Allow me to relay a cautionary tale.
For years and years I rationalized about my own situation. I hid who I am for my kids. I hid who I am for my spouse. I obsessed over hobbies so that I had no free time to dwell on my situation. I rarely showed emotion, and when I did it was often in the form of anger. I told myself I could never pass. I told myself I am a freak who is being punished.
Yet here I am now transitioning anyway. The children for whom I sacrificed so much? They've stopped speaking to me and cut me off from my grandkids. The spouse for whom I suppressed myself? We're going to divorce eventually anyway.
One of my adult children went so far as to say he wished I'd been successful in pursuing suicide, that me killing myself would have been "easier" on him (and his wife, who is freaked out about me).
I didn't transition for my wife, because I loved her, but when I reached the point where I had to do it, or die, I learned that she had never really loved me, had had affairs, and considered me "a penis and a paycheck" and not a very good one at that. (That phrase was actually thrown at me during one of her outbursts.) We stay together now because splitting up would be economically harsh, while she returns to school to freshen her skill set. Then we'll divorce. And despite her making noises about staying "friends", I don't expect her to speak to me except extremely rare instances. She's been lying too, for years, and even when I know she's lying now she is so used to lying to me that she just does it anyway.
So I rationalized just like I read in so many posts here. I was "stoic". I was the one who rarely smiled. Friends joked about how few pictures they had of me ever smiling. My temper would flare and worry some people. And I obsessed over external things, to distract myself from who I really am. For example, I threw myself at youth soccer so much that after 8 years, I was a nationally certified coach and knew almost every kid from the age of 9 to 19 in our soccer club, having coached most of them at one point or another. Do you know how rare nationally certified youth soccer coaches are? I had other obsessions too, each lasting years and eating up large amounts of my time to keep me from slipping further into my own darkness.
And yet here I am, a 56 year old transitioner whose lies and rationalizations eventually led to a precipice - end it all or be myself.
So I am going to say this again - if you can truly be at peace with yourself without transitioning, I am glad for you. But if you are suffering now while denying yourself and rationalizing about yourself, you are on a dangerous road, a very very dangerous road. And if you find that road leading to a question of living or dying, please turn away from that road. No spouse, no child, no rationalization is worth your life.
I wish every one of you not transitioning the best of luck and happiness. But somehow, I fear that some of you will still end up being me all over again someday. And I can say with complete honesty that denying myself for others was the worst mistake of my life. I pray it does not become that for each of you.
