 However, the war took its toll even on Feyerabend. The bullet in his spine left him impotent for the rest of his life. (His descriptions of subsequent sexual encounters are one of the more amusing parts of his autobiography). Although he started off completely ignorant of women, he married four times, and had, by his own account, plenty of affairs. But he seems to have been distant not just in his relationship with his parents, but in some of his marriages too. He hated the slavery love seemed to imply, but hated equally the freedom achieved by taking evasive action. He got bogged down in cycles of dependence, isolation, and renewed dependence, which only dissolved into a more balanced pattern after many years. 