Fatal Flaws

Live long enough, and you’ll have them

When we’ve reached “a certain age”, we have many chips, dents and scratches. It is rare to escape trauma of any sort and reach maturity. Often these traumatic experiences shape who we become. We enter into relationships having been subjected to extreme temperatures and pressures as in the way diamonds are formed.

Flawless diamonds are extremely rare. In my early 50's, I dated a man who believed we were a perfect match because each of us had a “fatal flaw” that supposedly made us unlovable. He thought we were “equals in needy”. He had been an alcoholic for about 40 years. This is a notorious automatic deal breaker, but I was able to overlook it for a long time. For my part, I am slightly disabled from a long ago stroke which had the potential to be a relationship deal breaker.

Charlie and I fell in love, fatal flaws and all, and carried on for a year and a half. At the end, it was his illness that caused me to end our affair.

Charlie wasn’t only correct about his defect proving fatal to our relationship. One year after our affair was over, his fatal flaw ended his short life.