Secret No More

Nobody ever thinks the person they fall in love with is pretending.

Nobody thinks that the person that is "their person" is lying.

Imagine meeting somebody so deeply invested in lying about their most primal reality that they are unable to see the truth themselves, possibly.

Imagine that person pursuing you; cultivating a romantic life with you; asking you to marry them.

How could you tell? How would you know when that person that took many years convincing you to fall in love with them was telling a lie?

Then imagine spending another 10 years with that person. Imagine investing in a life; in each other's families; and in businesses and dreams.

When all of the trappings are set up to be exactly what they're supposed to be, and all of the interactions with family and friends seem to be what anybody would dream of; how would you know?

And, as the years pass and the carefully constructed stories and facades stop supporting the weight of the mounting troubles; do you know why? Can you make sense of it?

When that same loving person; that person who pursued you and adored you and cared for you and made promises to you--when that person begins to change and disparage you; would you understand?

When you suddenly become the villain in the story of the person you love; can you find your way out of that darkness?

When that person speaks words you do not recognize; words designed to destroy you; words designed to drive people away from you; how would you hold on?

When you search for understanding; when you consult every possible expert; when you turn yourself inside out trying to change your story; where do you go from there?

And when you finally discover the truth; when the truth of his lie comes to light; when you discover that you've spent 17 years living a lie; how do you reconcile all that you've trusted? How do you recapture what you've given but not gotten back?

When even after the truth comes to light and you..... You are trying to be who you've always been; non-judgmental; supportive; honest; transparent; truthful... How do you survive when the blame still falls on you?

How do you not lash out at everything within reach when he is still telling the world that he's running from you?

Here is my truth. Here is THE truth.  I married a man who has terrorized two wives before me and now, me, too, because he couldn't admit that he was gay. I know him better than probably anybody else because I've spent 17 years with him.

Nobody has ever, in his entire life, been more supportive and non-judgmental than I have been.

I have always been here for him to tell me the truth if he simply just would choose to do that. But instead of telling the truth he spent 10 years building a careful and tightly wound ball of lies about me because he knew that eventually he would leave me as well. And he needed me to be the villain so he could be the victim.

I know that he did that because he did not anticipate telling the truth about himself. He was not planning for me to discover his lies; he just was too careless and I found them.

But I have come to realize that his truth is my truth; it's a truth that I deserve to claim because I have lived the lie right along with him. I wasn't a willing participant in living that lie but I was tricked into it.

So this is my truth: I am not a horrible wife. I'm an amazing wife who loves with all her heart. I am a wife who is an incredible business woman and who built a financial life for us that allowed us so much opportunity; so much more than he had before he met me.

I am a wife who loved his family so much but was slowly separated from them until I somehow became "persona non grata." It was an undeserved ending to those relationships; I was so happy to have that family in my life.

And now I am a wife who has discovered the truth about her gay husband and who even now after all of the infidelities and all of the dismal betrayals is still trying to navigate a cooperative solution.

I am not apologetic about claiming my truth. I have every right to every bit of this truth because it was forced upon me.

None of my beloved friends--who surround me with love and give me advice--none of them seems to believe that I am strong enough to just sort my way through this.

But I am and I will. I always have. This is probably the weirdest and most despicable betrayal I have yet lived through. But it is absolutely not the first one.

Just please honor my truth. Please feel free to talk about this with me. This is not a secret; I will not allow it to be a secret. The secret that he kept from me was a secret that he bound to my life without my agreement and it has affected 17 years of my life and will continue to do so for some time.

I am not keeping this secret any longer and any and all of my friends and my connections and my associates--all of you--please feel free to talk to me about this. It is not a secret.