Quote from: Michelle_P on August 30, 2016, 10:46:03 PM
I'm still tethered, wife and daughter here in the house full-time now as neither is working, and I can't be myself at all (I'm out, but it would be a violation of The Rules here). It's really starting to get to me. 
That's pretty much where I'm at now too. I'm not out to my step-daughter yet because my partner and the few people that know are set in their ways and believe it would confuse and hurt her. Meanwhile I know that 7 is a very open-minded age. It hurts that I probably won't be able to tell her the truth until the transphobic and homophobic values of cis-het society get drilled into her head. What hurts even more is what my partner said about our sons. They're only 1 and 3 and my partner once told me something along the lines of "be prepared for them to resent you". It hurt worse than a slap in the face. I wish that everyone was kind and accepting of all people so nobody would have to feel the pain of their true self being denied.
Thinking about that and having flashbacks of the emotional abuse in my life has got me down today. It seems as if everyone who has been really close to me has been abusive in some aspect. My partner has been extremely jealous in the past and when he's had spurts of jealousy, he erases my pansexuality and trans identity, making me out to be a cisgender straight woman that's going to sleep with every cis man, non-passing trans woman, and passing trans man in sight. I've never cheated on him and this kind of erasure is extremely painful to deal with... it's why I still haven't made the effort to make any trans friends offline. The ironic, but not surprising thing about all this is my partner has actually cheated on me multiple times. He's gotten mad at me when I confronted him, he's come up with excuses sometimes, and has gotten angry and blamed me other times. He calls me names and makes fun of me when he gets mad. Lately I've been thinking that there have been more negative things than positive things in this relationship. Onto other "close relationships" -- my parents have both taken turns telling me I can tell them anything, then getting mad at me when I try to talk about things that have been bothering me. My mom tells me to "just shelf" my trans identity and that "there's a reason why people wait until they're old to transition". My dad has more in common with my partner than my partner would like to admit. He's kind when things are going good, but when he gets mad he sees red and doesn't hold back. He called me a "white trash retard" when he found out I was pregnant with my first son. When I tried exploring my identity when I was 15 in 2005, he made it out that me being trans would ruin my family's lives and reputations. Got shoved back in the closet for ten years and my dad probably still thinks it was "all just a phase". I'm gonna regret not coming out to him again if something happens to him before then. My sister who has been the most supportive and is one of my closest offline friends wasn't like that at all when we were kids. She'd bully me verbally and did everything she could to make me cry. She'd call me names, tell me how stupid I was when I'd ask questions. The weird thing is now she doesn't remember much of it. I however, remember a lot, but I wish I could forget. My partner sometimes says the same hurtful things my sister would say when he thinks I do/say something stupid.
I'm not sure if I feel any better after that vent. I got some stuff off my chest, but now I feel stupid, incompetent and like a waste of everyone's time. I'm struggling to survive this for my kids' sake. I want to raise them to be kind people who are accepting. And if any of them turn out to be trans, I've gotta be there to help them through the struggle. They certainly won't get that support from their dad or their grandparents...
