How many Ex-es do you have before transitioning?

[Tessa James]

This is sort of sad, but I never really had a relationship nor have I ever been intimate with anyone.  I suppose at 24 someone should have experienced romance which sort of makes me a loser.  I have gone out on dates, but it never interested me too much.  I just don't like girls in that way and I'm not a gay guy. And intimacy is a major issue for me because I hate my genitalia and feel really uncomfortable about others even seeing it.  Hopefully all of this will change once my transition continues to progress.  It would be nice to have a boyfriend and be able to date like a normal girl.   

I think you are likely a very thoughtful and responsible person regarding intimacy.  Knowing yourself, your interests and your personal discomfort it seems to me that you are/were smart to avoid situations that many of us foolishly fell into out of obligation, guilt or fear of discovery.  I can only imagine that you will indeed find yourself ready when love finds you.

[Assoluta]

The thought of relationships pre-transition was an impossible fantasy, and so it remained unthinkable pre transition, and it was only fairly soon after my surgery at 24, that I experienced my first relationship. However, it became long distance and ended, and have been single for about a year now. Making meaningful relationships has not been a huge problem, but relationships have always been a massive stumbling point for me, apart from that one time, mutual attraction has been hard to come by, but it's been a huge battle to convince my subconscious to transition from being used to feeling lonely, unloved and it being an incontrovertible reality to somebody who is full of love and has every opportunity to share. Easy to change the conscious mind, not so simple changing the subconscious to reconcile with the new reality, as it stubbornly clings to the old. Some people call me "smart" for not getting into a relationship, but for me, it was extremely easy, simply nothing happened, regardless of whether I had crushes on people or not. I almost feel like it's like being praised for being "smart" for not happening to be in a dangerous area and getting shot, or something.

Still, I think just as some women are maternal and others find birth and babies repulsive, so do people have different needs for love and relationships. Some people I know are indifferent, some people are happier single and don't want what they see as the "hassle" of a relationship, whereas others have varying degrees of yearning for a relationship. This could be due to the more obvious reasons such as low self esteem and need for validation, but even with healthy self esteem, some people yearn for love more others, as I believe some people simply have a greater desire for a devoted and most likely sexual relationship.

[Karla]

you guys must've been going through a hell of experience. i'm afraid to get old

You're afraid of it, Emma?  Then don't get old     I'll be 50 this year.... no plans whatsoever to get old.

[Alisha]

You're afraid of it, Emma?  Then don't get old     I'll be 50 this year.... no plans whatsoever to get old.

Lol.. I see, because age is just a number

[kelly_aus]

Let's see..
5 girlfriends before I came out as gay.. 1 GF after.. 2 boyfriends after I came out as a gay guy..

Now, as for 1 night stands? No idea.. Am I counting clients too? Still have no idea.. Sex was a form of self abuse for me - and I was very good at self abuse..

[Cassandra Hyacinth]

Er... one ex-boyfriend for 2 months. There was another guy as well, where both of us were interested in each other, but the relationship didn't get going.

Wow, I'm so boring. 

[Lesley_Roberta]

What's an ex?

I was married at 25 and a virgin on my wedding night.

Still married and I have no idea what rejection feels like.

[Tessa James]

What's an ex?

I was married at 25 and a virgin on my wedding night.

Still married and I have no idea what rejection feels like.

Wow, and congratulations, that sounds like a charmed romance and not all luck I imagine.

[eli77]

One girlfriend, 2 years. She knew I was trans before we got together (I could never deal with the idea of being with someone without them knowing), but I hadn't started transitioning yet so I guess it counts. She was my first everything and the breakup was rough. We'd been friends for 3 years before, so really I lost a 5 year relationship all in.

Course now I'm with a girl who is fantastic and I'm desperately in love with, so I can't really complain that much.

[Jean24]

I had 2 brief relationships. The first was when I was 18 and a girl who liked me came over to hang out. She was very nice but by this time in my life I had long since developed a ton of gender dysphoria, so much so that I couldn't bring myself to form a relationship. Well one thing lead to another and we were both really green so we experimented a little and got to about 3rd base. She was being selfish though but at the time I thought I had done something wrong, which didn't help my situation. After that I became more distant from her but she became more obsessed and about a week after that I told her I didn't want the relationship. It's not that I didn't want it, I just couldn't handle it due to feeling very weird (I didn't know what a transsexual was back then). The second girl was very nice too and it lasted a little longer and it was a LDR. The same awkward feeling crept back into my mind though and I put my foot down. I told myself that I was 25 and ignoring these feelings of mine for over a decade had failed. They were still present and I needed to address them. I started doing research about different disorders, and GID read me like a book.

[Lesley_Roberta]

The only on off relationship I have ever experienced, is with books.

You all might think 'nah that isn't the same', and some days I might even agree.

But I spent all of my youth and teens with my books. It was all I wanted, it was all I knew.

I had a falling out with my books at one point when a person in a position of authority made it known I was unpopular because I intimidated everyone just by talking.

I had something of a casual fling (best way to sum it up if you ask me) with religion for a few years, till religion cheated on me. That break up was messy.

And there was my books waiting to take me back afterwards.

People actually have more trouble with me and my relationship with knowledge than I think most have with same sex marriage.
My relationship is about the same as an unmarried couple living together for many years. I have never formalized my relationship with knowledge, and as such, people tend to dismiss it as not real.

What can I say, it's how I see it. In person it's an inescapable detail. Typing these posts, none of you have ever actually really met the real person. I'd need to be capable of typing faster than most people can speak. I don't stutter, I never use um and ahh I speak well and clearly and my vocabulary will sound like a person reading an encyclopedia (due to my habit of reading them for relaxation).

But I have no personal experiences with human relationships. I have never had girlfriends plural. I met my wife on a blind date dare. We hit it off. I was married a year later than I wanted all because my damned brother interrupted a damned conversation I was having with mom, where I was going to tell her I was engaged, by phoning her and saying he was engaged. Can you believe that, I had to wait a year because I was 5 minutes off of telling mom first. And she told me I'd need to wait till next year as a result.

I wasn't single till 25 because I liked being lonely though.
But 20 years worth of science and history doesn't make you very skilled at dating.
Being on the football team though helps, and being the primary reason for a recently new school (our high school was only 3 years old when my brother first went), finally defeating the towns other main high school's football team, does tend to ensure you have a girlfriend.
I spent my teens between the pages of text books, my brother spent his teens between the legs of cheerleaders.

Both my brother and sister though have experienced break ups several times in their lives. My very attractive sister still has no wedding ring as well.

I often wonder if I made the right choice in life.
I have no memories of grief, but, I also have no degrees in all of this knowledge, and as a result no one believes in it but me.

As hard as transitioning will be, I mainly see it as an economic hurdle.
I mainly see it as a knowledge challenge.
Inasmuch as acceptance is concerned, well, I have already spent 50 years being scoffed at for my level of education.
I am used to people denying me actually.
I am more bummed out about dresses never being made to fit my shape, than concerned about actually shopping for women's clothing while looking outwardly male.

It's VERY easy for me to react to negativity with a scathing retaliatory comment.
I would not want to be the person attempting to be verbally mean to me about my being TG to my face.

I am told women are attracted to men that are confident.
I have never had a problem with confidence.

[Kim 526]

A woman I really loved broke up with me last year because she could not deal with me being post op (I live as M/androgenous). She desired what I didn't have. It hurt like hell for a long time but I have since resolved it in my mind and have moved on.

I had a date yesterday for lunch with a real nice woman. If we continue, she needs to be told. But I'm going to go slow, starting by telling her I am very much in touch with my feminine side, something I'm sure she can already tell. Then, if she asks, I will divulge a  little more, little by little, until she knows my whole story. She seems gentle and kind and so am I. I don't foresee intimacy this early in the relationship, but who knows what can happen. I don't want to be rejected again because of who I am. Who does?!

[GorJess]

None, as it was impossible. I would turn down anyone and everyone who asked me pre-transition. It does not work for me; I'd die before I did that.

I always was, am, always will be female. That and I simply feel I cannot date with this anatomy, as I have not. I am female; why would I date as a male, when that is not what I am? I also never will date until I'm post-op, and cleared for a certain activity.

[Jean24]

None, as it was impossible. I would turn down anyone and everyone who asked me pre-transition. It does not work for me; I'd die before I did that.
I always was, am, always will be female. That and I simply feel I cannot date with this anatomy, as I have not. I am female; why would I date as a male, when that is not what I am? I also never will date until I'm post-op, and cleared for a certain activity.

I have always felt the same way. The only difference is that I didn't know why I felt that way so I gave relationships a shot. You didn't miss much .

[Kate G]

Just curious.. how many ex-es did you have before start transitioning? was it boy or girl or both?
did you enjoy the relationship or it's just a camouflage for you?

me? i had 12 ex-gf, the longest relationship was 8 months and the shortest was 2 weeks.
for me i was trying to be a real man, didn't work though -_-" and i think i make out with a boy once

I had sex a few times but no one I would even begin to consider an ex.  The first person I ever dated was another M2F.

[Aina]

I've only had one "real" girl friend, and she was my first kiss and she moved away. I never really dated anyone after that and I haven't had a girl-friend in years. Sure I've had friends who were girls but you know what I mean.

Up to this very day - I've been to scared to let people know my feelings and more recently also would feel bad to enter in a relationship and didn't tell them everything.

[Midnight_Nicole]

I only have 1 ex from back when I was 14, some failed attempts at trying to start relationships. But now I'm married snd have a baby daughter. My wife is fine with me being mtf and met me as Nikki.

[marikvulpina]

   i have one ex. although I'm not legally divorced from her as i don't have any money, she is very much gone
from my life, and for that i am grateful. She was one of the major driving factors in pushing me back into the
closet, and repressing my identity as a girl even from myself for almost a decade.

   I don't know how much of it was her being an ignorant transphobe, however, and how much of it was her pushing
to make sure her naive hopeless romantic green card bait would still be able to legally marry her. I suppose it
doesn't really matter. just that she was no good for me, and now she's no longer in the country and doesn't even
seem to have any real presence online anymore.

   But after a year of her making me miserable while playing the martyr, a mutual friend we had been having
semi-serious discussions about having a polyamourous arrangement with desperately needed a place to stay, so we
made that arrangement a reality(her, probably just to have another minion around, although my emotions were and are
quite sincere - the friend only put up with her in order to be with me, it turned out) that crumbled over the course
of the next year and a half - because the friend showed me what an unhealthy relationship I had been in by providing
me with a much, MUCH healthier one.

   So, we left her, and after some misadventures my parents let us move in with them; i had also just lost my job,
and it turned out that my parents secretly hated my wife but never told me... and were delighted to learn that the friend had been impregnated by me. with a granddaughter for them.

   if only i had learned later that they were secretly hoping i would ditch my wife and run off with the friend
(who is my current boyfriend - but that another story partially related in my introduction.)
yeah, i have a lot of bitterness over my ex. australian accents still make me angry, even though intellectually i know that's unfair.

[brandyvgs]

I think the divorce is what did it for me,  ex wife cheated on me had a child outside of the marriage. Had to divorce her to stop her games she kept on playing. Thst is when I decided to change myself.

[big kim]

I had 3 years of verbal and physical abuse from my only LTR.She was a violent shoplifter with an alcohol problem and i fell madly in love with her.I was still believing that a relationship with a girl would stop me being trans,it didn't.I never hit back because I believed it to be wrong to hit a woman.She constantly put me down telling me I would never have another partner as I was so useless that she was the only one who would put up with me.When we split I started to realise being trans was never going away and I must deal with it,she outed me to everyone including my mother who were all OK with me.At the same time she helped me with make up and hair putting my hair up and French braids(I never got the hang of that despite many videos books etc)I'd still like a LTR with someone nice,don't know if it would be a man or a woman though going by my past experience I'll probably end up with someone like Dexter!