BREAKUP

Mark Sanford Ends Engagement

And addresses ex-wife's lawsuit.

South Carolina Rep. Mark Sanford has broken off his engagement with Maria Belen Chapur, he announced in an enormously long Facebook post on Friday. Sanford’s ex-wife, Jenny Sanford—with whom he divorced in 2010—filed a new lawsuit over a week ago demanding he undergo a psychiatric exam and take anger management and parenting classes. In the Facebook post, Sanford wrote that he will be getting a lawyer but only instructing them “not to fight back, to work to de-escalate and defuse and to look for measured justice and an end to controversy.” Sanford also wrote that the end of his relationship with Chapur came about because “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.”