Melania Trump is a strikingly beautiful woman — which shines through even as she makes some questionable make-up choices. I saw it first hand when I met her as she and Donald were in the youth of their relationship. She was very tall and very quiet. Trump, on the other hand, was glad-handing his way through the event — even then paying little attention to her.

I have no reason to think she is anything but intelligent and she is obviously ambitious — so I don’t question why Trump married her. What I do wonder is why he married anyone.

By 1999 Trump was twice married and twice divorced. He had four kids: 22, 18, 15 and 5. He was notably unfaithful and neglectful. Business and New York’s party scene consumed him. He even admitted to being bored with Marla Maples as she walked down the aisle. So what advantage would accrue to him by marrying again? The obvious answer is that he was merely buying another precious object.

Trophy wives are nothing new. But when a man takes a trophy wife, he will usually squire her around town and bask in the showing off of his shiny prize. And while this marriage of convenience may not be grounded in the same equality and mutual regard of the typical union, it at least maintains the superficial trappings of the usual arrangement

But Trump seems to have little use for that. After he married and impregnated Melania, there was little socializing. The couple was not part of New York’s Upper East Side charity scene, which is how rich New Yorkers hobnob. In part because Trump is notoriously cheap. And in part, because he seemed to have no desire to be seen with her.

He notably maintains separate sleeping quarters in both Trump Tower and the White House. By itself, that’s not an unusual arrangement for people with the room to do so. But his relationship seems to lack even the shadow of emotional reciprocity. He has to be reminded not to walk ahead of his wife. And whatever Melania might have been expected, her slapping his hand away shows the sterility of their arrangement.

Even as an older man Trump had the personality, power, and money to bed women. And while he may have celebrated pussy grabbing and forcing tongues down unwilling throats, his sexual couplings have not led to rape charges. As Stormy Daniels said, the sex while unwanted was not forced. Karen McDougal, Trump’ s Playboy model, went further to describe the then 60-year-old as “a nice-looking man; he is sweet, funny, very charismatic; and his personality is “wow!”

I’ll take her word for it.

The marriage did produce a child, but Trump already had four, and the dynasty was later sealed as three of them, in turn, produced nine grandchildren. And while he has realized none of the benefits of marriage, he has paid the cost — both monetarily and legally — of being married.

As a single man, he would have been celebrated as a Lothario by more than just his base. Hanging out with beautiful women is rarely a liability. And further, he wouldn’t have to bear the financial cost of his sexual aggression — with its concomitant payouts to his intimate partners

Even more importantly, without marriage, his philandering wouldn’t have embroiled his ‘fixer’ in his own fraud/campaign violations imbroglio. Now that Michael Cohen has been the subject of a search warrant God only knows what might show up — or what Cohen might trade with prosecutors for absolution or at least consideration in sentencing.

Irony would be a man who put so little stock in marriage being brought down by being married.

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