Love That’s Not Defined by Physical Limitation

Elle Starr put a lot of thought into the personal ad she wrote with the hope of attracting a special man--perhaps even a husband--and she felt confident that she hadn’t left out anything significant.

It read: “30ish, pretty, classy, well-educated female seeks friendship first. Interested in boats, airplanes, fine dining and music.”

The fact that she didn’t include the word disabled says a lot about how Elle sees herself--and how she wants to be seen by others.

That decision could have backfired, but she got lucky: Aaron Starr was among those who responded to her ad.

The tall, handsome U.S. Coast Guard officer wrote Elle a letter that revealed a kindred spirit. So she called him and, after some small talk, explained how she had lost the use of her legs. There was a brief silence after she told him she had suffered a spinal cord injury when she was thrown from a horse at 22. Then he invited her to dinner.

Aaron--whom Elle describes as “warm, realistic and very accepting”--was just the kind of man she was looking for. And he was so captivated by this warm, fun-loving woman on their first date that he hardly noticed her wheelchair.

Today, about three years later, they are married. After moving from Oregon to Southern California so Aaron could take on a new Coast Guard assignment in San Pedro, they settled in a small apartment in Santa Ana that has been modified to give 38-year-old Elle maximum independence and mobility in what she calls her “power wheelchair.”

During a recent interview, Aaron, who is 34, looked lovingly at his wife and said, “The wheelchair is not part of who she is; it’s just part of how she has to deal with the world.”

Elle smiled at their visitor with a bit of disbelief in her large brown eyes, as if to say, “This is too good to be true.”

But she knows her good fortune was no accident. After she divorced her first husband when she was 26, she dated for nine years before she met Aaron. She worked at meeting men, joining singles groups, using dating services and, finally, placing personal ads in magazines to keep herself in the mainstream of the singles world.

She pushed herself to get out and meet people even when she was convinced that no man would be attracted to a woman in a wheelchair--unless he had the special empathy that comes from being disabled.

She didn’t want to be limited in her choice of men because of her injury. And, gradually, she realized she didn’t have to be because she could see that the only restrictions on her love life were self-imposed.

Now that she’s found her “dreamboat,” she wants to reassure other disabled people that they can do it, too. She’s written a book called “Love: Where to Find It, How to Keep It--A Guide for Persons with a Disability,” which is soon to be published by Accent Special Publications in Bloomington, Ill. (The book, written under the name Elle Friedman Becker, is available for $7.95 by calling the author at (714) 434-4806.)

Elle, whose books on “Female Sexuality Following Spinal Cord Injury” and “How to Live with a Spinal Cord Injury” were also published by Accent, says too many disabled singles shortchange themselves because their self-esteem is low.

“They settle for second-best, perhaps because they’re telling themselves they can’t do better,” she says. “But if a woman feels good about herself, she’ll be interested in and attract the same type of partner she would if she weren’t disabled. And the same goes for men.”

Elle came close to remarrying more than once before she met Aaron. But, at the risk of ending up alone, she held out for the man of her dreams.

She admits that being married made it easier for her to find out that her femininity and sexuality were intact after her accident.

Her first husband, whom she had married at 18, responded by becoming completely absorbed in taking care of her. At first, she was relieved that he was so attentive because “I assumed I was going to have to be taken care of for the rest of my life.”

But as she progressed through rehabilitation, she became steadily more independent. She went back to school, earned a master’s degree in counseling psychology and began working with other disabled people as a vocational rehabilitation specialist.

“I found out I could cook, make love, clean the house, drive, dress myself, do the laundry, go to school, work. And I thought, ‘What difference does it make how you get from point A to point B as long as you get there?’ ”

She says her husband became more clingy as she became more self-sufficient. She felt stifled, and marriage counseling didn’t help. So, in 1980, she divorced him.

In her first year of single life, she recalls, she had to force herself to date. She assumed that men would look at her because of her wheelchair--not because they found her attractive.

But then she began to pay more attention to her makeup and clothes and started to feel better about herself. And she discovered that she could attract men who didn’t feel sorry for her or have a need to take care of her, but simply enjoyed her company.

Most of the men who asked her out were, by chance, not disabled themselves. But they were all special because they hadn’t bought the myths that so often place unnecessary limits on the disabled. For example, Elle says, people tend to wrongly assume that the disabled aren’t sexual, that they date and marry only others with disabilities, that they can’t take care of themselves and that they still live with their parents.

Elle, who sometimes had roommates but often lived alone during her single years, learned early that she had to educate even the most open-minded of the men she dated.

She’d always explain early in a relationship how she was injured, so her date wouldn’t be wondering about that instead of getting to know her. She’d also encourage men to ask questions about her disability and, when the time was right, take them to her home to show them how she gets around on her own.

“When a person understands what’s happened to you and how you live, they forget about the wheelchair,” Elle says.

She also learned that as men grew close to her, they had to deal with their own sadness--and even grief--over her disability, and she’d reassure them that “the loss isn’t as great as it’s perceived to be.”

Elle became seriously involved with only one disabled man after her divorce.

“There was so much empathy and understanding between us,” she says. But that wasn’t enough.

By the time Aaron came along, she knew exactly what she wanted in a man, and she recognized those qualities in him immediately.

On their first date, she asked a friend to drop her off at the restaurant and was planning to call for a ride home. But she felt so comfortable with Aaron that she allowed him to take her home. He knew this was a sign of trust and didn’t take it lightly.

“I thought, ‘I’m not just taking her home; I’m taking her out of her environment, and she’s my responsibility,’ ” Aaron recalls.

They both felt the first spark of sexual attraction when he lifted her out of her wheelchair to put her in his car.

“He was so gentle. I wanted to kiss him on the cheek, but I didn’t dare,” Elle says.

Aaron adds: “Sexuality is really in your head. So from the beginning, the honor of picking her up and putting her into the car was sexual. This woman trusted me, and that’s the first step to intimacy.”

After they had dated for a while and grown much closer, Elle gave Aaron a copy of her book on “Female Sexuality After Spinal Cord Injury.” They laugh together when he reminds her that she gave him the book a bit too soon.

“There were more answers than I had questions,” he says.

Maybe he was naive, Aaron adds, but Elle’s disability wasn’t something he thought much about--before or after the wedding.

Elle--who is able to have children but has decided not to--acknowledges that there are difficulties, but both she and Aaron choose not to dwell on the down side.

Aaron would rather talk about the joy he finds in expanding Elle’s world. For example, he loves to take her on amusement park rides, and he has a private pilot’s license and enjoys taking her up in a small plane so she can feel the freedom of flight.

Elle says this marriage, unlike her first, works because Aaron recognizes and supports her independence, even though he is eager to help her any way he can.

Elle, who does all the grocery shopping and cooking, has had to depend on Aaron more than she’d like for help with household chores and errands because of health problems related to her injury. But they spend a lot of time apart while Elle is writing articles and books and Aaron is working or enjoying his own hobbies.

“It’s not healthy for me or any woman to revolve her life around her partner,” Elle says, noting that singles are more likely to meet someone special when they feel happy and fulfilled on their own.

Aaron agrees and says he was attracted to Elle largely because of her independent spirit.

“It’s kind of neat to be needed in physical ways, to be able to do things for her but not to have the emotional clinging I’ve experienced with other women.”