I finally found love after my divorce... until the worst...

I found true love for the first time in my 50s. The real thing. If you'd told me I'd find love when I was 54, after marriage, divorce and raising two children, I'd have said you were bonkers. But there it was. The kind of love I'd longed for all my life but had never quite managed to find.

Image Credit: Mail Online [As a young woman, whenever I went on a date, I'd find myself on red alert, waiting for the object of my affections to leave me, writes ALISON LARKIN]

'We can't be in love,' I said to Bhima soon after we met in 2018. 'Why not?'. 'There's no friction! We don't have to negotiate.'. 'I know,' he said. 'Isn't it great?'. It was great - and it had taken me a lifetime to find. I was born in America and adopted by loving English parents and raised in the UK. But as a young woman, whenever I went on a date, I'd find myself on red alert, waiting for the object of my affections to leave me. I knew it was illogical because no one ever did leave me – I left them before they had the chance.

Image Credit: Mail Online [Then, one Sunday morning, in the lobby of the Red Lion Inn, I met a charming, brilliant scientist from South India called Bhima who had emigrated to America 30 years before]

I began to wonder if this had something to do with the fact I was adopted. Maybe if I found out it wasn't so much that my birth mother didn't want to keep me, but that she simply could not – well, maybe I would be free to love like normal people. 'We can't be in love,' I said to Bhima soon after we met in 2018. 'Why not?' 'There's no friction! We don't have to negotiate.' 'I know,' he said. 'Isn't it great?'.

As a young woman, whenever I went on a date, I'd find myself on red alert, waiting for the object of my affections to leave me, writes ALISON LARKIN. So, at the age of 25, when my friends were all getting married, I went on a quest to find my birth mother. Did finding her solve all my problems in the love department? No.

When she met me the first thing she said in her low, southern-states drawl was 'Did they tell you you had a twin?'. 'No one mentioned that.'. 'Well, you had a twin! Only he died in the womb. Elvis Presley had a twin who died in the womb, so you're in good company, now where did I park the car?'.

Soon after that an adoption psychologist said to me, 'Early abandonment and twin loss? You're doomed.' From that moment I conceded love would be something other people did. Like cleaning a kitchen. In the UK, I'd been working as an actress in regional theatre, but I decided to move to New York and become a stand-up comic.

I didn't know anyone in America to share my mind-blowing birth mother experience with, but as a stand-up I could talk about anything I wanted as long as I made it funny. So I started telling audiences about it. 'Hello,' I'd say, in my very English accent, 'My name is Alison Larkin and I come from Bald Mountain, Tennessee.' Then I'd add: 'I think everyone should be adopted, because that way you can meet your birth parents when you're old enough to cope with them.'.

It was an exciting time, telling crowds, 'The key to dealing with a fear of abandonment? Date people you don't like, so if they do leave you, it doesn't matter.'. Then, one Sunday morning, in the lobby of the Red Lion Inn, I met a charming, brilliant scientist from South India called Bhima who had emigrated to America 30 years before.

Then I met a steady, trustworthy paralegal called Brian*. I knew he wouldn't run off with a younger woman, because I was a younger woman. I was lonely and so was he and I didn't want to hurt his feelings, so when Brian asked me to marry him, I said yes.

Unlike my adoptive mother, I got to grow my own two children. Unlike the mother who gave me life, I got to keep them. I wanted to spend time with my children, doing really important things. I quit comedy, and we moved to New Jersey where I wrote my autobiographical novel The English American, while my kids were sleeping. Miraculously it became a best-seller and I thought 'Great! I'll play with the kids during the day, then when Brian comes home, I can write. All is well.'.

Only it wasn't. I'm an affectionate type, which the children loved, but my husband didn't. He sighed a lot when he came home. I tried to stay cheerful, for the sake of the kids. But inside, I was close to despair. When I told my mum about it, she said, 'How can you be happy with a husband who's not interested, darling? Your dad and I have always had a very active sex life. We still do!' She was eighty at the time. Then she said, 'Why don't you leave Brian?'.

Now it was my turn to be shocked. 'I made a promise, Mum. Remember?! Until death do us part and all that?!'. She was right though, I had no choice but to leave my lonely marriage for a new life in voluntary exile in rural Massachusetts. I spent the next decade supporting our children by narrating audiobooks from my home studio which evolved into my own audiobook company, Alison Larkin Presents.

Once my kids had gone to college, I was alone in the studio, recording audiobooks like the (81-hour) Complete Novels of Jane Austen (currently the #1 best-selling Austen audiobook in the world) and Jane Eyre. Then it hit me. Elizabeth has Darcy, Jane Eyre has Rochester. But what about me?.

I suddenly realised I would never know what it was like to find true love if I didn't do something about it. I also knew that if I made the mistake of becoming involved with someone I quite liked because I was lonely, I'd never be free to find someone I truly loved.