Still need work dealing with emotions

[amberwaves]

My wife just made an extremely nice gesture to me.  Our anniversary is Saturday and she bought me a very beautiful set of earrings.  She even had our daughters help pick them out.  I should be happy, and I am, but I am also very unsettled emotionally by it.  I feel bad because I can't take these earrings out for another 3 weeks and I honestly have no clue when I will get to wear them.  I'm only out to 3 people, her included.   I don't have any really nice clothes to go with them.  Even more though I think it's because it is such a touching gesture of acceptance.  I only discovered this and came out about 5 months ago.

Not really looking for advice or anything, just an outlet.  I've never been good at dealing with anything other than depression and rage.

[Peep]

Can you wear them round the house? Even if you have nothing to match them. I used to have a flatmate who'd wear shiny red high heels and pyjamas in the house.

[amberwaves]

Yes I can.  She even told me as much.  I think it's mostly just a sort of confusion because lack of sleep, stress, and the lack of experience dealing with people doing nice things for me.

[Denise]

I kinda had to laugh at the irony of this. 

How may times as husbands did we buy or persuade our wifes to buy a nice dress/shoes/... but never took them any where to wear it/them!  I talked my wife a few years ago into buying an OMG HOT dress LBD while shopping in a small boutique in PA.  It took almost a year for us to go somewhere that she could wear it (A night club in Vegas.)

One might say that turn-around is a bitch.

But I agree - wear them around the house or maybe even a dinner and movie theater in some far-away land.

[Emileeeee]

My wife did stuff like that in an effort to be supportive. I think she got the impression that it was go time from the moment I told her rather than planning to go time. It made me a little nervous every time she did that for a few months, but I feel that her efforts there is what got me over a lot of my fear surrounding transition.

[amberwaves]

I kinda had to laugh at the irony of this. 

How may times as husbands did we buy or persuade our wifes to buy a nice dress/shoes/... but never took them any where to wear it/them!  I talked my wife a few years ago into buying an OMG HOT dress LBD while shopping in a small boutique in PA.  It took almost a year for us to go somewhere that she could wear it (A night club in Vegas.)

One might say that turn-around is a bitch.

But I agree - wear them around the house or maybe even a dinner and movie theater in some far-away land.

The irony is not lost on me.  I will say that this sort of scenario rarely happened after the first 2 years of dating.  She is not the type that enjoys fancy gifts of jewelry and outfits.  She is a pretty practical girl.  She still has a very nice bracelet I bought her on our one year anniversary that I've only seen her wear about 4 times.  I still give her gifts but they tend to be small items I know she wants such as a new game or flowers.

I think I was mostly taken back by the niceness of the gesture and the spontaneity of it.  I wasn't planning on receiving anything.  She knows I've been interested in getting earrings, but I had assumed that would be for my B-day months from now.  The fact that she went ahead and got them shows incredible support and a growing acceptance of my status.  I'm just not used to having people do nice things for me randomly.  As a guy I would have shunned this sort of frivolous gift.  The gesture is touching and I just need to get more experience with this sort of scenario.  I was mostly taken aback at my jumbled emotions.  I figured I would just be happy, not mixed up.

[Denise]

I'm just not used to having people do nice things for me randomly.  As a guy I would have shunned this sort of frivolous gift. 

Wow - these words struck me.   I agree, as a guy I would have just said "thanks" but today I think I would probably cry.

Just more affirmation I'm doing the right thing.  Thank you for the magic.