6. Franklin D. Roosevelt, often ranked among the greatest American Presidents, was a prolific adulterer who spent most of his married life living separately from his estranged wife Eleanor
Franklin Delano Roosevelt, commonly referred to by his initials, was the 32nd President of the United States, serving from 1933 until his death in 1945 as the only individual to win four presidential elections. Initiating a relationship in 1902 with his fifth cousin once removed, Eleanor, whom he had known as a child, in October 1904 Franklin proposed. Married on March 17, 1905, against the ardent objections of his mother, despite Eleanor’s aversion to sexual intercourse with her husband the couple produced six children. Beginning in 1914, perhaps in part due to Eleanor’s contested homosexuality, Franklin began the first of many extra-marital affairs.
Starting with Eleanor’s social secretary, Lucy Mercer, the pair almost divorced in 1918 but eventually reconciled for political and social appearances. Living from then on in separate homes and operating independent of one another, the couple rarely talked. Never truly forgiving her husband, in 1942, whilst Franklin was in ill health, Eleanor refused his request to even visit him. Failing to uphold his promise to Eleanor to never cheat again, rumors of affairs with several other women, including Crown Princess Martha of Norway, remain hotly debated. Renewing contact in 1941, at Franklin’s deathbed in 1945 was Lucy, not Eleanor.
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