fooling around, acting immature, spoiled Momma's boys. Eliot Spitzer's wife recently told the media she felt she was to blame for her husband's inadequacies, but the reality is this: she is wrong. It was not her fault that Eliot decided to seek sex and affection elsewhere, in his case, from a hooker; rather, that was Eliot's fault since he made the choice to have an affair behind his wife's back. But it does not stop there: Spitzer already had a reputation as a governor of New York, a very short fuse, and a personality that Attila the Hun could envy. To most wives, such a guy may echo the "spoiled rotten Momma's Boy" to them, a guy who never really grew up but rather became dependent upon a woman to take care of all of his needs, as only a child could. But Silda Wall, Eliot's wife, felt she failed as a wife, when her husband failed as, well, a husband. Most women do not like being around "big children" as it were, preferring a man who is mature at her own level and capable of having a real relationship. Silda is better off showing Eliot the front door, with his bags packed, told to go home to his Momma and not come back. Regardless of Silda's final decision on what to do with Eliot - keep him, or kick him out, it appears she is one female socialized into male dependency. But why would someone like her fall into the trap of believing that she "needs" a man? Probably because many females are taught this from day one, that females are not as good as men are, and therefore in order to be as good as a man, one must need a man.

Since marriage does not give a woman an identity (all marriage does is give a woman a guy who she has to cook for and clean up after, and at some point, a trip to the maternity ward), neither does having a man give a woman self esteem (something that must come from within, not without), one might think that even the most educated of women would know this. Surprisingly, many women do not know this. Instead, they buy into the beliefs they were raised to have, even if their parent's names were not Ozzie and Harriet. They even buy into the obsolete belief that it is the wife who is responsible for her husband's happiness and maturity (for some reason this brings to mind Florence Levy's comment on her husband Sid Casear in his autobiography "Where Have I Been?": "I have a child for a husband."). A genuine, mature relationship requires two to tango, two who are on equal footing and share the same values. Such a relationship also requires real communication, something that is not Spitzer's strongest element. It is time for old marital beliefs and norms to be questioned and challenged so that women do not wind up blaming themselves for their husband's misbehavior and perpetual immaturity. There are few things in life that help produce mature males: an all-boys school, and the battlefield. The latter is the tragic route to go, when the man can become permanently disabled, while the former has its value for obvious reasons. A woman should never be afraid to reclaim herself and identity when she discovers where her self-worth is really based, and it is not based in how well she does as a wife or a mother.