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GINGRICH FAMILY VALUES
Speaker of the House married high school math teacher at 19 years old, had two children, wife supported him through college, graduate school, and early campaigns

In 1962, at the age of 19, Newt Gingrich married his high school geometry teacher, Jackie Battley. Battley was seven years older than Gingrich. The couple had a daughter nine months later and another daughter three years after that. None of Gingrich's family attended the wedding, which his stepfather, Bob Gingrich, vehemently opposed.

In 1985, Gingrich said his first marriage made sense at the time:

"Jackie was my math teacher in high school and it really made a tremendous amount of sense to marry at the time, when I was a freshman in college. Who you are at 19 may not be who you are at 39. We were married not quite a year when Kathy was born, so I had a daughter in my sophomore year of college with all the economic pressures that implies, and then Jackie Sue was born when I was in graduate school."

According to Dolores Adamson, Gingrich's district administrator in the late 1970s and early 1980s, Jackie financially supported Gingrich:

"Jackie put him all the way through school. All the way through the PhD ... He didn't work."

According to a profile in the Washington Post, the Gingriches' friends characterized Jackie as a "cross between a mother and a wife":

"The couple's friends said Jackie Gingrich seemed like a cross between a mother and a wife, with Newt usually seeking her advice before making decisions and Jackie counseling him like a student. They were loving, always holding hands in public."

Gingrich went to Congress by touting role as family man, 18 months later divorced wife, forced her to discuss details in hospital while recovering from cancer treatment

During his successful 1978 campaign for Congress, Gingrich ran ads against his opponent, Virginia Shapard, in which he claimed that he would "keep his family together" if he won the election, unlike his female opponent, who planned to commute to work so as not to uproot her family. Eighteen months later, Gingrich told his wife that he was filing for divorce.

Gingrich claimed discussed divorce with wife for 10 years, wife says divorce was "complete surprise"

In 1985, Gingrich told the Washington Post that he and Jackie had considered divorcing for 10 years:

"I think the most diplomatic thing to say is I understand what they mean when they say irreconcilable differences. We had been talking about it off and on since 1969. I am a very shy person. I had not dated much when I met her. I think I was very lonely and I think I was very driven ... If you decide in your freshman year in high school that your job is to spend your lifetime trying to change the future of your people, you're probably fairly weird. I think I was pretty weird as a kid."