To be honest, at this point in my life I feel more like I won't find, or have love if I'm
not trans.
I will preface this by saying I have never been married, or had kids, or that whole family thing. But that's entirely down to my own issues. So make of this what you will. I have had relationships in my life, though. I've had people who said they loved me at a time before I admitted to myself, and others who I really am. But rather than making me feel warm and fuzzy, it made me feel guilty. Because I always felt a nagging feeling of "But you don't love the real me. You can never love the real me because you don't know who that is. I haven't told you. So you love an image. And that makes me feel bad for both of us."
I felt uncomfortable in the bedroom. Like...
very uncomfortable. Not because of my partner but because of myself. Because of how I felt about myself. And the whole time there was an underlying feeling that I was somehow leading her on. That she was in love with someone she thought I was. Not who I actually was.
It's true what they say: Before you can really love someone else, you have to love yourself. Or at least be at a place with yourself that the hatred doesn't get in the way. I feel that if someone says they love you... then they deserve
you. Not someone hiding parts of themselves. Or even themselves entirely, and pretending to be someone else. How can that work? I believe relationships are built on honesty (But then I'm a Scorpio so I hate people lying - sue me
), and if that honesty isn't there, then you can't really have a proper relationship.
For me it comes down to this: I would rather have no relationship than one built on a lie. If I'm at a point in my life where I can be myself with someone then they get all of me, and I get all of them. With no regrets. No lies. No secrets. No matter how common or rare that might be... for me it's worth aiming for.
Although oddly I've had more people say they're in love with me once I was allowed to be myself than before. I guess there's something in being yourself.
You can focus on others more than being obsessed with yourself and your own feelings. And whaddya know, other people seem to like that.
