Need some advice

[Britney79]

So I finally came out to the wife that I was transgender. At first everything was ok and she was supporting me along the way. But here lately things I have seemed to change drastically and more and more of our talks have turned into arguments over my transition.  I feel like now she is making me feel bad about making the transition.  I love her with all my heart and soul, but I don't feel the love and support now that was once there. Does anyone have any advice on what or how I should deal with this.

[Julia-Madrid]

Hi Britney

Oh, this really is a hard one!  A marriage is a terrible thing to lose, and if you love each other it's worth doing whatever you can to identify how to make this stressful time acceptable to both of you.  If you feel that she's trying to make you feel guilty this is a major distress call from her, even if it's enveloped in aggression, so listen and try to understand what she really is thinking and saying.

One of the things that many partners complain about is how secondary they feel due to their other half's obsession during transition - my clothes, my hair, my walk, my voice, my makeup.  Lots of "my"s, and they can feel abandoned, reduced and marginalised.  This is quite apart from how she may feel about the person she married becoming the other gender:  I can imagine that very few people have such an open gender schema that such a change would be an easy thing to deal with.

Perhaps you may benefit from some joint counselling, although I don't know whether this should be related to gender or relationship or whatever.

A final thought:  are you still treating her as your wife, the woman who you fell in love with, and not, for example, just a source of makeup tips?  That means making her feel like she's a woman, valued, cared for.  I'm not saying you've forgotten to do these things, but I am asking whether you might have...

Good luck with this...
Julia

[Taius]

This is a tough situation! Marriages can be rough, with lots of ups and downs. Perhaps consider seeking out a trans-friendly relationship counselor? They might be able to help you two simultaneously to not only understand yourselves more, but to learn new methods of coping with these changes, and with the feelings you, and your partner may have with eachother.

This can be a very confusing time for both of you, so having an outside perspective who's only drive is to help you two communicate may be your best bet.

As long as you two are willing to learn, and love eachother as you have before, you can come out stronger than ever for this.
But as Julia mentions, there's a lot of "My"s in transitioning. Try to take a moment to examine your behavior, just in case you were inadvertently doing that at all. Sometimes we don't even know we're focusing more on ourselves than we used to! I'm definitely guilty of this at times, and if you were spending more time on yourself recently as you're excited and focused on transitioning, your wife may have noticed it and is feeling left out of your attention.

Perhaps take your wife out somewhere you know she likes to go, and spend time with her to remind her that you feel she's very important as well. From there, talk to her about maybe seeing a counselor so that you can both work on finding new methods of communication, and strengthen the bond you have?

I wish you the best of luck in this, Britney.

[Ms Grace]

If your wife considers herself heterosexual she might find your intention to transition as very challenging to her and her sexual identity. Straight women might love their girlfriends with all their heart but it doesn't mean they want to sleep with them. Your gender identity is something you've struggled with for a long, long time and no doubt it took you that length of time to come to terms with it yourself, to your wife it is all new. She will probably feel she might be about to lose the person (the "man") she fell in love with and married. It is very probably quite scary and distressing for her. As others have said, counselling will help. Hopefully everything will work out, but if the experience of others is anything to go by, even if it does it won't happen over night. All the best.

[sam1234]

Britney,
sorry to say I have some experience in that area. I was dating a girl and told her two weeks in that I was a transgender. She immediately accepted it, and though there were some bumps here and there, we were married a couple years later. After the marriage, the trouble started. She wasn't so understanding and started to worry about what other people would think, (ie wouldn't go to the Dr. with me for fear of them thinking she was a lesbian).

Even though you love your wife, she married a person she believed was a man. For her to stay with you during and after your transition would require her to accept a lesbian lifestyle. She may not be ready or willing to do that.

For some people, love is above all something that comes from the soul. Nothing gets in the way of it. Not loss of body parts, sexual function or, transitioning. For others, body image is an important condition of their love. Its not for me to judge if that is right or wrong. It just is.

You need to sit down with your wife and have a serious talk about what your transition is going to mean to you, her and your marriage. If its not something she can handle, then the choices are either not transitioning or ending the marriage. If she is willing to try, counselling is in order. Sometimes it takes a while for the gravity of telling someone you are not the gender they thought you were to sink in. First reactions can be just about anything. Acceptance, anger, betrayal, disbelief. Regardless of which way this goes, get yourself into therapy so that you don't wind up suffering any more than you have to.

Good luck and Godspeed.

Sam1234