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Newt Gingrich Wanted Open Marriage, So Much For The Sanctity Thereof

So much for the sanctity of marriage. Apparently one of the biggest sticking points between Newt Gingrich and his second wife Marianne was the fact that Newt wanted an open marriage. Simply put, he wanted to be able to have mistresses on the side and not worry about the damage it could do to their marriage. If anyone knows anything about Roman Catholicism, it is not uncommon in Roman Catholic nations without divorce for men to have lots of mistresses.

Ask Charles de Gaul sometime.

An ABC interview with Brian Ross saw the former Mrs Gingrich explain a lot about what happened:

GINGRICH: I said to him, we’ve been married a long time. And he said, yes, but you want me all to yourself. Callista doesn’t care what I do.

ROSS: What was he saying to you, do you think?

GINGRICH: He was asking to have an open marriage, and I refused.

ROSS: He wanted an open marriage.

GINGRICH: Yeah, that I accept the fact that he has somebody else in his life.

ROSS: And you said?

GINGRICH: No. No. That is not a marriage.

This isn’t exactly something new. We have all known that Gingrich was having a long standing affair with his now third wife for some time.

While Social Conservatives are often big on making homosexuality illegal, banning same-sex marriage, etc, the reality is that they just do not want these talked about. They want the world to go back to when it was all about secrets and lies rather than letting the sun shine upon the diversity of human existence. There is a certain shame to the idea that humans are, well, human.

ABC describes how Marianne found out about how the affair was being conducted “in my bedroom in our apartment in Washington.” She stated that “He always called me at night, and always ended with ‘I love you.’ Well, she was listening.” As we all know now, the affair was occurring while Gingrich was attacking Bill Clinton for his supposed lack of moral leadership.

Newt would go on to file for divorce from Marianne soon after she was diagnosed with Multiple Sclerosis. This mirrored the fact that he filed for divorce from his first wife Jackie while she was being treated for cancer.