Hi there, everyone, I'm Tegan.
I'm not new, but it's been over six months since I last posted here. A lot can happen in six months, and because of that I felt a reintroduction was in order.
Again, my name is Tegan (Teg if you prefer). I'm a 34-year old California high school English and Drama teacher, a geek, a cosplayer, a Gemini, a cat lover, a horror buff and film aficionado, and I am transgender.
A year and a half ago, I put together all the clues and came to this realization. It wasn't easy news to take, and I was terrified by the implications. I spent a full two weeks panicking. Then, when I couldn't keep it to myself any longer, I approached my wife for support, trusting that I would get loving acceptance. I received an abusive rage-filled rant instead.
I repressed my feelings. I explained them away and things almost went back to normal between us. Almost. The subject became the elephant in the room, the looming specter which she used as ammunition to humiliate me whenever she was on the offensive. And I kept beating myself up on the subject, too, wondering why I had said anything, reliving it over and over again.
Finally, I decided that I better do some more investigating into my identity- I couldn't just keep feeling like crap the rest of my life, after all- and that's when I found Susan's. I read articles, I bought books, and I came here and asked questions. Susan's is where I first began to find self-acceptance.
I tried hard to hold onto the relationship as I figured things out; I loved my wife with all my heart. But in all honesty, things had been crumbling for years. She has a problem with alcohol, rage issues, an abusive past, and both an anxiety disorder and a personality disorder. These things have all been diagnosed at one time or another, but to my knowledge she doesn't seek treatment for any of them. Our good times were great, but in our rough times she was outright abusive. I look now at my first posts on here, and I realize just how scared I really was of her, but the feelings had become commonplace to me. Like the metaphorical frog in the pot of water that's slowly brought to boiling; I really didn't notice the extent to which things were wrong, even as they were killing me.
As time went on, her behavior became worse. Things between us hadn't been the same since I had come out (and swiftly recanted) during the previous Summer, and now she was always looking for an excuse to blow up. She found it when, snooping on my ipad, she found my Susan's account last Spring. I hadn't even had my first therapy appointment yet.
That was the end for us. I didn't know that at the time, since she strung me along until midway through the Summer, playing that she was trying hard to make things work one moment, then yelling transphobic slurs and threatening to publicly out me the next moment. It was a very rough six months and I'm somewhat surprised I survived it; it really was that bad at times. I even spent 72 hours under psychiatric hold for self-harm. During the day, I'd go to work and pretend everything was okay, but every evening I would return home to a minefield. They were dark days.
As time passed, she became more irrational and outright mean. She accused me of having lied to her for the entirety of the relationship, she threatened divorce at the drop of a hat, she demanded to know why I was doing this to her, she was physically abusive at times, she wouldn't accept that I needed time to figure things out with a therapist before I knew my next step, and she began outing me to people, lying and twisting circumstances to make herself appear to be a victim.
She even joined Susan's under the guise of wanting support. Instead, she started a smear campaign filled with endless libel. She also monitored my activity so closely that I no longer felt safe to come here, which was a huge blow for a person who was simply trying to hold their life together as they searched for answers.
She kicked me out at the start of the Summer and I moved in with my folks. They were respectful of my privacy and didn't ask any questions. I tried even then to sate her, to get her to stand by her promises that she would give me a chance to figure myself out. We had our final argument at the end of July and it was brutal; I'm still feeling the shockwaves.
The divorce is in process. My stuff was out of there by the end of August's first week. She released two of my three cats. We have not spoken to each other since July.
Since then, I have found out that she wasn't quite the person I had believed her to be. I knew about her moods and the interpersonal damage they caused, but I hadn't realized just how much she was playing me and my family against each other until we all started talking to each other.
There had always been distance between me and my family, going all the way back to my childhood; I had blamed my chronic depression on it for as long as I could remember. Well, she had played on that distance, feeding us lies and causing rifts for years. It's disgusting just how badly she played us. It seems like she had been actively trying to keep me isolated from my family; she wanted me to have nobody but her so that she could manipulate and control me. It's sick, but accurate.
Also, weeks after my stuff was moved out, I received a notice in the mail regarding a credit card with an overdue balance, a card in my name which I had never heard of. Turns out she had falsely opened a card in my name, transferred her debts to it, and tried to saddle me with the bill. Credit card fraud.
She's not even pretending to play nice any more. And it's a shame.
She's upset, I get that. She feels wronged, I get that too. But I truly did love her, and I truly considered her my best friend. My gender questioning was out of my hands and I never intended to hurt her; she has no reason to want to send hurt in my direction.
She's a sick person. She's lived through a lot of pain, and caused even more.
But she can no longer hurt me. We're through.
So yeah, I'm a free agent now. It's not what I initially wanted, but it is what it is.
If a good thing has come of this, it's that I have rekindled a family bond that I haven't known since I was a kid. Living with my parents, seeing their support and love and full acceptance (I came out to them shortly after things fell to pieces with the wife) of who I am and what I am going through has helped me to see that they truly do love me. It's helped me to move past some stuff from long ago. Our bond is stronger now than its ever been. And I've rekindled a relationship with my brother, too, something I had thought nigh impossible. And my sister-in-law! The whole family has really come together around me and I embrace their love with an open heart. They have been so good to me since I came to them for help, and I realize now just how wrong I was for so long.
I've begun hormones. I didn't decide for sure until just recently.
Removed from the abuse of my wife, I finally found enough peace to really evaluate my life. I wanted so badly to make that relationship work, but now that she has destroyed it, I think a chapter in my life has closed. I couldn't honestly see myself ever having another relationship as a cis gendered male. Maybe it naturally would have come out later in my life, and it surfaced earlier due to the depression and turmoil of my decaying marriage; that I don't know. In the end, it doesn't really matter. What matters is this:
I'm Tegan.
And I'm back.
Hi. :-)
Sincerely,
Tegan
