Last Sunday we had my eldest daughter's 7th birthday party. My mother-in-law works at a grocery store and sent my wife a text in the morning. She asked if we needed anything else for the party before she left work. She then wrote "make sure he wears daddy clothes". Wtf. My wife was incredibly upset by this. Surprisingly, I wasn't terribly put off. I told her that we don't know why she said that. It could have been because her grandfather who is an extreme bigot and just generally an a-hole was going to be there. I acquiesced and wore a guy shirt in order to keep the peace for the party. Not that it particularly made much difference. I look like a girl regardless of attire and the boobs show anyway. We had the party and everything was fine. The kids all had fun, etc.
Thursday, my mother-in-law stopped over to pick up the children to stay out there over the holiday weekend. She shows up after work, around 2, and had to wait until after the kids get off the bus at 3 before leaving. I go to the bus stop leaving my wife and her alone. This allowed my wife time to talk to her mother to find out more about the daddy clothes comment and to explain that regardless of who is uncomfortable that will not fly in the future.
After I return and she leaves with the kids I question my wife about how things went. Apparently, her mother wouldn't discuss anything and constantly avoided the subject. Turns out she had never even relayed the message about me to her husband. So it seems pretty apparently that the answer to "who was the clothes comment for?" Is all of the above.
My wife has been pretty upset. She was raised not to be a bigot and frequently in high school would get in trouble for defending her gay friends from bullies. She is upset because she thought her parents were better than that. Turns out she was wrong. She has my back 100% in things. I'm used to family disappointing me, this is new to her.
All said and done it looks like we are done playing nice about my transition for others benefit. We didn't force pronouns or the next thing. Moving forward we will.
One of the only things tying us strongly to this backwards place was proximity to her family. She is incredibly family oriented. Those ties are breaking and increasingly it looks like we will leave this progress-forsaken place once we settle our financial situation. It's unfortunate because the kids love their grandparents and are too young to understand why when we do leave. Honestly, there is almost nothing here anyway. A wrecked economy with no jobs, bigots as far as the eye can see, not much to do, corrupt local politics, etc. It needs to happen anyway.
It is all just really unfortunate for my wife who was caught very much in left field by this turn of events. I have been incredibly bummed for her. It is far too reminiscent of my situation with my father. Kind of a rough week.
Amber
