Since marrying Bobby, Mary Richardson Kennedy had borne four children—John Conor in 1994, Kyra LeMoyne in 1995, William “Fin” Finbar in 1997, and Aidan Caohman Vieques in 2001. She loved being a mother, and she was a good one, too; she’d even taken courses in parenting and then started teaching classes herself. However, in her role as a mother, Mary began to feel stagnant, especially as compared to Bobby, whose life as an activist was so fulfilling.
At this time, Bobby became dedicated to educating people about the dangers of children’s vaccines and childhood autism. He was also still involved in the protection of New York’s drinking water. Moreover, he and his associates had formed a bottled water company, Keeper Springs Natural Spring Water.
For her part, Mary seemed to be not invested in much other than obsessing over her fear that Bobby might leave her. Certainly, there was a lot she could have devoted herself to as a woman married to a Kennedy, any number of charities to which she could have lent her name. Years earlier, when she was working with Kerry at the Robert F. Kennedy Center for Justice and Human Rights, she was tasked with putting together food, clothes, and medical supplies for a mission to El Salvador. The goal was to fill just one truck. Within about six weeks, she had accumulated ten tractor trailers full of supplies worth tens of millions of dollars. Now, though, she couldn’t seem to focus on anything other than her marriage.
“How’s it going with Bobby in the boudoir?” her friend Alyssa Chapman asked Mary, according to her memory of “just girl talk between friends.”
“It’s okay,” Mary said glumly, “but Bobby gets mad because I want the lights out.”
“Why would you want that?” Alyssa asked.
“Why do you think?” Mary shot back.
“It took me a second to get it,” recalled Alyssa Chapman, “but I suddenly understood that Mary didn’t feel attractive anymore and she didn’t want Bobby to see her clearly when they were making love. She started making sad statements, such as ‘You know, a lot of people find me interesting. Why doesn’t he?’ She hadn’t been raised to accept this kind of treatment from a man, she told me. ‘I was raised to be admired,’ she said. ‘You’ve heard about this Kennedy curse?’ she asked me. ‘I finally figured out what it is: The men are dogs. The women, fools.’”
Lately, Mary had also begun threatening suicide, and Bobby believed she’d actually do it. After his brother David died of an overdose, everyone in the family felt tremendous guilt about it, but none more than Bobby. He now felt a real responsibility to Mary and said he’d never be able to live with himself if she ended her life. He wrote to her brother, Thomas Richardson, to express his deep concern and ask for help. “I know you think Mary’s going to kill herself,” Richardson responded in an email of his own, “but I guarantee she won’t. I may regret those words one day, but that’s how I feel.”
Worn out from all the drama, Bobby tried to end it with Mary on Father’s Day in June 2006. He moved out of the house. “But Mary told me she would never allow a divorce,” said her friend Victoria Michaelis; the two had been close since attending Brown University together. “She loved her husband and wanted to save her family,” said Victoria. “Also, she was very Catholic. Divorce was against her faith, a worst-case scenario not just for herself but for any woman. ‘I just will not allow it,’ she told me. ‘I have to find a way to make my marriage work. It’s the only way.’”