Hello everybody, and thanks to all of you for basically helping this site to exist. Before I registered I read through a great many postings and it was reassuring to hear so many of my own thoughts and feelings echoed in them.
Before I go too far, first let me apologize in advance if this gets a little long - I'll try to keep it short but you never know what will happen once you uncork about 40 years worth of pent up feelings. I also apologize in advance for the fact that there's probably nothing I'm about to say that you haven't already heard or felt yourself, but thanks for giving me a place to do so.
I'm sure this line here is nothing new to many, if not all of you: I know that I'm transgender but I don't want to be. I know that there is nothing I can do about that fact, no "magic pill" that can make it go away, believe me I've tried every way conceivable to squish it and make it go away since my early teens (I'm 43 now). I've had many years of experience in failing to overcome this part of me that seems to be at my very core, and I've come to accept that it's there for good. I've played sports (badly), I've played in death metal bands, I've turned to drugs, alcohol, religion - you name it. In the end though, even if some of these things provided a brief and temporary respite and allowed me to ignore this, it is always there.
I started out as many do - as a young child - I used to ask my mom to make me costumes I'd seen in storybooks I'd read and also sneaking into her closet and trying on her clothes, modeling in front of a mirror. Trying on her clothes was a once in awhile thing, mainly because I didn't get a chance very often. I didn't know what was going on, but evidently I felt "wrong" by doing it. I grew up with a father who was very much all about "being a man" (I was once punished for saying "I'm sorry"...men didn't do that in his opinion). As I grew up, I'd take any opportunity I could find to wear female clothing - if we were visiting relatives, I'd try on some of my cousins' clothes in the bathroom that they'd tossed in the hamper, things like that. I never really liked playing with the other boys, running around tackling each other, making crude jokes, fighting, and it bothered me when they'd pick on the girls although I would have put money on most of the girls I knew if it ever came down to an actual fight
No, instead I preferred playing with the girls, joining in whatever it was they were doing, and for whatever reason they always let me. I guess I always felt I had more in common with them. As I went through my teens and started driving, I discovered thrift shops outside of town where I wasn't in any danger of running into people I knew and as embarrassed as I was I bought a few outfits of my own which I kept hidden in my room. Whenever I was home alone I was free to dress in them. One day my parents had left and I went to grab the clothes but they were gone. I panicked knowing I couldn't say anything but I felt sure they would, but to this day nothing has ever been said.
In middle school I was sent to a Catholic school because I had fairly low grades all through elementary school and my parents thought the environment would help. Nope, instead I sat there always daydreaming about how I should be wearing the girls' uniform instead of the boys', although at the time I didn't really understand why (I felt like a girl but I don't think I realized that yet, or at least hadn't admitted it to myself). In high school I remember going to the football games, but not to watch the game. I was there to socialize and admire the cheerleaders. In part because they were pretty, but in larger part because I wanted to be part of their group. I never found a way or found the courage to act on it though. There were no male cheerleaders and I highly doubted a boy in a skirt was going to be well received in a steel mill town in the mid 80's, let alone tolerated at my home. I was always picked on by most boys and I still don't really know why - I kept to myself and wasn't really effeminate in appearance or anything, at least I don't think I was. I had long hair but so did the rest of the "burn out" crew I was running with by then.
I grew up like most people, got grades good enough to pass, took machine shop classes, worked in an iron foundry. I'm married, have kids - some of which are adult now, some still home. I've never let on to my kids about me, but I think something has bled through as one of my older daughters is straight, shows no signs of dysphoria herself, but has long been a proponent of LGBT issues and was active in the groups they had at her high school.
I've only somewhat recently come to terms with myself, shaky as that is. I spent decades denying it all, passing it off as a phase, or thinking of myself as a crossdresser. I've tried to alleviate my feelings by wearing women's undergarments at all times, dressing full out at home in my room, the slacks I wear for work are women's, many of the shirts I wear under my sweaters are women's polos or blouses, but none of this seems like enough and as time passes it seems like it helps less.
I know it goes way deeper than my appearance and wardrobe - god it would be soooo much easier if that were the extent of it all! I can be driving down the road listening to a song, perhaps singing along, and out of nowhere a line will get to me or a memory of something that was going on before when the same song was playing and I'll burst into tears. A lot of my feelings are like that, and I've never taken hormones. My moods and feelings also seem to swing more often and further as I get older.
My wife is understanding but feels betrayed to an extent, which I get completely. I made the mistake of telling her once that "she knew about this before we married". Her response was that she thought it was a phase or a fetish, to which I could only quietly reply "yeah, me too". At the time I honestly had myself convinced it had to be.
I know who and what I am. I know this goes to the very center of who I am and is apparently always going to. Some days I feel like I want to transition fully, some days I think I don't want surgeries but do want hormones, some days I feel like I don't want any of that but to just live as a woman. At all times there's the underlying wish that it would just stop and let me finally have a "normal" life, but that never happened and I've given up hope on that as time passes and I feel worse.
I love my wife and my family more than I could ever hope to describe, and don't want to lose them ever something even I feel "silly" about, but at the same time I can't deny how serious this "silly" thing really is.
Does anyone have any advice? I feel like a complete failure and I have no clue what to even do anymore (as if I ever did). I just know it's getting harder by the day to keep going like this.
If you managed to stay with me this long, I apologize for the length and if anything was dumb.
Thank you.
