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A Patch to the Heart: New Love
The two years when TR lived with us ended in disaster: I discovered his appalling attitude toward me (written in his journal) and his plans for “getting laid” with someone else. With encouragement from a woman friend, I told him to leave. But on the next day that I was alone in the house, with my kids visiting their father, and surrounded by emptiness, my despair overwhelmed me and I decided to die. Quick intervention by a friend deprived me of my means of escape that day. Still, the episode left me drained, empty, and aching — I no longer knew who to cling to for meaning and affection.
I love my kids, and never stopped investing in parenting them. But Dad’s definition of a successful adult didn’t rely on parenting. It relied on being desired, wanted, by an adult who enjoyed physical pleasure. Remember, the father of my sons, my ex-husband R, lived close enough for plenty of weekend visits from the kids.
So looking for a new partner didn’t mean looking for another parent for the boys. They had two already. In fact, if someone had said “I want to be a step-father to your kids,” I would have considered the person crazy, and dashed away rapidly.
What I wanted — what I needed if I was going to like myself, feel I was living up to the rules of Being an Adult — was a replacement partner. A better one.
