Quote from: LittleEmily24 on July 29, 2014, 07:26:50 PM
This quite possibly might be the most spot on thing i've read (while i still greatly appreciate everyone elses responses)...
But must I be the one to do this? She claims to love me and still be in love with me... how do I know that she isn't 100% ready to stay with me til death do us part... I mean ->-bleeped-<-... she told me to freeze sperm so we can have kids in the future... and its not like I don't find her attractive... I do... I am still attracted to women, but i just have this overwhelming desire to be with a man... or as you so perfectly put it " to be someone else's girlfriend and maybe one day his wife - not the guy just now who didn't work out, but the guy you dream of meeting and loving, and who's waiting for you somewhere out there. " but I feel like i put her through 6 years of hell only to cut her loose and say "yeah sorry i'm not happy".... i feel so selfish... I feel like its not right of me to do that to her... especially if she is sincere about how she feels about me... Honestly, with the way i've been feeling, sometimes i look at her face and i see her smile at me and I cry... because despite everything we've been through and how much i've damaged her, she still smiles at me and she loves me... and it makes me feel like the biggest piece of ->-bleeped-<- in the world =( it makes me feel like our entire relationship has been about me.. my depression, my dysphoria, my transition, my sexual unhappiness... and she has no one down here... her family is in Chile and I'm all she has down here in Miami... which only serves to make me feel even more like ->-bleeped-<- especially since she stopped talking to her parents out of anger because they woulnd't accept our relationship, and she did that for US...
What you say makes sense and it sounds almost perfect... but honestly, I don't know how I can do it without effectively writing myself off as a completely selfish and underserving bitch.
Also; let me just say that this is only how I feel about myself, no one else.... I'm not saying that if you did that and decided you were totally fine with it that it makes you a bad person, i just feel that for me personally i feel like it makes me the ->-bleeped-<-tiest person in the world.
First, I'm so glad you felt that my two cents' worth was useful - thank you so much for saying so - I was really worried it might sound like I was being heartless, which I really wasn't. Thank you for spotting that, too!
Now one more piece of tough love. You ask, "But must I be the one to do this?"
I'm really sorry, hon, but I'm afraid the answer is an absolute, "Yes."
See, you are the one who's changed things. And I don't say that critically. I got married, too, raised three children and really, really tried to be the best husband and father I could. But once I was true to myself about my dysphoria, and then true to my wife in telling her about it, then I had to accept responsibility for what followed. I wish she could have dealt with it, but she couldn't. And as much as a part of me wants to blame her for that, I can't deny that I was the one who was asking her to accept a totally new situation. She just wanted to have the husband she thought she'd loved and married.
Similarly, you're the one who's transitioning. You're the one who doesn't really, deep down, want to be married to a woman any more - not in a full, sexual marriage, anyway. And I'm sure that you love your wife with all your heart, but you're not hot for her, and a wife (or husband) needs to know that they are desired, as well as loved.
There's one more thing that I believe very strongly, from my own experience and my family's. When one takes responsibility for a break-up, you have to be ready to be the villain of the piece. We all hate that. We all want to be nice, and loved and seen as a good person. But the cruellest thing you can do to anyone who still loves you, and still prays for the life with you that they once had, is to give them hope.
You see, as long as they think they still have a chance with you, they can't move on to anyone else and any relationship they try to form while your shadow is still looming over them is bound to fail. So you have to tell your wife that you can't go on. And you have to allow her to be angry - very angry - because she has the right to be angry, and it's not fair to make her feel guilty, as if she were the reason for things going wrong, or give her hope that things will change, when you know, in your heart, that they won't.
So allow her to be angry. Accept it when she badmouths you to your friends. Give her time and space ... and in time, particularly once she sees and accepts you as a woman, just like her, you will be able to find a new way to be close to each other once again.
As for being a 'selfish bitch' ... no, I don't think that you are, at all. It;'s true that being TG and coping with it makes us all selfish, because our condition is, quite literally, about our selves. We're trying to get to the best place where we can be most ourselves. So we can't help but turn inward. And because it's a difficult process, and can involve so much loss (of lovers, friends, family, work, money, status, you name it) and so much potential for humiliation, mockery, abuse and even violence, it's very easy to turn in on ourselves and then become pissed-off when other people don't immediately accept us as we want to be. But, hell, it can take us years to accept ourselves: why shouldn't it take other people time too?
My point is: you have to accept that other people will be hurt by what you are doing. But that inflicting pain does not make you a bitch. You have tried to be a good man and a good husband, just as I did. I'm sure you were completely sincere in that. But in the end, it's not who you are.
And here's the main thing: you have a right to be the real you. We're only here once, so we've got to live the best, truest, most fulfilling life we can. You are making a brave, wonderful journey to your true self. Don't feel bad about the necessity to do that. Just have compassion and acceptance for those you have to leave behind - if only for a while - along the way.
I wish you well in resolving an incredibly difficult situation and all the luck in the world. I know you will have a wonderful life as a woman and all the pain along the way will prove to have been worth it in the end.
PS: Totally agree with you, Evelyn K!
