First Dina Matos McGreevey had to discover her husband’s gay affairs. Now she has to endure her ex telling the world about them.
But the separated wife of former New Jersey Gov. Jim McGreevey – whose desperate desire for gay love is described in his upcoming book, “The Confession” – has coped, friends and relatives say, by throwing herself into work and motherhood, dating again, and even laughing about her predicament.
Her “Brokeback” marriage has not broken her spirit.
“She’s doing better than probably anyone can expect. I think we’re all surprised at that,” Dina’s brother, Ricardo Matos, told The Post.
“He hurt her – of course he did – but she’s past all that,” Matos said. “She’s doing fine.”
One of Dina’s friends, Albert Coutinho, whose family runs a bakery in Newark’s Ironbound district, said the state’s former first lady continues to make her Portuguese community proud.
“I don’t see how it could be humanly possibly to respond with any more dignity and class than she has,” Coutinho said.
Dina invites McGreevey, now living in Manhattan with investment advisor Mark O’Donnell, 42, inside her modest home in Springfield, N.J., when he comes to pick up their daughter, Jacqueline, 4, for visitation.
“He stays for a cup of coffee, and then he goes,” Ricardo Matos said.
McGreevey also shows up at family gatherings, like their daughter’s birthday, with his parents and sisters – but not his lover.
Now the family is girding for the September release of McGreevey’ tell-all about his coming out – after he resigned in August 2004 amid a sex scandal with his handpicked homeland-security adviser, Golan Cipel.
In a 16-page excerpt issued last week, McGreevey tells how he “womanized” to fit into the political scene, while his real lust for men drove him to “settle for the detached anonymity of bookstores and reststops.”
McGreevey admits he was never sexually attracted to women – performing in bed with them was “a triumph of mind over matter.”
He also sets the stage for his two failed marriages, the second to Dina. “I dreamed of sharing a life with someone I loved,” he writes. “But the one I loved would always be a man.”
Ricardo Matos was irked: “If he knew he was gay, he should not have gotten married. What he did was a little messed up. It was wrong.”
Did Dina know her husband was gay?
“That’s the question I keep asking myself,” her brother said.
“They kissed a bunch of times. They used to hold hands. Who knows if it was genuine?”
Dina’s friends said she was “aware of the rumors” of McGreevey’s homosexuality when they first met. “It appeared their attraction was genuine. They shared a strong passion for politics,” one friend said.
Woodbridge, N.J., Township Clerk John Mitch, who attended McGreevey’s 2000 wedding to Dina in Washington, D.C., rejected the idea that McGreevey got hitched to boost his career.
“Maybe the feelings were different, but he had a lot of love for Dina,” Mitch said. “They were a great couple. They appeared to get along very well. They enjoyed the birth of their daughter, and, hopefully, to go that far he had a love for her to bring a child into the world.”
Dina betrays little heartache now, those close to her say.
Ricardo Matos said he points out a man who looks effeminate, elbows his sister, and jokes, “Who does that look like?”
“She gets a chuckle out of it,” he said. “She comes up with some good jokes, too. She’s laughing about stuff like that.”
Dina is a busy single mom, working as executive director of the charity and fund-raising arm of Columbus Hospital in Newark.
Her brother said he knows of no boyfriend yet, but adds, “I think she’s dating this one or that one.”
Dina has turned down offers to tell her own story, Ricardo Matos said. “Money is not important to her. She wants to live nice and quiet. That’s it.”
(p. 11 Metro Edition)