We’ve heard the male perspective. Mr. King’s book is now a best seller among African American women and has caused a seemingly unknown issue to gain visibility on everyone’s relationship radar screen. Truth is this isn’t a new issue. A few former wives and older women have come forward to tell their tales, but will the victims of men on the DL under 30 please stand up? At 27, I am two years out of my discovery and still in recovery. Before it became a talk show buzzword, I was living the heartbreak of finding out that the man I spent two years of my life with had lied to me about his sexual past, present and future.
Denial
Backtrack to 1996, my sophomore year at Spelman College when I adopted a young freshman as my “little brother” at Morehouse. Let’s call him C. At the time he was a freshman. Even then there were rumors about his sexual preference, but I remember passing them off. He was popular, handsome, and academically sound. Of course people were going to find some reason to hate on him. He was also outwardly religious, participating in a college sponsored gospel choir that traveled the country as part of a youth ministry. During my senior year we began spending more time together. I developed intimate feelings for someone who I thought was a genuinely sincere person. It didn’t take long for the relationship to become sexual and against my better judgment I allowed him to convince me not to use protection shortly after we became intimate.
The first clear sign that something was amiss was when his then “best friend” became insanely jealous of our relationship. He suggested that we did not need to be together because we would “ruin our friendship.” Before I had hit the scene, these two friends had lived together, sharing the twin bed in C’s dorm room. He was always sure to tell me they slept on opposing ends of this narrow space. The most disturbing memory was laying in bed one night next to my then boyfriend, after we had only been dating a few months, as a barrage of telephone calls came through to his home and cell phone. It was his best friend, stranded at a gay nightclub where he had been performing. My boyfriend never answered, but that phone rang all night long. I recall briefly thinking of a lover scorned as the phone echoed endlessly through the night.
Still in denial, I stayed in this relationship. There were more rumors. This time coming from his hometown of Philadelphia and a young lady who had gone to high school with him. The message she sent to me through a female friend was “Tell her to watch out. We always thought he was gay.” At a certain point it became necessary for me to address the rumors. When I did, his reaction was one of concern and outrage at those making the accusations. He felt that it was unfair for me to have to deal with such lies. I remember asking him point blank about his abuse at the hands of a trusted family friend and whether or not he had any issues with sexual identity. He flatly denied any such confusion.
Year one bled into year two of the relationship. Our families met. We went home with each other for holidays. I am with him through a troublesome senior year in college and finally a borderline graduation. There were other aspects of his personality that made this relationship destined for failure. He became extremely self centered and took little to no responsibility for predicaments he found himself in. He was let go from his first job in less than 6 months. He determined it to be a layoff, but I know that it was more likely that the staff got tired of his attitude. My attempts to get him to be honest with himself on any level were rejected. He slowly withdrew from me and the relationship grew strained.
Discovery
We parted ways, but I noticed significant changes in his lifestyle. We remained friends and it was not unusual for me to still see him several times a week since he lived in the same apartment complex. He began to spend time with a younger Morehouse student. We went to church one Easter and I will never forget how enthralled he seemed with this boy of no more than 20 years old. He sat in the middle of us and when I attempted to hold his hand in prayer he would carelessly drop it, his posture a body language that spoke only to the young man on his right.
My interaction with C began to mimic the E. Lynn Harris novel, Any Which Way the Wind Blows. C took a trip to New York under the guise of visiting schools, but he was also visiting the same young man with whom he had taken with us to church. They spent time together doing things that the two of us used to do, like attending plays and going out to dinner.
How do I know this you ask? In my desperation to know the truth, I checked his email. In fact, I had been checking it for 6 months. I had found a few suspicious messages to men, but none that I couldn’t explain away. I once showed a message to a mutual friend who tried to console me and in the process he buried himself in as much denial as I had to help me to come up with a logical explanation.
Depression
After C’s trip to New York I had moved into my first home. I could not understand why my relationship had failed and I called my ex every chance I got. Unfortunately, he was more distant than ever and he met my attempts at reconciliation with negativity.
It wasn’t until some weeks later that I read an email for which no excuses could be made. The young boy with whom he had taken with us to church was upset. In the message he accused C of misleading him and betraying his trust having sex with him while also sleeping with his roommate. This was by far the most devastating night of my life. I called my ex and let him have it. Every rumor and derogatory thing I could muster came out of my mouth. He sat in silence on the other end of the phone and did not deny a thing.
Later that week he paid for me to have an HIV test. He admitted to having sexual relations with men prior to and after our relationship. He maintained that he never did anything while he was with me. At that point I remember immediately sinking into helpmate mode. I wanted to help him to overcome this burden. What I really should have been doing was overcoming my own pain and healing myself, but like most women I thought I could be his therapist. It didn’t take long before his desire to help himself diminished and his ability to even admit his wrongdoing vanished into to thick Atlanta air.
I became severely depressed to the point that I didn’t want to go out and when I did I was like a zombie showing no signs of enthusiasm for my company or the surrounding events. This depression lasted over 10 months with varied states of extremity. God placed angels in my life that helped me through this period, like my best friend, my new neighbors and people I met along the way. The last step to recovering has been the realization that my story is a testimony. During a bible study class I recently took, I shared my experience. Much to my amazement, a woman in the class said she appreciated my testimony because she had been with a man who was sexually confused.
Sharing my pain has been the biggest step in the healing process. I want women to realize that this is an issue faced by more than just married women in there 40s. There are young single and successful women who fall into world men on the DL everyday and many of us have kept our stories to ourselves.
I used to think that I had to be ashamed of what my ex did to me, as if somehow I had asked for it. For some reason I kept a vow of silence that protected his indiscretions, but what I didn’t realize was that it was that very practice that was keeping me trapped in anger and depression. Perhaps this story will inspire someone in a similar situation to listen to his or her gut instinct. Maybe it will cause someone who has been through what I experienced to feel better about his or her circumstances. C still lives in Atlanta. To my knowledge he has a girlfriend, just joined a fraternity known for its attractive male members and has an active social calendar. I have reason to believe he is still taking advantage of his ability to lead a secret life. I am no longer a part of that secret and no longer held in a depression. I have left the love below and my heart is open to a man who keeps his sexual preferences on the surface.