Why yes! He was.
What about his first wife? In 1965 he married Carol Shepp, a widow with two sons. Carol was tall and lithe and striking enough to work as a model. McCain adopted her two boys and then he and Carol had a daughter.
While serving his country as a bomber pilot* in Vietnam, John McCain was shot down and captured. From 1967 to 1972, McCain was a POW. During his grueling ordeal, Carol waited for him and raised their family alone.
On Christmas Eve 1969, Carol was driving along an icy road near Philadelphia when she lost control of her car and it slammed into a telephone pole. Thus began Carol’s own grueling ordeal of multiple surgeries and rehabilitation. Her injuries left her several inches shorter and much heavier. She wouldn’t allow anyone to inform her husband or write about her injuries in the press, because she felt her husband had enough to deal with.
When McCain returned he was shocked at his wife’s appearance, and is reported to have begun having extramarital affairs in short order. McCain’s tomcatting did not sit well some of Carol’s friends, such as Ronald and Nancy Reagan and Ross Perot (who paid Carol’s medical expenses after her accident). In 1979 John met the lovely and very wealthy Cindy Lou Hensley, the heiress of an Arizona beer distributor fortune. She was 17 years his junior.
McCain was smitten, naturally, and found it necessary to dispense with his inconvenient spouse. He began dating Cindy and pressuring Carol to give him a divorce. So impatient was John that he got a marriage license to marry Cindy before his divorce from Carol was finalized!
Carol Shepp McCain had this to say about her husband’s betrayal: “John McCain didn’t want to be 40, he wanted to be 25.” She lives quietly and modestly in a Virginia Beach bungalow and remains fiercely loyal to a man who now enjoys 8 homes (though he isn’t quite sure if that’s how many they have) and a $109 million fortune with his younger second wife. She still contends with physical pain and difficulty with movement but we suspect she’s grateful to be away from the scary bully.
* We respect John McCain's service to his country. We just don't care for the way he treats women.
Other people who don't like the way John McCain treated his first wife Carol:
The Reagans: 
Okay, one of them is dead now but back when John McCain was cavalierly abandoning his disabled wife for a 25 year old cash-laden hottie, Ronald and Nancy Reagan (who had befriended the McCains and even given John a job on his 1976 Presidential campaign) were none too pleased with his behavior. http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-divorce11-2008jul11,0,6546861.story?page=1
H. Ross Perot: 
The wealthy Texas oilman was a big advocate for POWs and their families. He generously paid for Carol McCains treatments and formed a close friendship with her. He was incensed by McCains infidelity and abandonment of the loyal wife who waited for him while he was imprisoned.
"After he came home, Carol walked with a limp. So he threw her over for a poster girl with big money from Arizona. And the rest is history." You said it, Ross.
Buy the T shirt! 
