For the past few weeks I've been feeling increasingly insecure in my relationship, having to do with transitioning. I guess I just want to get it off my chest, but if you guys have any advice I'd really appreciate it.
I'll try to keep the back story short:
Girlfriend and I were both previously in very serious relationships - I was engaged, she was married. I had a really terrible experience with my ex, a man I was with for some pretty screwed up reasons, in a relationship that was very manipulative and emotionally abusive. I tried everything to make it work, but when I came out to him, he first acted very supportive, then tried to talk me out of HRT for BS health reasons - then, when it was becoming more real and I was getting ready to transition, he cut and run by cheating on me with sex workers, picking the absolute most feminine people he could find and making me feel absolutely disgusting in my masculinity. Of course, it was much more complicated than that, but suffice to say it left me pretty messed up and nowhere near ready to transition for another year (until now), and I'm still discovering new and exciting ways it still affects me.
These days, I've very happy with Girlfriend, who has always been 100% supportive of my transitioning. She identifies as a lesbian, and like I said, was married before - to a very very very high-femme woman. And between the two of us, briefly dated another femme. I don't know too much about their divorce, other than that it was ugly and had a lot to do with two people who got married too damn young facing the real world for the first time and taking it out on each other.
Maybe it was meeting her family for the first time this christmas, or maybe it's because I'm soon to be starting HRT, or maybe because we're getting a lot more serious, but this intense jealousy has come out of nowhere. I mean, I didn't love to hear about her ex before, but it didn't send me into panic attacks. And it's not her fault at all - her ex-talk etiquette has always been great. What's worse is that I'm having a really hard time bringing it up, which has more to do with those exciting ways MY ex still messes me up. I'm worried that she wishes things were different, that she and her ex wife had waited to get married and that it would have worked that way, and that I'm some crappy second prize and she loves me despite my transition and will never love me for it. I'm worried that when I start HRT she'll lose interest and want to be with another femme.
I've brought it up with her a bit before, and she assures me she won't cut and run, but the jealousy towards her ex is getting way out of control (which I haven't brought up) and I can really only pester her about it so much before I need to just have faith.
