Karen May Have Been Right

Throughout my campaign to paint "Karen" as a whore who lied and kept her secret sex life private on purpose, I relied on all of the circumstantial evidence to affirm my accusations.  The facts as I saw them were, she was on the front page of a swingers website topless posing with her also-topless friend who Karen told me was a remorseless woman who cheated on her husband; she was named on the website as a moderator of the swingers club; she had her own portfolio on the adult photography site owned by the large black man who took the pics; she said on her own personal ad that she was partial to large black men; and a different woman told me that the photographer often took pussy from his subjects as a perk or payment.  All of that added up to Karen being a swinger/slut/liar, although I never actually saw her having sex with someone else.  I always thought that Karen took some perverse pleasure (or "pure bbw pleasure," as was one of her handles) in denying everything to me in subsequent e-mails despite all evidence to the contrary.  She didn't explain why she hid the pics and the club from me, a man she was supposed to be in love with and dating exclusively.  She said that she was only a moderator for the swingers club, not a participant, and she claimed to have never cheated on me.  But the things happening in my marriage have made me admit something that I never wanted to admit:  Maybe there's a sliver of a chance that Karen was telling the truth.

When I last talked about my marriage, I was stunned to find myself being accused by my wife of jacking off in bed next to her and disturbing her sleep.  No matter what I did, I couldn't convince her that I was not doing that.  Eventually, I had to concede that maybe I was doing something resembling that in my sleep, but I only gave that concession because she kept insisting that she saw my dick hanging out multiple times and that she wasn't imagining things.  But I never took my dick out on purpose, nor could I remember waking up with my dick out, and that's something I think I would remember.  Well, a few months ago, my wife informed me that I would have to start sleeping in the guest bedroom because she couldn't get a good night's sleep with all of the activity happening on my side of the bed.  So we have been switching off between one of us sleeping in the bedroom in the queen-size and the other sleeping in the guest bedroom in the twin-size.  We go three or days in our respective rooms, then we switch off for three or four days.  It's not my idea of a great arrangement, but I agreed to it in order to keep the peace.

There have been several incidents recently that once again make my wife believe that I'm being dishonest and hiding things.  She pointed to a time where I held up a t-shirt in an awkward way while she spoke to me, which made her think that I was in the midst of jacking off and trying to hide it from her.  She believes that there have been several times where she entered the room while I was on the computer and I made a sudden movement to try to hide something that I was viewing.  And she thinks that I can hear her footsteps on the carpet and that I've been getting up and blocking the doorway so that she can't come in the room and see what I'm hiding, whatever that may be.  I could run down the list and defend myself against every accusation, but the bottom line is, I don't lie to my wife and I don't hide things from her.  A few days ago, I decided to put a naked woman as my computer wallpaper, and because I didn't feel like having the conversation and defending it from my wife, I tried to hide it when she came into the room.  But she saw it a minute later when she returned.  That is the only time I tried to hide something from her.  All of her other beliefs that I've been hiding shit are all in her head.  I know that if I were in her shoes and saw all of the circumstantial evidence, I'd also be upset and thinking that my spouse is lying to me.  But I'm not.

This morning, she told me how anxious she has been about the whole situation, and that she didn't sleep last night because she couldn't stop thinking about it.  She cried and said she didn't know how much deception she could continue to take from me.  I went from stunned to angry because this was something I could not control no matter how hard I argued.  If truth and honesty is the rock that keeps marriages strong, I'm screwed because I keep offering her that rock and she keeps rejecting it, which is bad enough, but then she gets mad because I don't offer her that same rock.  So I offer it again, and she rejects it again, and then gets mad because I don't ever offer her that rock.  And around and around we go.

And it dawned on me in the shower that this has similarities to what Karen and I went through.  I could not believe that I was being accused of something constantly and couldn't defend myself even though I knew I was telling the truth, and isn't that what Karen claimed was happening?  That I was using circumstances to accuse her of something that she claimed she didn't do?  And in that instant, I finally, for the first time since the whole Karen thing happened, had to admit that there's a chance she was being honest.  No one in my position would believe what Karen told me, just like no one in my wife's position would be inclined to believe me.  But I know what I'm saying is true!  I can't make my wife believe it, but I know it, if no one else does.  Maybe Karen saw how passionately I believed the circumstances in the four-page e-mail I wrote her and decided to not try to convince me otherwise.  Maybe that's her personality.  Maybe it was different because we weren't married or even living together, and the effort to convince me of her truth wasn't worth it to her.  Better to cut ties with a seemingly unhinged, angry person, she thought.  And I really hate conceding victory to Karen because in my mind, she's been the most evil wench on the planet ever since that night that I found her swingers website, and that hatred of her consumed me and drove me to the psych ward, but then helped elevate me and push me to be the best I can be at whatever I do just to shove it up her cunt proverbially and show her that she didn't destroy me with her lies and deceit.  But what if it was all a mirage?  What if I cast Karen as the evil wench unjustly?  What if the worst she did was keep the swingers club and the pictures a secret just because she didn't know how to approach me with that side of her life?  What if she really did serve only as admin help for the club?  What if she took the pics for her own self-esteem, or just as a lark?  What if circumstantial evidence all added up to show me something that really wasn't?  Sounds nuts?  Sounds like I'm being naive?  Well, I wouldn't believe it either, except it's fucking happening to me RIGHT NOW.

I offered a counseling session with the pastor who married us, so we're doing that tomorrow morning.  I don't know what else I can offer.  My wife's laid down her viewpoints on the issues that are keeping us separate.   She doesn't care if I am masturbating, she doesn't care if I am looking at naked pics of other women, she just wants me to be honest about it.  It might be easier if I would just do those things instead of continuing to deny the little circumstances that seem to her like I'm lying.  That's what's so frustrating.  She's the type that understands people and men in particular, and she doesn't want to be the nag that jumps down my throat if I want to enjoy porn, and I really appreciate that because I do like to enjoy porn occasionally.  I don't have any problem at all telling her when I watch porn or what kind of porn I like to watch.  We're trying so hard to be a dynamic, contemporary couple who let the other live their lives.  So why does she keep thinking that I'm hiding things from her?  It's incredible, but Karen might understand the issue better than I can explain it.  My head is spinning.  Seriously.  I might owe Karen a huge apology someday, and I never, ever thought I'd say that.