One night, in March 2006, I was getting ready for bed when my fiancé and boyfriend of 10 years, Aaron, called me into the living room and said, “Kiri, we need to talk.”
I thought he wanted to apologize for a little tiff we’d had earlier. Aaron was a musician who had booked a gig in upstate New York. I wanted to go, but he’d asked me not to.
Instead, he said he was “confused” about his sexuality. As an episode of “Sex and the City” droned in the background, he burst into tears.
My life had changed forever.
We got drunk and talked all night. I would veer from consoling him to being livid. Eventually, I curled into the fetal position on the bed. You can bet he slept on the couch.
In the morning, after he left for work, I searched his computer. He’d been scouring the ads on Craigslist’s “Men for Men” section. I found gay porn.
I called him at work, and he told me he’d long been cheating on me with men.
His betrayal left me more than devastated: It left me another person. I was now someone fearful and angry. I’d burst into spontaneous tears at work. I had panic attacks. I became convinced everyone was lying to me, even about the most benign things. If someone told me they had salmon for lunch, I wouldn’t think they were lying about where they’d been. Instead, I’d suspect they were lying about what they ate — the smaller details.
I always considered myself a smart, savvy New Yorker. I was a longtime journalist. How had I not seen any signs? Some of you might be thinking: a decade-long engagement? Hellooo! But I was the one who’d been reluctant to marry. Or so I thought.
When I finally agreed that marriage was the next logical step, I started calling my family and friends and told them we were going to set a date.
Two weeks later, Aaron told me he was gay. I think the reality of actually getting married snapped him out of his denial. But I was resentful that he’d allowed it to go so far.
The lying and cheating was awful enough, but something else made me even angrier: I found an e-mail from Aaron to one of his lovers. It was clear he’d developed real feelings for this man. The emotional betrayal was almost worse than the physical.
At 36, the last thing I wanted was to re-enter the dating scene, especially in New York City. But I’d forgotten how to be alone, and I didn’t want to deal with the enormity of what had happened. So I drank too much, spilled too much information, even asked a guy — on the first date — if he was attracted to men.
I still didn’t understand why Aaron had closeted himself for so long. He lived in New York City, worked in an artistic industry, had a gay sister and a tolerant family. Then my friend Jonathan Alpert, a psychotherapist here in the city, told me that 5% to 10% of his clientele are gay men living in heterosexual relationships. Another told me men like Aaron will often choose women who are sexually inexperienced.
While I don’t feel the onus should have been on me to guess Aaron’s hidden sexuality, in retrospect, there was at least one sign. Our sex life had dwindled considerably. Towards the middle of our romance, we could easily go two months without sex. But that didn’t say “gay” to me. It said, “Long-term relationship.”
However, I’d met Aaron at 26 after having had only two non-serious lovers. A counselor told me that my lack of prior sexual experience left me with no baseline with which to make a comparison. A more experienced woman may have found Aaron’s lack of desire suspicious. I just found it frustrating — we’d even been to therapy about it. But I’d decided that the lack of a passionate sex life wasn’t enough reason to end a loving, committed relationship.
With time, I’ve gained more equilibrium (I hope). I’m even now in a relationship, though my trust issues certainly gave us some rocky moments. Aaron is now living with a man, and we still speak from time to time. I’m proud of him for leading an honest life.
The aftermath of Kiri Blakeley’s discovery is the subject of her new book, “Can’t Think Straight: A Memoir of Mixed-Up Love” (Citadel Press).