Rep. Mark Sanford, R-S.C. (Charles Dharapak, AP)

Rep. Mark Sanford, R-S.C. (Charles Dharapak, AP)



Rep. Mark Sanford says he and his fiancee have called off their engagement amid ongoing turbulence with his ex-wife, Jenny.


The South Carolina Republican, whose political career came to a crashing halt in 2010 when he revealed his extramarital affair with Maria Belen Chapur, explained in a lengthy Facebook post how the couple arrived at their decision. Here’s what Sanford wrote:


No relationship can stand forever this tension of being forced to pick between the one you love and your own son or daughter, and for this reason Belen and I have decided to call off the engagement. Maybe there will be another chapter when waters calm with Jenny, but at this point the environment is not conducive to building anything given no one would want to be caught in the middle of what’s now happening. Belen is a remarkably wonderful woman who I have always loved and I will be forever grateful for not only the many years we have known and loved each other, but the last six very tough ones wherein she has encouraged me and silently borne its tribulations with her ever warm and kind spirit.


Sanford’s 2,400-word post can only described as rambling and emotional as he recounts how Jenny Sanford has challenged their divorce decree in court. She is currently seeking to limit his visits with the youngest of their four sons, and require Sanford to undergo a psych exam and take anger management classes. Sanford’s Facebook message essentially shares what he calls “the agony of divorce.”


The congressman won a special election to his former House seat last year after enduring jokes about “hiking on the Appalachian trail.” That was the explanation then-governor Sanford gave to his staff when he disappeared for a few days so he could visit Chapur in Argentina. The revelation of the affair led to the Sanfords divorce and curtailed talk of him someday running for president.


“I cannot do this anymore,” Sanford wrote Friday. “In all life there comes a point wherein lines must be drawn in the way that we attempt to respond in ways that don’t invite more in the way of conflict … I’ll never get that mix right, none of us do, but I believe it’s what we are to pursue in all of our responses to the inevitable reality of conflict in our lives.”