I am happy for you and your family also in their acceptance of your transitioning. In my transitioning to a woman full time everyday I find many of the barriers of being a woman are imaginary. Like you my past of trying to live like a male will never be forgotten or unknown because of my children and my keeping contact with old friends and past students on Facebook. Everyday life such as shopping for bras and panties and panty hose and even mainly using the ladies rest room in public places has become more common for me. I avoid ladies restrooms when they are crowded or busy, but I have found it more difficult to use the mens restroom.
Having retired and not finding any kind of a job, I do not face the challenges of transitioning on the job. But, I have gone to my ten year old son's elementary school as a female. I however have not fought the pronoun war, and do not make a fuss when the male pronoun is used. Funny about male/female pronouns is that when I used to substitute teach in male guise in the area where I live now the kids addressed me and referred to me as both he and she.
I am just sharing my experiences that while there are still possibilities of negative reactions to your transitioning to become a woman there also may not be. I now live in the southeastern part of the United States in an area where all kinds of people move to from many southern states. Its a place where the Baptist Churches are large and small and many. Having lived in rural Dakotas most of my life, I have formed many imaginary images of areas with a large Southern population which I have found, at least here, are more private than public. There are many interracial couples who are not meant with negativity in pubic. I dressed as a transgender woman have not been confronted verbally or with stares of hatred. I have been ignored and left alone. At the most I have been told that my life style is my business. I live in public housing and go out with my girl friend and her daughters and our son. I have been addressed many times as one of the ladies. To tell the truth at home I am mostly considered a man who likes to dress and present as a woman. So instead of Michelle, I am called Michael, but I ignore it.
For me in my life's experiences with those I consider my family relationships are ever evolving an maintaining my commitments to those I live with for as long as humanly possible is very important to me. I am 20 years older than my life's partner and I share what I have as long as I can no matter how she defines our relationship because it has been redefined many times over the last 11 years we have been together. Heavenly bliss has rarely ever been a part of my life for any extended period of time. Not in my birth families nor in my thirty year marriage, nor now.
What I am trying to share is I things may never be as good or bad as we imagine them and that your relationship with your spouse will probably be redefined over and over many times but what is important is that you can make your relationship work out if you both let it be and accept the good times with the bad and remember that being a woman is who you are and it does not determine how you choose to live your life. You can be the kind of woman you want and need to be within your family relationships and even create and add new meaning of what it means to be a woman. Every woman fights every day with who she wants to be and how she wants to live. This is also true of the men.
I just could not make being a man work because it was not me. I just want to be as effeminate as I can be, without ever totally knowing what that means. There are all kinds of women and I am just one more kind. I am basically living the same life style I did as a man but only as a woman. I am basically a home body and have never been a bar fly or partying down type of person. I am home with my family when ever I can be. When I tried to live as a man it was work and home. Now I am retired its mostly home. Thats how my partner is, but she has always been home since we have been together.
I wish you all of the luck in the world, and a long and happy life. What ever you do with your partner and kids yu can keep on doing but instead you will just be a woman. It is entirely up to you how you wish to live your life and how you wish to change it. But while transitioning into your female self is not a choice how you choose to live out that life is.
