Train Wreck of a Marriage
Categories: In the News , Parenting & Families , Gay & Lesbian
New Jersey Governor Jim McGreevey surprised many, including his wife, by his 2004 announcement that he was a "gay American." He left office three months later. It wasn't just that he'd had an affair with Golan Cipel, but that he had hired him to be New Jersey's homeland security advisor--not a tiny job in 2002--although Cipel had no particular credentials. After outcry forced McGreevey to fire Cipel, the governor found him four other jobs, which he didn't keep for long.
Eventually Cipel threatened to sue McGreevey for $50 million on sexual-harassment charges. Dina Matos McGreevey published her memoir of the experience, Silent Partner, a few months after Jim McGreevey published his, The Confession.
Under most circumstances I would applaud anyone's decision to come out at age 47. Much of McGreevey's book covers familiar territory with which many people would be empathetic--Am I normal? Does anyone know? In fact, while many people apparently suspected McGreevey was gay, for reasons neither McGreevey nor Matos McGreevey explains, it was his heterosexual relationships that got him into trouble while he campaigned. McGreevey frequented strip clubs, and a female prostitute accused him of having a relationship with her. McGreevey's handlers sent her on a trip to Florida for two weeks before the election, to keep her quiet. The prostitute later died of a drug overdose. Several of McGreevey's mentors were convicted of corruption, and there was some thought that McGreevey's announcement that he was gay and subsequent resignation was in fact a cover-up with the purpose of avoiding similar accusations.
Matos McGreevey's book must have been difficult to write, because she claims to have had no idea her husband was gay until a day before his press conference. Her suspicions in fact focused on McGreevey's first wife, a librarian, who divorced McGreevey because she didn't want to spend time in the public eye. Matos McGreevey finds it odd that her husband went to great lengths to keep his first and second wives apart.
After McGreevey's press conference, Matos McGreevey suddenly needed to find a new place for herself and her baby daughter to live. McGreevey insisted that he had no money, and that she would have to rent an apartment. She says McGreevey told her not to bother getting a lawyer, because his lawyer could take care of the details.
Anyone getting a divorce should know that this is a really bad idea.
He's now paying $3,000 a month room and board to his new partner, and over $2,500 month to his first wife for spousal and child support. Matos McGreevey's support check was originally $1,200 a month but later raised to $2,000. Although she was married to McGreevey for less than three years, they do have a young daughter together, and it seems unfair that his first daughter should be earning so much more than his second.
It's lucky that Matos McGreevey earns $82,000 as a hospital administrator, because James McGreevey claims to earn only $11,000 a year as a part-time instructor at Kean University: he's back in school now hoping to become an Episcopal priest. (Interestingly, he is not mentioned as a Kean University instructor on the school's Web site or course schedules.)
All in all, I hope Matos-McGreevey gets some good royalty checks out of all this, even though I find her $2,500 monthly clothing budget excessive. Their divorce isn't anywhere near being final, and you can follow along at some of these sites, for whose veracity I do not vouch. There are many many others available for googling as well.
October 2 07, United Press International
Sept 21 07, The Bridgewater Courier
