Steven LaChance Blog

I hate secrets. It’s true—I always have. All my life, I’ve struggled with secrets, especially keeping them. It’s just not how I live. Very early in adulthood, I realized how important it was not to live in secrecy.

Some of you who know me might say, “But you were in a straight marriage.” That’s true—I was in a heterosexual marriage for seven years. And honestly, I’d probably still be in that marriage today if she hadn’t decided she didn’t want to be part of a family anymore. The gay part was never the issue. In fact, she knew. I commit to a person and not a sex. Sexuality is complicated. She might want to deny it now—she prefers to play the victim and use it as an excuse for leaving our family—but the truth is, she knew. It was never some hidden secret kept in the shadows.

I always laugh when people assume that was the issue. The real issue was that we fell completely out of love—a love that was eroded by her secrets, not mine. And isn’t that something? A bitter twist for someone who despises secrets as much as I do.

They say we’re drawn to what we know. I grew up in a family where secrecy was practically a sport. They thrive on it. They clutch their little secrets like babies with bottles, nursing them for comfort. The ironic part? None of their secrets ever warranted top-secret status. I’d tell you what they are, but every time I do, they lose their collective minds.

Because if the secrets are exposed, it threatens the narrative—the wound they’ve chosen to show the world, the one they think matters so much. But in truth, no one outside really cares. Admitting the truth would mean giving up the things they’ve let define them, all behind closed doors. It’s a losing battle. Closets aren’t just for sexuality—people live in all kinds of closets. And my family? They don’t just keep theirs locked. They guard those doors with their bodies—and try to block everyone else’s, too.

I don’t live with secrets. Ask anyone who knows me, and they’ll tell you: if you ask me a question, be ready for the answer. Maybe that’s my dysfunction—hating secrets. Maybe it was God’s joke to put me in a family that couldn’t function without them.

Being an out gay man shapes you. Every introduction becomes a kind of outing. It’s never really over. When you’re a man married to a man, it’s not something you can—or should—hide. And why would you want to? That’s what I don’t understand. Why would anyone want to hide who they are, where they come from, or what made them?

It just doesn’t make sense to me. But hey—what do I know?