Feeling Down...

[Ariel]

I hate for my second post here to be a negative one but it is what it is I suppose... I'm feeling very depressed and while I might generally blame it on general depression (I get that way sometimes) I think there's a more specific thing in which I'm figuring out all this about myself--about being "somewhere in the middle" with gender--and then second-guessing and doubting and so on.

Part of it is that I told my husband (I think the actual words were "I don't feel like I'm a girl, but I don't feel like I'm a boy either"  ) and while he was generally accepting because he's awesome like that I know there is a bit of me being more toward "male" that makes him uncomfortable. He's very straight, and we had to have a whole discussion about does this mean I want to transition, and so on.

I'm worried, that if I adopt more "masculine" outward dress/attitude/whatever he'll pull away unconsciously. I don't know how to talk to him about this or get around it, and while I think part of it is that I need to educate him on the entire idea of the difference between gender and physical sex and etc., part of it is... I dunno. Possible incompatibility? I am finding myself to be very... hermaphroditic is a good term. I don't feel bigender--I don't have a "male" and "female" persona--but I feel both male and female at the same time. I might lean one way or another, and a lot of times I just don't care enough to worry about whether something is "masculine" or "feminine," but I have a tendency to act more "female" than I ever really feel just to conform to expectations. I'm worried I'll start doing this again, so I don't "scare him off" and that's just depressing.

What have other people done, with significant other types? I've noticed there's a board here for significant others... should I point him that way? Encourage him to read some posts here or the wiki? Demand he teach me how to tie a tie? (Ties are sexy. Everyone should wear ties.)

Just writing this made me feel better so... I guess that's good.

[Eva Marie]

Education is good, and communication and honesty is better.

When i came out to my wife she had visions of me wanting SRS and all of that. I talked her off the ledge, and over time educated her on what it means to be transgender (i'm bigender), as she was ready to accept new info. I'll admit it was touch and go there for awhile.

It takes time... pace yourself and give information or talk about it only when he's receptive. If you talk about it all of the time you'll turn him completely off of the idea of compromise. Or ask him to let you know when he has questions and you'll answer them.

[suzifrommd]

What have other people done, with significant other types? I've noticed there's a board here for significant others... should I point him that way? Encourage him to read some posts here or the wiki? Demand he teach me how to tie a tie? (Ties are sexy. Everyone should wear ties.)

I'm going through the same thing, Ariel. I came out to my wife, and she got freaked out. Told me that if I transitioned, she'd leave me (I wasn't thinking about it, but it threw me for a loop).

Riven1 gave me good advice at the time (though maybe doesn't remember it, because your advice was different). The advice was to keep reminding her that I hadn't changed. All I was doing was being more honest with myself and her about who I was.

It's also helped me to put myself in her place. She committed her whole life to who she thought was a man, and is now finding out that I'm something slightly different. Maybe only part man.

It will definitely be a test, but if he loves you he'll see through more masculine wrappings you might put on to the person underneath.

Demand he teach me how to tie a tie? (Ties are sexy. Everyone should wear ties.)

A tie as unisex. Never thought of that. Makes me feel better that I wear one every day for work. All this time I was dressing androgynously, and didn't know it.

[Brooke777]

I feel your pain.  My wife has not been the least bit accepting, so I do not have too much advice to give.  If he is willing, I agree with riven.  My wife is unwilling to learn or to speak about this, so if your husband will communicate and learn you are doing better than I.

[Ariel]

Brooke777, I am sorry to hear that. I know I'm very lucky in that not only is my husband accepting, the community I actually spend the most time in is very accepting and likely nobody would bat an eye if I changed gender pronouns on them. My family's a different story and I live with them but I'll figure that out.

I know my husband will stay regardless... his reaction has not at all been "I will leave you." And he did say that the concept explained a lot of things he'd had a hard time figuring out about me. I have hope that at least this might once and for all put to rest him reacting to me as if I was a "normal woman." That backfires... pretty much always.

agfrommd: ties, or at least tie-like pieces of cloth, have long been part of uniform things for women and girls in various ways and in various countries. They ought to be androgynous, because everyone should wear them, because they're awesome. I may be a tad biased.

I will try to space it out and take time. He has a tendency to not ask questions randomly because he thinks it's rude but I will point him at some information and let him peruse it when he feels like it and ask specific questions about the material.

[Eva Marie]

Riven1 gave me good advice at the time (though maybe doesn't remember it, because your advice was different). The advice was to keep reminding her that I hadn't changed. All I was doing was being more honest with myself and her about who I was.

Oh yeah, that too! LOL..... keep reminding him that you are still the same person he liked enough to marry, and that this is NOT some recent discovery/fetish thing. It's always been there inside of you. He's afraid of who you might become when in fact you've always been this way and you aren't going to change drastically.

[Ariel]

That is good advice, thank you Riven.

We talked some more today and he is very much right now in the "this is all new" stage so I think we'll focus on education first... he has to wrap his head around this non-binary thing.