His wife concurs. Finding evidence of the affair last January in a stack of papers was, she says, a shock. “It never occurred to me that he would do something like that. The person I married was centered on a core of morals. The person who did this is not centered on those morals.” She calls the further revelations about “crossed lines with other women” nothing short of “punches to the gut.” The only explanation that makes sense to her is that her husband is in thrall to an addiction as potent as the one cast by any drug. “Over the course of both pastoral and marriage counseling, it became clear to me that he was just obsessed with going to see this woman. I have learned that these affairs are almost like an addiction to alcohol or pornography. They just can’t break away from them.”…

“Mark is not a bad person,” she says. “What the world saw in that press conference is someone who is struggling. None of us are perfect. We are all trying to do the best we can. I also feel sorry for the other woman. I am sure she is a fine person. It can’t be fun for her, though I do sometimes question her judgment. If she knew the newspaper had those E-mails back in December, why did she want him to come in June? But I can’t go there too much. All I can do is pray for her because she made some poor choices. Mark made some poor choices. A lot of people were brought down by this, and I am sure that is not what they wanted.”