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Jenny Sanford: I'm Dating Again

To many, she's known as the wife of a politician who didn't stand by her man -- she stood up for herself.

Jenny Sanford is divorced from Mark Sanford, the governor of South Carolina, who made headlines last year after admitting to an affair.

Her best-seller about that life-changing, "Staying True," has been updated and re-released.

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And now she's taking steps to move on. In fact, she told "Early Show" co-anchor Erica Hill she's back in the dating game.

She said, "I'm starting to date, really having a great time meeting other men. I'm not really ready for a real relationship, if you will, it's too new, but I'm having a great time. It's really fun. I'll know when the time is right. I'll know when the person is right. It is too soon now, but I'm actually having a great time.

What do her four kids think?

Sanford responded, "They are OK with it as long as they know -- they really care that Mom is there and nothing in their world is going to change again. They've been through really tumultuous change, so as long as they see me home every day and know I'm not going anywhere, they're great with it."

Writing her book, Sanford said, has also helped her move on.

She explained, "The process itself of writing, I literally had to go through old photo albums and my life. And it was actually very cathartic. At the end of the day, I was able to come to a real peace about the notion that I believe I had been a good wife and I gave my husband more chances, really, than he deserved, and so I was able to, through the writing of the book, to move on, really with no regrets and with a real peace about me."

Hill remarked, "One of the things people always tend to focus on in a divorce, when children are involved. ... Your oldest just started college. How has this process been, not only when you were last here we talked about a the process of the very public divorce for you, but since then, you're writing about their lives, about things that change, How are they doing?"

Sanford replied, "You know, they're doing great. And you hit the nail on the head when you say divorce is a process. It doesn't end the day the judge says you're divorced. I did everything I could to stay married, to work on the family, but the decision was right for me. It might not be right for everybody, but it was the right decision for me to divorce.

"Since that time, you have to come up with new patterns being with your ex-spouse. The children and I live separately from him, but we get together on holidays sometimes or for birthdays and things like that. They're learning to set more boundaries with their dad. They're learning how to stand up for themselves, for example, when I'm not around if they need something from him that he wouldn't necessarily be accustomed to giving them. It's been a good process in many respects; we've all grown from it and have reached what I call a new normal, and it's been -- been wonderful, I think, for all of us."

Sanford said she's had a lot of little decisions to deal with in her divorce.

"Everything from, when I say boundaries, no, he can't just show up at the house when he feels like it, because it suits his schedule. You know, you have to learn to respect one another's space. Same thing with the children. If the children go to spend the weekend with him and one is sick, I'm teaching the boys to say, 'You know, Dad, this is what I need today,' whereas Mom would normally have been there to help fill in that role."

So what happens after her ex-husband's governorship ends?

"That's the big question," Sanford said. "You know the election is right around the corner. He will technically be governor until January, and then we will have another process, the boys and I, in terms of what comes for him. I don't know yet. He might have something up his sleeve. If he knows what he's going to do, he hasn't shared it with me. We are preparing for any host of possibilities. I mean, you know, he could live down the street. He could, you know, move to Argentina (to be with the woman with whom he had the affair(. She could move here (to New York). I don't know."

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