In One Man's Fall, Bruises for All
Eliot Spitzer Strays. Women Say: You Cad! Men Say: Why Me?

By Monica Hesse
Washington Post Staff Writer
Saturday, March 15, 2008

All week long it's been going on.

Sometime in the middle of watching wall-to-wall Spitzermania, maybe during the second painful news conference, maybe after the 40th ex-call girl shared her exclusive glimpse into the industry, maybe when the nearly nudie Kristen/Ashley snaps surfaced, women across the country turned to their partners and said:

As long as I live, I will never -- the selfishness is what really -- look at his wife! Look at her! Explain this to me, honey. Explain it. Why do men do this?

And men across the country said:

Here we go again.

Here we go, into that tetchy relationship territory in which A Guy (Bill Clinton, Hugh Grant, Ross from "Friends") screws up royally, and his sins become the sins of the gender, and any attempt at explanation inevitably ends in: "Gaaaarrrgh!"

The reverberations of Eliot Spitzer are showing up in relationships everywhere we look.

Like Brandon Hutchison and Dee Johnson, dating for two months and walking to a happy hour at Helix Lounge.

Johnson: "She should not have been on that podium. She was biting her lip -- you could tell she was going to beat his [butt] when they got home. What do you think?"

Hutchison: "I'm not saying what he did is not wrong, but times have changed, things are different. Everyone's cheating."

Johnson:

Hutchison: "I'm not saying that I'm cheating."

Johnson: "Gaaaarrrgh."

Like Ralph and Erica Long, shopping for Enfamil in a CVS with their infant son.

Erica (benevolently): "I would support him unless it was something really weird, like the New Jersey governor. Then no." Explains that marriages are about forgiveness, but she still thinks the situation is tragic.

Ralph (starting strong, wavering): "Most men don't go looking for it. It's just something that happens. . . . Look at my beautiful wife and son. I'm not going to try to jeopardize that, but if something came along, it would be really hard to . . . "

Erica: Gaaaarrrgh.

There is nothing like a public scandal to prompt private introspection. Shrinks call them "teachable moments," those calamitous events that are really only opportunities for us to have measured, reasonable discussions of a philosophical nature.

Do you think that Eliot Spitzer's actions should have dissolved his marriage? Discuss.

Do you think that men and women have different ideas of what constitutes cheating? Discuss.

Do you think that there is a biological reason that men behave like such scum of the Earth, and don't you think for a minute that you would ever get away with it, buddy, because there no way I would not find out, and once I did you would be on the curb so fast, oh I saw the way that waitress looked at you. Discuss.

"I told Bob that he wouldn't even have made it to the podium," says Vickie Billings, standing in a Whole Foods produce aisle with her husband, Robert. "Because a certain body part of his would be missing."

Robert Billings affectionately pokes at his wife of 10 years. "This one does tend to personalize things a bit."

Ah, yes. The question may be, "Why do men do this?" But what's really being asked is, "Why would you do this? What could be missing/failing in our relationship that could cause you to throw it all away?"

Fail to understand the true question, and every possible answer will be wrong. It will sound, boyfriends and husbands, like you are defending Eliot Spitzer, like you are a cheater cheater pumpkin eater.

"I think he has an addiction," says Nicholas Warner, checking out the new Target in Columbia Heights with his girlfriend, Shweta Ramsahai. "I'm not saying it was right, but it's a sex addiction."

Wouldn't she forgive him, he asks, if he were addicted to drugs?

Totally different, says Ramsahai. And besides, "you still have a choice," she says. "That's what I don't understand."

There's so much we don't understand in these conversations. Women don't understand why men do this, and why their own men have no satisfactory information. Men don't understand why they are expected to know, and how the whole exchange can go so rapidly down the toilet.

Allow for some gross generalizations: All of this relationship-projecting might boil down to women's tendency to empathize, to look at Silda Wall Spitzer and know exactly how it would feel to stand on that podium, behind your philandering husband.

And men, well, men compartmentalize. Men look at Spitzer and think, "Sorry, chump." But know why he did this? Why would I know why he did this? Psychological disturbance, maybe? Changing cultural norms? If we look at it logically . . .

Bzzzzt. Wrong answers, all.

When Warner and Ramsahai are asked why they think conversations like theirs occur, Warner speculates: "I think -- and here's a gender bias -- that women tend to trust less in relationships. They see something on TV and it makes them want to check in." He turns to Ramsahai. "I don't ever really worry about you cheating on me."

Gaaaarrrgh!

Heather and Vaughan Turekian were walking their dog past the scene of the crime, the Mayflower Hotel, when they started to talk about Eliot Spitzer.

Heather marveled over his complete stupidity, the absolute incomprehensibility of a man doing such a thing to his wife. Their dog frisked happily on his leash, and Vaughan responded with what is the only correct response in situations such as this:

"I totally agree."