Hello all. Thank you for having me.

[Wish to be Tiff]

Wow, where do I start. Not real sure where to go with this , or how much. I guess I'll start with who I am and why I'm here. I'm a 34 year old newly divorced heterosexual gender confused male/father. And I really need some advice and someone to talk to because I have no one. I feel this is the best place for me to seek this. It has come to a point in my life where I have had dilemmas come up in my mind about my gender confusion and I really don't know what to do. I'll leave it at that for now. Thank you for reading. Hope.everyone has a great evening.

[Mariah]

Hi Tiff, Welcome to Susan's. A good start was joining and great future step would be seeing a therapist. I look forward to seeing you around he site. Good luck and Hugs
Mariah


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[Jill F]

Hi, Wish to be Tiff!

Welcome to Susan's Place and congratulations for finding us.  It's nice to have you with us!

Hugs,
~Jill

[V M]

Hi Tiff 

Welcome to Susan's    Glad to have you here, join on in the fun

Hugs

V M

[KellyTG]

Hello Tiff and welcome to Susan's Place! I agree with Mariah in that it is better to see a therapist to be able to talk about these issues. I look so forward to seeing my therapist so I can bounce ideas off of her to assure myself I am making rational and logical decisions. I never want to make emotional decisions concerning something so important. Things change and our emotions can deceive us at times. So with that said, again welcome and I am sure you will find some great information here.

KellyTG

[katrinaw]

Hi Tiff, Welcome to Susan's, glad you found your way here.

If you are having Gender Identification concerns or issues, probably best to seek professional help, not sure if they have been deep rooted or just of late, but you will need to understand your feelings and decide what to do or how to progress from there.

And hey our forum have lots of good folk here, most of us have been there, and can offer you help, tips and friendship's.

Look forward to seeing you about the forums.

L Katy 

[Wish to be Tiff]

Thank you so much for your replays and advice everyone. Yes this has been very deep rooted for me going back ever since I can remember. I would sneak in my mom's room as a child to try on her high heals and bras and such because any thing I knew was associated with being feminine made me feel that way and I liked it. Even though I have always been heterosexual I have never been very confident toward women and often confused between do I like her or do I wanna be her. My ex wife I was married to for 17 years was 5 years my senior and bisexual. She kinda found me instead of me perusing her. Eventually she knew all about this in me and it opened up our relationship and there was exploration at times. She had told me more then just a few times that I was able to fulfill both sides of her sexuality. Problem was I am my own worst enemy as far as all of this goes and can only open up about this for short periods of time before I put myself through some very extensive self humiliation and decide to pack it all very deep back in a suitcase. The problem there is I put up a lot of exhausting mental barriers and they tend to make me a unpleasant person to be around at times. Looking back on it all now I think this could be the number 1 cause of my divorce. Just took years for it to build up. I have packed and unpacked this suitcase so many times in my life I don't know if I can handle packing it all away again. I still have my relationship with my kids to worried about. Then there is the question of how that works if I was to go with MTF as a father. I already know if I went thru it I would be a lesbian which I could live with. It just seems the more I research I do and the more I learn about all this the more excuses my mind makes for me not to but at the same time the desire gets stronger. So there for I'm still just as confused now as when I started to learn about it.

  Once again thank you all for reading my post and your advice. Your right about needing a therapist to talk to. This is all way too important not to have a professional to talk to.

[traci_k]

Welcome to Susan's Tiff, Yes the feelings of being trans can come and go and depending on our upbringing, we may waver between wanting to pursue what we feel is correct and then feeling the shame and outside peer pressure that this is wrong or worse. Overcoming childhood indoctrination can be difficult. As other have mentioned, seeing a qualified gender therapist can be very helpful in sorting though your feelings, and getting involved here or with a support group will help you realize YOU ARE NOT ALONE with your feelings.

So get involved here. Ask lots of questions. There are tons of resources and info here to for you to explore.

Hugs and hope to see you around more.

[Wish to be Tiff]

Thank you Traci for your advice and support. I am feeling very comfortable with the attention and feed back I am receiving here. Some other issues with all this I have failed to mention yet as it seems the more I come out about I'm finding the more I wished I had said or wanting to say. One of those issues is my personal appearances that nothing can be done about that I would consider masculine like the fact I'm 6 foot 4 inches tall with size twelve and half feet, I also have very large hands. I guess in my mind in order not to stick out so much if I were to decide to go thru it is the way I would want to have it but that would almost be impossible with these features. The rest of me is pretty athletic so I would hope no problems there. The other issue is my carrier. I am basically a mechanic in the HVAC/R industry (service technician) is my title and have been in this trade for 18 years now. It's all I know how to do and I'm good at it. But it's not exactly woman's work you know and I don't think I would be excerpted very well among others in the industry or at my company. I'm currently putting a lot of thought into this one trying to figure out how to make a positive move out of it. I'm sure my issues might seem rather small compared to what others have had to face when going thru this but these are the things I'm having to deal with. Thanks everybody. Take care and talk to you all again soon.

[Rachel]

Welcome to Susan's Place.

I look forward to seeing you around the site.

[cindy16]

Hi Tiff,

Welcome to Susan's! It is great to hear from you.

As others have mentioned, a good gender therapist should be able to help you sort out your concerns regarding gender identity.
Do not worry about your height and large hands and feet. There are many women here, and many elsewhere, cis or trans, who are as tall or even taller. It may be unusual but need not be a reason to get 'clocked' beyond a certain point.
About your career, depending on where you are, there may be laws or policies against discrimination on the basis of gender identity. Or sometimes the very same colleagues and company that you thought would be unaccepting, might surprise you by being open-minded. Or you may need to move to a different company and/or city but could still be in the same industry. You'll never know until the time comes, but if it's possible, try to explore their openness to LGBT+ issues without outing yourself. Things are changing in the workplace for everyone, and an increasing number of cis and trans women can be found working as soldiers, cops, firefighters, so there is no reason you cannot continue in your career either. 
Another option is that if you've ever considered switching careers and/or getting more education, this might be a good time to think about that too. Not saying you must switch careers, but it is worth a thought.

Take care
Cindy

[SophiaW]

Hi Tiff, and welcome here 

Yes, the best thing is to speak to a professional, or even two if you think one is biased.
You said you wore your mums clothes...well, do you like the clothes more, or the fact that you could be a woman yourself, no matter what clothes there are?
Do you want to be thought of as a woman, or just like the apparel that goes with it?
For transexuals, I think they want to be accepted as women, even if it is in t-shirt and jeans, it is not important.
But I could be wrong

For work, many people do it slowly, it does not have to be man one day, and woman the next.
Take your time.
When you are sure, tell your manager at work. They should know, or can find out your companies gender policies.

See your gender therapist, see your Doctor, see a psychologist, and see how you feel.

Whatever happens with you and your family, show love, and be happy in what you do.

[Wish to be Tiff]

You all are so great. I may not know exactly what my future holds but at least I have a good idea of what my next steps should be. I'll stay in touch and contribute as much as I can around here because it feels like a place I can make great friends with loving people.

I hope everyone has a nice holiday weekend and hope to talk to y'all soon.
        Tiffany.