I kept seeing Amber at parties where she and Lee Harvey would stand 15 feet apart and giggle at each other like secret lovers on opposite sides of the room. I decided to approach Amber and asked her outright:
“Hey, Amber. Good party. So how long have you and Lee Harvey been getting it on?”
Amber’s jaw dropped.
“How did you know?”
“Because it’s obvious the way you two stand far apart but are undressing each other with your eyes. Why are you hiding your relationship?”
“He’s my boyfriend but he doesn’t want me to tell anybody,” Amber huffed despondently.
“Why not?”
“I don’t know but it makes me feel ugly. He’s hot, so maybe he doesn’t want people to think he’s with someone less attractive.”
I got upset because suddenly I realized all the women who complained about Lee Harvey added up to a painful pattern.
“You can’t let somebody treat you like a secret shame. You have to respect yourself because this will destroy your self-esteem, your confidence and your identity.”
My advice fell on deaf ears. Weeks later, I walked up to Amber at a reception and said hi, but she looked crestfallen, with her phone in her hand.
“What’s the matter?” I asked.
“I just found out my boyfriend is cheating on me.”
“What?”
“Look.” She showed me a Snapchat by Dee, a woman we knew.
“Dee’s posting barefoot photos from the back of Lee Harvey’s car. He’s supposed to be here now, but he’s screwing Dee!”
“Oh my God. I can’t believe he did this.”
“I can. He wanted to keep me in the closet so he could have sex other people.”
I Was a Secret Shame at 17
I feel bad about this subject because I was a secret shame for my boss when I was 17 and she was in her 20s. She told me I couldn’t tell anybody because we’d get fired. For months we had sex at work, in cars and at her apartment where she lived with her kid.
One day I got called into the office where I was told I’d have to quit so she could keep her job. And then, she broke up with me. It took two years of sad drinking every day to get over that trauma bond.
Why do smart, confident people tolerate being hidden? It’s not like those who are secret shames realize they’re staying in those relationships because they have low self-esteem and want to feel ugly. Instead, they tell themselves that it’s exciting, romantic, hot and it feels good to be bad. They convince themselves that they don’t have to follow the rules.
Now consider Kiera who for years was a married-with-children secret shame to Lerch. She divulged everything about her relationship to me with a vape in one hand and Zinfandel in the other. She blew a cloud of smoke and explained that being Lerch’s undercover lover was her private oasis.
“You know, Doug, my whole life is work, husband, ‘Mommy.’ This is the only thing I have to myself.”
The Problem
Interestingly, both Amber and Kiera told me that Lee Harvey and Lerch, respectively, didn’t satisfy them in bed. I wondered if these guys wanted to hide their own sexual details.
Then one night I gave Angie a ride home. I pulled up to her place and she sheepishly made this confession in the dark. She told me she recently tried to convince an older guy to become her clandestine plaything because she didn’t think he was good enough for her younger social circle. He politely declined and never talked to her again.
These exploiters prey on the naive and desperate. I worked at a place once where my boss who was married and had children had turned three ambitious women—two of them were in their early 20s—into sneaky hookups by promoting and giving them raises to reward their silent quid pro quo.
And yet, all of us colleagues found out because people can’t keep secrets. Secret shames become gossip. Then people laugh at you behind your back. You carry that humiliation, or devastation, all the way to the therapist’s office.
If I could go back in time, I’d tell my 17-year-old self: It’s not your fault you got seduced. Sure, it feels good. But she’s teaching you unworthiness. You’ve lost your identity because you can’t get third-party validation. You can’t even hold hands in public because your relationship technically doesn’t exist.
You’re sinking deeper into quicksand, hopelessly trying to prove you’re good enough to someone who’s burying you. Get out. Learn your lessons. Set boundaries. Love doesn’t ask you to disappear.
