The ex-wife of a disgraced Texas Republican congressman who was caught sending nude sexts while married, has opened up about his extramarital affairs and the explicit mistress video that finally led to her filing for divorce.
Joe Barton, Texas’ most-senior member of Congress, announced last week that he won’t seek reelection after a nude photo of the politician was circulated online and a Republican activist revealed that he had sent her sexts while he was still married.
But one constituent who wasn’t surprised by the congressman’s behavior was his ex-wife Terri.
Terri, a director of strategic marketing at LifePoint Health according to her LinkedIn, says she became aware of her husband’s many affairs during their 11 year marriage.
Serial sexter Texas Rep Joe Barton’s ex wife Terri (pictured together in 2013) opens up about his extramarital affairs and the explicit mistress video that led to her filing for divorce
But it was her discovery of a ‘very sexually explicit video of one of his mistresses’ that finally pushed her to file for divorce in 2015.
The couple met in a chat room in 2001 where Terri, then a new divorcee, said she was instantly charmed by Joe. They married just three years later.
But that is when she noticed a change in her husband.
‘Almost to the day we got married the light switched. Changed. Went from on to off with him,’ she said.
Soon she began hearing rumors he was having extra marital affairs.
The couple met in a chat room in 2001 where Terri, (left) then a new divorcee, said she was instantly charmed by Joe (right). They married just three years later
Terri said that during trips to visit her husband in Washington she would hear whispers among his staff.
‘They knew what was going on,’ she said.
With growing concerns about her husband’s fidelity, she filed for divorce twice but both times, she reconsidered and retracted the filing.
That was until she made a shocking discovery.
‘I found a very sexually explicit video of one of his mistresses. Apparently, they had a liaison between 2010-11. That is what I was told.’
Terri says that she never received an apology from Joe for his cheating until this week where he finally came to her work and apologized to her in person.
The apology comes in the wake of news he was texting sexual messages and naked photos to other women.
‘Of course I wasn’t surprised. I guess I was more surprised that some of these ladies finally came forward,’ she said.
Republican Rep. Joe Barton became politically exposed after this image was circulated that he sent a woman ‘while separated from my second wife’
‘The lies he would tell these women to get them to interact with him were wrong. They were false. He was telling the exact same lies to my family and people believed him because of his position and power,’ she said.
Terri added that her ex had been living a double life.
In public, he was a strong supported of marriage and was a vocal critic of President Clinton during the Monica Lewinsky scandal.
In private, he was cheating on his wife and sharing sexual messages.
Today, Terri is working on finding forgiveness for Joe after his apology.
The congressman, 68, had also issued a public apology for the explicit photo that surfaced on Twitter just before Thanksgiving.
He had initially refused to heed calls to not seek re-election in 2018 and suggested he could be the victim of online exploitation.
During on exchange, Barton was telling Canon that he was tired and getting ready to go to sleep
But before ending the message, he asked her to tell him what he was wearing
Canon replied that she was still in her ‘regular clothes’ and that she had not ‘called it a night yet’. In another conversation, he said that Canon was ‘a sexy woman’
But a week later, tea party organizer Kelly Canon came forward with Facebook Messenger exchanges from 2012 and 2013 when Barton asked if she was wearing panties and made other sexual references.
Barton would ask Canon how she was dressed, at one point probing whether she was ‘wearing a tank top only … and no panties.’
Ending one conversation he gave her an imaginary hug and commented that she was ‘soft n curvy.’
Canon said Barton hadn’t apologized and that she hadn’t asked him to, but also called on him to resign to avoid an electoral ‘feeding frenzy among Democrats.
That prompted Barton to reverse course and announce that he was forgoing what would have been his 18th congressional campaign.
Though his seat remains safely Republican, Barton had drawn a little-known challenger for Texas’ March primary and could have drawn more.
Canon said that he was a ‘good’ man since he was married to his second wife at the time
He then also asked her what she was wearing, ‘if anything’
Barton then kept asking her what she was wearing before she tried to shut him down
In another exchange she gave him ‘a parting hug’, to which he said she was ‘soft n (sic) curvy’
He was first elected to Congress in 1984. His retirement means seven of the state’s 36 members of Congress aren’t seeking re-election.
Pressure had intensified for Barton to quit. Republican Party chairman in Barton’s home county of Tarrant joined many conservatives in calling for Barton to step down after the nude photo.
And following Canon’s revelation, Republican members of the Texas’ state Senate joined the call.
Barton, who is from Ennis, Texas, was the manager of the Republican team that was practicing for a charity congressional baseball game in June when a gunmen opened fire, gravely injuring House Majority Whip Steve Scalise.