[Mwende]

This is an amazing story, and I don't know why I never got a call from Lifetime to make a movie of it . . .

Skip and I dated for about six months in 2001. He just turned 40, I was 39. He has a son living with him, who loved me immediately. I saw great potential for this relationship, but I had to call it off in January 2002. He had become very distant and unresponsive, and I later learned that he had already decided that we were too different to make a marriage work, and since he was looking for a wife rather than just a girlfriend, he just shut down. Whatever, I thought. His loss.

He called in April 2002, maybe we should rethink this thing. I was happy to give it a try, and we got back together. Shortly thereafter, he got a call from the woman he had dated while we were apart. You know how birth control isn't 100% effective? Right. So he tells me that he intends to be a hands-on dad, that he won't be the guy who just writes the support check, and he can't expect me to be part of this. Lori, the woman, was very clear with him that she didn't want a romantic relationship (they dated only a month) and Skip said he felt only friendship for her. I think it over for a while, take it to my committee of friends, and decide that he hasn't done anything I haven't done, and he's handling this surprise very well. I decide that I'll come along for the ride and see how it goes.

Joshua was born in November and Lori, and I get along great. I spend more and more time at Skip's place, and I see them together. I feel no jealousy, because it's clear that the only thing between these two is the child. For Valentine's Day, Skip gives me a 3-diamond necklace, which he proudly describes as representing "our past, present, and our future." My birthday is in March, and he takes me on a Carribean cruise. After desert is served during the last formal dinner, he kneels down and offers me an engagement ring. I say yes, because I love this man.

So we're getting married. I had been very clear with him that I would not be one of those women who, after years and years of living together, wonder where this relationship is going. Until we have a firm commitment, I'm keeping my rented house. So now, in March, we have this firm commitment, and he suggests that I give notice at my rented house and move in full time. This makes sense -- I'd spent most nights at his house anyway, and we had named my house "the closet." A rather expensive closet that we could do without. So at the end of April, we moved my belongings into his house.

July 8, during a telephone conversation, both of us at work, he muses repeatedly how difficult it is to leave Joshua behind when his visit is over. I asked him if he was having second thoughts about our arrangement, and instead of the reassuring noises I expected, I got a long silence. Finally, he tells me that this is not a conversation we should have at the workplace.

For the next 2 1/2 weeks, he dilberates and agonizes. I made an appointment with a counselor, and we both go. Finally, on July 24, 2003, I come home to find a typewritten note on the bed. He's decided that he owes it to Josh to try to make it work with Lori, even though he doesn't love her and she doesn't love him. He says he still loves me, but he's got to be a dad first. All of this information was available to him when he proposed four months ago.

I am now homeless. I'm staying on the couches and guest rooms of friends, trying to get him to follow through on his promise to get me some cash to start over. Amazing. His teenage son is crying himself to sleep at night because Super-Dad has to have the nuclear family with a woman he claims not to love.