Politicians Who Treated Their Significant Others Like Trash

It's (hopefully) the goal of every politician who ever runs for office to strengthen the community under their jurisdiction, promoting peace and equality while providing opportunities for all. Regardless of party affiliation, these individuals have strong ideas about how to make the U.S. flourish, how to treat it with care, and how to elevate the lives of their constituents. Unfortunately, there are some politicians who don't transfer these high-minded intentions into their personal lives. Rather than cherishing and nurturing their relationships, treating their partners with love and thoughtfulness, they act disrespectfully toward them, and even, occasionally, go so far as to treat their significant others like trash.

When we talk about politicians who have treated their partners horribly, there are likely a number of names that jump to mind straightaway — Bill Clinton, Donald Trump, Eliot Spitzer, Arnold Schwarzenegger. But those big names are just the tip of the iceberg. There are plenty of other politicians (from all levels of government) who have behaved badly within the confines of their marriages or relationships. Below, we're telling the stories of 15 notable politicians who have treated their wives, girlfriends, and life partners incredibly poorly. Prepare to be outraged.

Bill wasn't the only member of the Clinton camp to be caught cheating. A little over a decade later, New York state congressman Anthony Weiner, who was married to one of Hillary Clinton's campaign staffers, Huma Abedin, was caught in a sexting scandal that rocked the country in the early 2010s. The drama began in May 2011 when a suggestive picture of Weiner's crotch made its way onto his Twitter feed (via the New York Post). The politician initially denied he had anything to do with the image, but less than a week later changed tack, revealing that the picture was both taken and sent by him and that he'd been in a number of online relationships. Over the next few years, the pattern would repeat itself — an outlet would get its hands on explicit photographs or messages sent by the politician, he'd deny having anything to do with them, then would ultimately admit to having engaged in inappropriate behavior.

Initially, Abedin stood by Weiner, telling the press, "I love him, I have forgiven him, I believe in him, and as I have said from the beginning, we are moving forward" (via CNN). Eventually, however, she changed her tune, and in 2016 (after Weiner sent a suggestive picture to a woman that featured his son), she announced she was leaving the former NYC mayoral candidate. Given the fact that Weiner was convicted of inappropriate sexual conduct with a minor in 2017, she certainly made the right decision. In 2021, during an interview with CBS "Sunday Morning," Abedin revealed that her (understandable) anger over the scandal her husband caused "almost killed [her]."

Another one-time Democrat darling, John Edwards, a North Carolina senator and two-time presidential nominee, saw his political career come crashing down when it was revealed just how poorly he treated his wife. In 2007, the National Enquirer published a story alleging that the politician had been having an affair with one of his campaign staffers for at least 18 months, while his wife was undergoing treatment for late-stage breast cancer. At the time, Edwards firmly held that the allegations were "false, absolute nonsense." However, investigative journalists — not convinced by his response, or by the mistress' statement that her relationship was actually with one of Edwards' aids (Andrew Young), and not the married candidate — proved that he had, in fact, been lying. Making matters worse, his mistress was pregnant and Edwards was the father.

The news was devastating for Edwards' wife Elizabeth, who, a witness said in court (via ABC News), "collapsed into a ball" upon learning that her husband had been unfaithful, and felt "mortified" and "humiliated." According to WRAL, she had left her own career in 1996 after her son was killed in a car accident. She then focused on her husband's politics, only to be repaid with John's indiscretions. In the end, Elizabeth separated from John, but she died before she could file for divorce. As for John, he was charged with six counts of misusing campaign funds (he allegedly spent over $900,000 of campaign money on covering up the affair), but was not found guilty on all parts due to one acquittal and a mistrial. Today, he co-parents his daughter with his former mistress, who described their relationship to ABC News as "family."

Occasionally, a politician's poor treatment of their partner will fly under the radar for years, before it becomes public knowledge. Such was the case with Arnold Schwarzenegger. The day after the former California governor left office in 2011, it was revealed that he had previously been engaged in an affair with the family's housekeeper, Mildred Baena. The two crossed the line from employer and employee to something more in 1996, according to The U.S. Sun. Their brief dalliance resulted in the birth of a son, named Joseph, although his paternity wasn't revealed to Schwarzenegger for a number of years.

Two months after the relationship made national headlines, Maria Shriver, Schwarzenegger's wife of 25 years, filed for divorce. She had learned about the affair just before the public did, and many speculate that Schwarzenegger's unfaithfulness is what led to the couple's demise. Despite how clearly devastating the whole thing must have been for her, Shriver has really never spoken out about the scandal outside of one statement she made in 2011. She told Us Weekly, "This is a painful and heartbreaking time. As a mother, my concern is for the children. I ask for compassion, respect, and privacy as my children and I try to rebuild our lives and heal. I will have no further comment." For his part, Schwarzenegger admitted he was in the wrong, telling outlets, "...I take full responsibility for the hurt I have caused. I have apologized to Maria, my children and my family. I am truly sorry."

Like John F. Kennedy, former president Donald Trump has also had affairs over the years. Famously, his first marriage to Ivana Trump ended when his affair with model Marla Maples became public. According to a People story from that era, Trump and Maples had been secretly seeing each other for quite some time, and while Ivana knew about the relationship, and wasn't happy about it, she largely chose to ignore it. At least, until a 1989 trip to Aspen when she learned her husband had invited his mistress along. Following a confrontation at the top of a ski hill and a dramatic chase down the slopes, the couple filed for divorce, leaving Donald free to marry Maples.

That relationship didn't last either, and by 2005, Trump was remarried to his third wife, Melania Trump. Less than six months after the birth of their son, in 2006, Trump was allegedly having affairs with at least two women — adult film star Stormy Daniels and Playboy model Karen McDougal. We have to imagine the infidelity stung for Melania, but we can't know for sure because she's never really spoken out about the incident. The closest she's ever come is in an interview with ABC News where she told a reporter that media speculation was "not always pleasant" but that she has "much more important things to think about and to do."

While many of the other politicians on our list have been divisive at best, Franklin D. Roosevelt was generally well-liked. But even his near-universal popularity didn't prevent him from being a bad husband — the Great Depression-era leader carried on a long, well-documented affair with a woman named Lucy Rutherfurd. He actually met Rutherfurd through his wife, Eleanor Roosevelt, who employed her as a social secretary. It is believed that the president and the secretary began their affair in 1916, and were found out by Eleanor in 1918. According to one FDR biographer (via The New York Times), Eleanor was willing to end the marriage in divorce, but realizing that a public separation would ruin both of their lives, they remained married on Eleanor's specific conditions that FDR must quit his philandering ways and be booted from the marriage bed.

History nerds know that FDR stuck to the second rule, as his and Eleanor's marriage was not a romantic one, but rather a friendship/political partnership. However, he did not stop seeing Rutherfurd. The two snuck around together for years, and when FDR died in 1945, it was Rutherfurd, not Eleanor, who was by his side. It seems Rutherfurd wasn't the only woman the president was straying from his marriage with, either. The New York Post compiled a list of five women FDR was possibly involved with, at least emotionally, over the course of his life.

Most of the offenders on our list are men, but that doesn't mean women aren't capable of treating their partners horribly. Take Amy Koch, for example. In 2011, the Minnesota politician was flying high, having become the first woman to serve as the Senate majority leader in her home state. But it all came crashing down in December of that year when it was revealed she had been engaged in an inappropriate relationship with one of her staffers, Michael Brodkorb. The details of the affair — including when it started and when, if ever, it ended — have remained murky over the intervening years, but we do know that the scandal cost Koch both her job and her marriage (via Twin Cities Pioneer Press).

Her affair and its repercussions have continued a conversation on women in power who engage in inappropriate relationships and extramarital affairs. Many of the men on this list, including Aaron Coleman and Donald Trump, managed to hold on to their political positions and reputations even when salacious details about the awful ways they've treated their partners came to light. Meanwhile, Koch lost face both personally and professionally, and her colleagues seem to have been the ones leaking details to the press. We're not attempting to justify Koch's behavior by any means, but her story does make an interesting point about misogyny. Koch herself spoke with PBS in the wake of former congresswoman Katie Hill's resignation scandal over an inappropriate relationship with a campaign staffer. Koch expressed that her own situation was not dealt with the same way that a man's indiscretions would be. "Yes, I think it would have gone down differently," she said.

In 2009, South Carolina governor Mark Sanford's office announced that he'd be out of reach for a few days because he was planning to hike the Appalachian Trail. In reality, the politician had flown to Argentina for a supposed business trip — on taxpayer money — to meet up with his mistress, a woman he'd met and fallen for years earlier. The lie wasn't designed to throw the public off his trail (at the time, his affair was not yet general knowledge), but to keep his wife, Jenny Sanford, from knowing his whereabouts. See, a few months earlier, Sanford's wife had learned of his affair when she found a bunch of letters, correspondances between the mistress and her husband. Sanford later wrote about it all in his book, "Two Roads Diverged" (via Business Insider). He and his then-wife had entered counseling and resolved to work through the issue, but Sanford, unsure of what he wanted to do, decided to go visit the other woman in order to figure it out.

Perhaps struggling with some guilt over his actions, Sanford called a press conference as soon as he re-entered the country, announcing both where he'd actually been and the fact that he'd committed adultery. At the time, his wife told CNN she "remain[ed] willing to forgive Mark completely for his indiscretions" (if he worked on himself), but by 2010 the couple had divorced. In 2018, Jenny remarried to a man she described to The New York Times as "a godsend." As for Sanford, he was briefly engaged to his Argentinian lover, but the two broke up before making it down the aisle, and he remains single as of this writing.

What do presidents Bill Clinton, Donald Trump, John F. Kennedy, Franklin D. Roosevelt, and Lyndon B. Johnson all have in common? They all cheated on their wives. While in office, Johnson was leading the country in fighting both the Cold War and the Vietnam War, but behind the scenes, he was involved in a third war with his wife, Claudia "Lady Bird" Taylor. Johnson is known to have had at least three affairs while married to Lady Bird, one with a woman named Alice Glass (his most enduring and notable extramarital relationship), one with California congresswoman Helen Douglas, and one with his secretary Mary Margaret Wiley. It's widely believed that Lady Bird knew about the affairs, and The Guardian claimed she was embarrassed by his indiscretions.

But these affairs weren't the only injustices Lady Bird had to suffer. According to Texas Monthly, which published a long feature about LBJ and Lady Bird's marriage, the former president was pretty beastly in his treatment of his wife in general. The outlet reports that LBJ "often treated [Lady Bird] as if she were invisible," telling embarrassing stories about her in public and acting demanding of her at home (he reportedly expected her to do everything for him from bringing him his coffee in bed daily to fixing dinners for his staff on short notice). He was also controlling and demeaning about her appearance, often asking her why she didn't look like other, more attractive women, and just generally treated her like trash.