I was a bit, really a lot, angry and hurt and disappointed with our daughters reaction. without properly filtering my word and inflection, in my discussions with my wife, I gave her a sense that I am, now, full speed ahead and no longer willing to be patient with anyone, in particular her. That has given her some angst. In the present circumstance we both need to keep in the forefront of our mind that all three of us are in delicate emotional states.
I some sense am am inpatient. I have been progressing slowly so as to keep my wife on board with all of this. About a month ago, we , as I understood it, had decided that she could get to where I believe I need to go. She had her usual cautionary addendum, "As far as I can tell, won't really know till we do or don't get there." I have learned that the best commitments I can get. I do the same to her. Transgender self-realization if fraught with changing limits and needs. My wife's accusation is "You keep changing the rules!" I really try hard to give the impression of "I will ... " or "I will not...." But, still , she often takes them in an absolute sense and gets scared or angry when I begin to talk or do things that violates one of those "absolute" statements I did not really utter.
Then there is the present circumstance. I committed to our daughter that I would wait for her to come up to speed before I made anymore steps forward. I did not want to put her in an awkward position of having to defend herself or me to others of our family until she is strong enough and informed enough to do it. I still don't want her to have a hard time of any kind because of my doings. But, what if she never resolves this all favorably to us? How long do I wait? Well, back on topic, the other night I spoke out of frustration and began to speaking in words and tones that began to sound like absolutes. I was talking with my wife about what to do next. How long do I wait for our daughter to come back into communion with us? What signs do I look for? When do I stop waiting, patiently, and confront her about what she has or hasn't decided? How do I decide if minor progress is enough so I can be confident she will get there quickly enough that i can continue to wait? None of this has a simple answer. I was going all kinds of directions at once. I started talking of time periods and deadlines.
My wife, emotionally delicate, began to apply this impatience on my part to her. She began to wonder if I was just going to give up on her and just do what I want as quickly as I possibly can get it done. We talked this over some this morning. I think I assured her that was not what was going to happen. We did talk about the next steps. The next step is one she needs to take. Since our daughter knows what the situation and she wants to do whatever it is she is doing without our input, our plan was, still, is to come out to my wife's best friend and confidant. Agian, as with our daughter, we have reasons to believe it will be OK. Also, as with our daughter, my wife's confidant thinks highly of me. It makes me smile from the irony when her friend refers to me as S in one of here daily emails to my wife. S does not really refer to my given name. It is short for Super-Man.
While this is my truth to tell, this relationship between my wife and her friend is maybe the most important non-spousal one in either of their lives. Certainly in my wife's. My wife has dumped a lot on her friend over the past years that has its roots in my problems and how it has affected my wife's world. My wife just hasn't told her what the root cause really is. My wife needs to do this coming out in her time and on her terms. She has already told me that it must be face to face and needs to be very private. Either the two of them or the three of us where they can say what they need to say and express what they need to express without a public display.
Well that is her next move. Meanwhile, I can begin to do all the gender marker and name change stuff. That all requires action on my part. That is good. It is largely in my control. Having a sense of control of something and something to do will help keep me out of trouble elsewhere. Meanwhile, I have put what I need to say to my immediate family onto the back burner to simmer. MY parents and my wife's parents are all gone. I have two brothers, one older and one younger than I. Five sisters, one older and four younger. With a fundamentalist type religious background, I hold out little hope for any of them sticking by me. But, I do need to do what I can to get the best outcome I can.
My "keep out of trouble" project (Am I really keeping out of trouble with this?) has begun. I checked on my gender marker status on my Pennsylvania birth certificate. Last time I looked I understood I needed SRS to have the marker changed. No more! All i need is a letter from my physician that states I have transitioned. And the doctor defines what transition is. There is a bit of a hurdle to get over, though. My endo physician was an out of network provider who moved away from the area and left the group she was associated with in February. The physician taking over her cases had just gone out on maternity leave and is not yet back. So, I have lost contact with one doctor and have not yet established a relationship with the other. I have an in-network primary care physician who is aware of my transgender status. She may be OK with handling the letter I need if I do all the necessary homework and turn it into her when I ask. She may not and I wouldn't really blame her. I don't even have my next appointment for a visit to my new physician for my endo needs. I don't want to delay the birth certificate change if I can avoid it. It may be possible to track down my former endo physician to get the letter from her. All of this is predicated on the assumption that any of these three physicians believes that six months on HRT qualifies as "transition".
At the same time, I have to shepherd a name change through the system so it converges with my birth certificate change of gender. I want hose done so I can do the driver's license and passport changes at the same time.
I think that should go a long way toward keeping the mind occupied. Hope it doesn't take me 'round the bend.
By the way, In doing my form searches for this "project" I ran across a couple of services for name change help. One was NameChange.org. They purport to help with a whole bunch of stuff related to name changes. I had to fill out the whole application before I found out what their fee is. $49 if memory serves. That aggravated me a bit. Anyway, has anyone use this or a similar service? Was it helpful enough to justify the cost?
Heard enough yet? I just scrolled up and saw how long this ramblin' got. Sorry 'bout that but I did not know I had that many words in me.
Stevi
