Stand by your man? Women respond to Huma Abedin’s decision to stick with Anthony Weiner

The wife of New York mayoral candidate Anthony Weiner spoke out at a press conference Tuesday saying she believes in her husband and they’re moving forward together despite his communications of a sexual nature with other women by phone and Internet.

“Our marriage, like many others, has had its ups and its downs. It took a lot of work and a whole lot of therapy to get to a place where I could forgive Anthony,” said Abedin.

“It was not an easy choice in any way,” she continued. “But I made the decision that it was worth staying in this marriage. That was a decision I made for me, for our son and for our family. I didn’t know how it would work out, but I did know that I wanted to give it a try. Anthony’s made some horrible mistakes both before he resigned from Congress and after, but I do very strongly believe that that is between us and our marriage. We discussed all of this before Anthony decided he would run for mayor so really what I want to say is I love him. I have forgiven him. I believe in him.”

KIRO Radio’s Dori Monson can’t understand why Huma would stick with Anthony. To try and get some perspective, he asked female Dori Monson listeners to call in and share their opinion of the situation.

Sharon in Seattle says…

My take on Huma is this: I’ve actually been in her shoes. I was married for seven years to a man who had similar problems, so we will call it like being a sex addict.

We went to therapy for seven solid years and there were times when he’d relapse and the problem comes back. There’s months and months where you’d go and everything’s great and you think you’re healing.

But really my concern with her isn’t her motivation for staying, it’s that if he can’t get better, she’s actually bringing up a son in that environment.

The only reason I stayed for seven years is because we didn’t have kids and I figured if we could tackle the problem and get it under wraps like any addict, you could get rid of that. But I’d never have a kid in that situation because it could get worse. He could start bringing home prostitutes, diseases. He could have strange people trying to follow him home. It’s just not a good situation.

Elsie in Renton says…

Last night my husband and I were watching this and as soon as she got up to speak, he turns and looks at me and he goes, ‘Would you actually do this? Get up and talk?’

I said, ‘Oh yeah. I’d get up and talk alrighty, but it wouldn’t be what you wanted to hear, because I’d ruin you.’

What kind of example is she giving other women and girls, that it’s OK for your husband to do that? I don’t think so.

Judy in Kent says…

The first time I heard about this jerk pulling the stunt he did, I thought ‘man, his wife is going to stand by him because this woman wants what she is going to get from him if he gets these positions.

This is a power play for her. She was humiliated and so now she’s going to use this opportunity to get where she wants to be and then she’ll be done with him.

But on the same hand that kind of confuses me because she is a very clever, intelligent person. Why does she need him to get there?

Peg in Eatonville says…

I think that she is a wannabe Hillary Clinton and she saw what Hillary’s done with her career with a husband that pulled all kinds of stuff, and that’s what she is doing.

She’s a power hungry woman. She’s run his whole campaign. She’s hired everybody, she’s put everybody in place, and that frees him up to do his texting and his playing with the young girls and she probably knows about it just like Hillary did it.

These woman, they’re just using these guys as a stepladder. I mean Hillary became Secretary of State. She became Senator. She’s going to be running for president. These guys aren’t going to get in these gals’ way.