Swanky suburban Southlake is about as far as Carlita Kilpatrick can get from the Motor City.

FILE 2008/AP

Former Detroit mayor Kwame Kilpatrick plans to join wife Carlita and their three boys in Southlake, but would require court approval first. A hearing is set for Tuesday to determine whether he can travel to Dallas for job training.

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That suits her just fine.

Detroit's former first lady is seeking refuge for her family after suffering her darkest days: the public humiliation when Detroit and the nation learned that her husband, Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick, cheated on her and lied about it under oath.

"I'm ready to start anew," Carlita Kilpatrick told The Dallas Morning News in her first extensive interview since moving to Texas.

The scandal engulfed the mayor, his young family and his city. It led to his resignation and landed him in jail – he got out this month after serving 99 days.

Carlita Kilpatrick said she has forgiven her husband and plans to stick with him.

Now he hopes to join his wife and three boys, who are carving out a much quieter life in Southlake, home to huge houses, stellar schools and football fanatics. He's been hired as a health-care account executive and plans to work out of North Texas.

"I feel so wonderfully blessed ... to have the opportunity to move somewhere and start again," Carlita Kilpatrick said in a telephone interview.

"And to be happy. And to be enveloped and welcomed by a community with such open arms. I wish that people who needed a new start could have the same experience that I'm having."

Kwame Kilpatrick, who owes Detroit $1 million in restitution and is serving five years' probation, needs court approval to leave Michigan. A hearing is set for Tuesday to determine whether he can travel to Dallas for job training.

Court documents state that "it is his desire to join" his family in Texas. Kilpatrick, through his wife, declined to comment.

Carlita Kilpatrick, 38, who moved to Southlake in December, said she hopes he can join her soon.

"You don't ever want a father to be away from his children or to be away from his wife," she said.

Until then, she is focused on settling into her rented 2,800-square-foot home in a quiet neighborhood near Carroll High School in northeastern Tarrant County.

She's the self-described mommy taxi, shuttling her three sons to practices and games. She's diving into school functions.

Her boys are enrolled in the Southlake Carroll school district. Twins Jelani and Jalil are in the seventh grade, and Jonas is in the second.

Jelani and Jalil joined the school basketball team. They plan to run track this spring and, like many Southlake kids, they want to try out for football.

Kilpatrick said her sons are settling into school and have made friends. Teachers, principals and parents have also been supportive.

She figures people around town know about her husband's history, but nobody has said anything to her. She hasn't noticed any whispering, glances or glares.

"Nobody here cares about whatever has happened," she said. "Everybody is: 'You all are people, you're human. ... We want to make sure that you all are doing OK.' "

Several Southlake neighbors didn't want to talk last week, but one resident told the Detroit Free Press this month that Carlita Kilpatrick was "delightful and the boys are nice."

Like other North Texas transplants, she has visited classic Dallas spots, including NorthPark Center and the Galleria. She's ventured to Ikea, Dave & Buster's and Addison's restaurant row. She's taken her kids to the Fair Park planetarium and strolled around Southlake Town Square.

She's found a church, The Potter's House in Dallas' Mountain Creek area, where she worships every week.

She started attending the Art Institute of Dallas last week to pursue a passion for interior design.

"It's unfathomable out here," she said. "I find it absolutely wonderful here."

Kilpatrick visited North Texas last year for a Bible conference and "loved it immediately."

"This place might deserve a second look," she thought during her trip.

So she visited again to scope out a place to call home. She ventured to Plano, Frisco, Coppell and Grapevine.

Then she stumbled onto Southlake.

"It just welcomed us and we started talking to different people and families," she said. "Everyone here loves this community. Everyone just pumped this place up."

The strength of Southlake athletics, especially the vaunted Dragons high school football program, was a "big draw" for her husband.

"We knew it was a time for a change in our family," she said. "This place had so much energy and so much warmth and was just welcoming.

"That's what we wanted and what we needed."

Kwame Kilpatrick was the youngest mayor in Detroit history, a charismatic man dubbed the "hip-hop mayor" and "King Kwame." He wore a diamond stud in his ear.

He was credited for helping rejuvenate the nation's 11th-largest city.

But that came crashing down in January 2008 with allegations that Kilpatrick had an extramarital affair with his chief of staff, Christine Beatty. The Detroit Free Press obtained sexually explicit text messages between the two.

The text messages contradicted denials by Kilpatrick and Beatty, given under oath, that they were having an affair. They gave that testimony in a lawsuit filed by two former police officers who say they were forced out for investigating misconduct by the mayor and his bodyguards.

The news attracted national headlines and immediate calls for the mayor's resignation.

Kilpatrick was later charged with perjury. Last fall, he pleaded guilty and told a judge: "I lied under oath."

Days after the text messages were reported, the Kilpatricks gave a somber televised address to Detroit. Holding his wife's hand, the mayor offered an apology.

Then Carlita Kilpatrick looked into the camera.

"Like all marriages, ours is not perfect," she said. "Like all people, we are not perfect. ... My husband and I will get through this. Yes, I am angry, I am hurt and I am disappointed. But there is no question that I love my husband."

Some compared her steely resolve to Hillary Clinton's comments on her own husband's infidelities.

Last week, Carlita Kilpatrick said it's hard to put into words what she's been through.

"I don't at all feel like I'm an anomaly," she said. "I know there are many women who have had to deal with things like me, or worse.

"It's never like I've done something above and beyond what somebody else has done. It's just that my pain was in the paper.

"Other women get to deal with stuff anonymously and secretively where they don't have to endure some of the embarrassment or just the infamy of it all."

On Feb. 3, just hours after leaving a Michigan jail, Kwame Kilpatrick flew on a chartered jet to Dallas for a job interview – and an emotional family reunion. When he arrived at Dallas Love Field, his three boys ran to him, hugging him.

Detroit needs a fresh start and moving to Texas is "a time for us to rest as a family, to enjoy one another," Kilpatrick told WFAA-TV (Channel 8), with his wife at his side.

He didn't dwell much on what ended his political career in Michigan, other than saying he couldn't regret what's happened because of "how much I've grown."

Days after that trip, it was announced that Kilpatrick had a job with Covisint, an affiliate of Compuware. He'll earn an annual base salary of at least $100,000 and could potentially get up to $360,000, the Free Press reported.

Many Detroiters, still seething over their former mayor's actions, say they're insulted that Kilpatrick landed the job, especially as Compuware was laying off 250 workers.

Carlita Kilpatrick said critics don't have "his best interest at heart or my best interest at heart or my children's best interest at heart."

She said the move to Texas doesn't mean her family is angry or resents Detroit. It's about healing for her family.

"We're ready to tackle bigger and better things and see what God has for us in the future," she said.

She hopes to visit friends and supporters back in Detroit. For now, though, another Big D is proving irresistible.

"I couldn't imagine picking up and leaving any time soon," she said.