Haters

I feel like I haven’t seen Anna in ages so I went to her house for lunch and some twin-time earlier today. Weatherly was laying on a padded blanket kicking at a little mobile toy with soft animals hanging from it while Anna nursed Andrew on the couch. I was moving the mobile while Weatherly happily kicked and laughed.

“On your anniversary?” She said shocked.

“Yep.” I said.

I had barely talked to Anna since Sean told me that he cheated, so I was recapping it all for her. She already knew the majority of the details from Zoey, but wanted to hear it from me.

“With the tour manager?”

“Yeah.”

“And he’s going to continue with the tour?”

“Yeah, but he has to come back every two weeks so we can see a relationship therapist that Dr. Sheehan recommended.”

“And you’re…okay with him being on tour with her?”

“I wouldn’t say I’m ‘okay with it’ I just don’t really have any beef with Karen.”

“But how can you say that, Faith? She slept with YOUR fiancé.”

“Like I told Molly and Zoey, I’m not in a relationship with Karen. I don’t expect her to make sure Sean doesn’t cheat on me with any groupies. It’s not her job to make sure Sean acts like a decent person on tour. That’s Sean’s job. And he’s the one I’m in a relationship with.”

“But she knew you guys were engaged. Surely you hold her a little responsible!” Anna said raising her voice but making it sound happy so Andrew didn’t become alarmed.

“Well, if I think back to the fight Sean and I had on our anniversary he basically dumped me, so for all I know she thought we weren’t together. For all I know Sean probably got back to the buses completely pissed off and unloaded on Karen and told her that he was done with me before they had sex.”

“Well, if you’re going to use that logic, then he didn’t really cheat on you.” Anna said flatly.

I glared at her.

“Yes, he did. He really only fake-dumped me because he was mad. He didn’t actually dump me and Sean knows that but I’m sure that whatever he told Karen made it sound like we were over even if he knew deep down that he only fake-dumped me.”

“But-”

“Anna, Karen isn’t the issue here. He could have cheated on me with anyone and it wouldn’t have been any different. The only person to blame for what happened is Sean and his behavior is the only thing I’m concerned about. I don’t like defending Karen and the choices she made but you just don’t get it.”

“Get what?”

“I’ve been Karen.”

“Faith, you are not some slut who preys on another woman’s fiancé.”

“I’m sure Hannah would disagree.”

Anna didn’t say anything.

“You don’t get it. When I was with Kevin, the only side of the story I was getting was his. I believed him when he said that they were through. I believed him when he told me that she was crazy and too attached to him. I believed every single word of it. And it was ALL lies. I was Karen.”

“But that was different.”

“No, it wasn’t. I was more willing to believe Kevin because I wanted to be with him but I can see how finding Sean as upset as he was would be enough evidence to convince Karen that we weren’t together anymore. Even though Sean may have felt that way because anger was making him want to believe I’d hurt him and we were through, he didn’t feel that we had broken up when we reconciled. And if we had been broken up, Sean would not have had any obligation to tell me what happened, but he did, which tells me that even if he told Karen that he was done with me in anger, he didn’t truly believe it once he got some clarity back the next morning. But by that point the damage was done.”

“But how do you know Karen didn’t come on to him after seeing how upset he was?”

“I don’t but I also don’t think that’s what happened. You’re looking at this from the wrong perspective, Anna. You’re looking at it from the view that Karen knew exactly what she was doing.”

“Yeah, cause she did.”

“I disagree. You’re making it completely black and white. You don’t know the whole story.”

“So tell me.”

“I think Karen comforted Sean that night because they are friends. You don’t work with someone and hear about their life and end up being completely ambivalent to each other. You don’t spend months on a tour bus together without developing some kind of working friendship. Sean has that with his band buddies and other crew members, Karen wouldn’t be any different. I think Karen wanted to comfort her colleague, not bed him. When I comfort you I’m not trying to sleep with you; I just want to help you talk about whatever is bothering you.”

“Okay…” Anna said trying to follow my logic.

“I think Karen has been trying to get over the break-up with her boyfriend and seeing Sean upset and trying to comfort him made those feelings of being dumped and practically thrown out of her shared apartment come back and she wanted a distraction from those feelings; so Sean used her to hurt me and Karen used Sean to make herself feel desirable again because she thought we were over. I totally get it and I don’t blame her. At all. Being mad at her isn’t going to fix anything; the only thing it’s going to do is direct my attention away from Sean’s behavior when all of my attention should be focused on it.”

“And yet, they still work together. They still travel together and they practically live together and you’re saying you don’t care.”

“It’s not that I don’t care. It’s that I felt absolutely disgusted with myself when I realized that I had been dating someone who hadn’t actually broken up with their fiancé and I’m sure Karen feels exactly like I did, so I’m sure she won’t sleep with him again as long as we’re still together. Or, look at it this way: I have bigger problems than Karen on my plate right now.”

Anna shrugged but didn’t say anything. I went back to playing with Weatherly while she finished nursing Andrew. A few minutes later, Theo came home and I decided to leave.

I’ve been thinking about the conversations I’ve had about Karen with my friends and, honestly, what they’re saying is making it harder for me to get into the right frame of mind to focus on the relationship I have with Sean (not to mention that it’s bringing up residual guilt because I was unknowingly having an affair with an engaged man just like Karen probably did). The only thing these conversations have done is put doubt into how I feel about Karen; like there’s something wrong with me simply because I don’t blame her. I’m tired of being told to hate another woman who basically made the same mistake that I did in a previous relationship and it makes me wonder if my friends, deep down, think I’m just as evil or slutty or predatory like they think Karen is.

What it all boils down to, though, is this: I think blaming Karen would be the easy way of dealing with my relationship problems.
I t would be SO easy for me to throw my hands up and just say, “Well, Karen is just a manipulative whore who screwed my fiancée and ruined my perfect relationship and I’m going to claw her eyes out and that will make me feel better!” But that gives Sean a pass for cheating, in a way, because then it’s all Karen’s fault and it also implies that Sean can’t control himself while in the presence of other women. I might be mad at Sean, but he deserves more credit than that and shouldn’t be reduced to a walking penis. Holding Sean accountable for his actions is, ultimately, the only way that I can foresee myself getting through this because if I did blame Karen and I took the easy route I would never feel secure in a relationship ever again, even with the help of a relationship counselor. I recognize that the cheating wasn’t just an event that happened, it’s a symptom of a bigger problem in the relationship I have with Sean: the fact that HE doesn’t want to trust ME. And THAT is what I need to focus my attention on. I can give Sean the chance to rebuild the trust he shattered but it’ll be a waste of our time if we don’t fix the problems in the foundation of our relationship and I think that’s what Anna, Molly, and Zoey just aren’t understanding.

If I allow myself to vilify Karen, it’s going to give me an excuse to live in denial about the serious problems in my relationship and I refuse to live in denial about them anymore, so that means I don’t get to take the easy route and blame her for the downfall of my relationship. The blame for that goes strictly to me Sean and me.


(I thought I'd post Monday's post early because I just got caught up on Bedroom Blog and feel bad that the only thing you guys have been able to read for the past two weeks are gross posts about K's pubic hair and the only way to comment on them is to have it show up on your Facebook accounts. So, no post on Monday because this is Monday's post! Enjoy! -del)