The effect of Ashley Dupre / Eliot Spitzer scandle being felt by Spitzers wife

Her sister's husband is on his deathbed, according to Trilby Wall, Silda's mom. Ray Grayson - the adored 64-year-old husband of Silda's younger sister, Susan - is under hospice care at their Richmond, Virginia, home.

The second tragedy confronting the family is Eliot Spitzer's 83-year-old father, Bernard, who has also been hospitalised. He suffers from Parkinson's disease and has been admitted to NYU Medical Centre's cardiac floor.

The former governor and his wife have been visiting the elder Spitzer at his bedside in the Tisch pavilion, reports the New York Times.

The grim-looking couple were photographed coming out of the First Ave. hospital last week, one of just a few times they have been seen together in public since an ashen-faced Silda stood beside her husband when he resigned in disgrace on March 17.

It's been just one month since the feds outed the former governor as sleazy "Client 9" - a regular john of a high-class call girl ring.

Feds said he paid 4,300 dollars for a romp with call girl Ashley (Kristen) Dupre at the Mayflower Hotel in Washington.

His tawdry professional and personal betrayals ended his 14-month governorship within a week, inflicting unimaginable anguish on a loving wife of 20 years and their three teenage daughters.

Relatives and friends say Silda, 50, is tough - and the one-time hard-charging corporate lawyer who gave up her career for her husband's political ambitions will do what she thinks is best for her children.

They say she has made no concrete decision on whether the marriage can be saved, but wants to keep her family together as she begins to regain her emotional footing and find what is the "new normal" for her and her daughters.

On the other hand, for the cheating Spitzer, these last few weeks have been an exercise in extreme contrition - a trait not usually associated with the former Sheriff of Wall Street.

He's in therapy, and Silda's mom said the ex-governor and attorney general has tried to make things right with his in-laws.

Besides leaving their Fifth Ave. apartment to take walks in Central Park and overseeing the active lives of three teens, Silda Spitzer has been able to distract herself with her charity, Children for Children.