When did your approach change?

[HelenW]

A few evenings ago my wife finished reading True Selves  by Mildred Brown and Chloe Rounsley.  A day or two after that she asked me a question that I couldn't really answer, "How should I relate to you now?"  I finally told her that she should relate to me as the gender she feels I'm projecting at the time.  I am still closeted in most areas of my life and am just recently beginning to adjust my presentation to a more androgynous look.  I am no where near manifesting any physical changes as I haven't started HRT yet.

The question she asked made me wonder what the experiences of other significant others have been when their spouses transitioned.  When did your inner perception of your spouse change and when did your interaction change from interacting with the original gender to relating to the other?  Was this a conscious or unconscious change that you noticed after you started to do it?  Or did you not change your approach at all?  Was there a specific circumstance that prompted the change or did it happen gradually?

Thnx!
helen

[Melissa]

It changed when she saw the pain I was in and that I was suicidal.  She is completely accepting of my TSism now and always calls me Melissa, but that had the effect of realizing that I'm not a man and that she enjoys male companionship.

Melissa

[Kate]

When did your inner perception of your spouse change and when did your interaction change from interacting with the original gender to relating to the other?

When I started therapy.

It's just so out of character for me (about as likely as Tom Cruise dialing up a shrink), that I think the reality of it all dawned on her. She'd always known about me, we've always talked about it, but I think things suddenly became very REAL and serious.

She also started connecting the dots, realizing how many of our problems (mostly sexual) suddenly made SENSE. This was about the time she started commenting that we should have been best friends rather than a married couple.

I was also going kinda insane from all this at the time (which is why I sought therapy), so I'm sure my attitudes changed too. Although I've always considered myself TS, I think she had been trying to minimize the problem by thinking of it as a feminine "side" I could express now and then, rather than it being ME fundamentally.

I think THAT context shift is what caused the changes in how she relates (or not) to me.

[stephanie_craxford]

Helen posted this topic in the SO forum and I think she was looking for SO's input to her question

I could be wrong

Steph

[Kimberly]

^*nudge* But note that both of the ladies who posted do not have SOs who are active on this board...

[stephanie_craxford]

Aha

Steph

[HelenW]

I welcome input from everyone. 

But yes, I would like to hear from some of the nontransgendered significant others also.

thank you!
h

[MarcosGirl]

Hi Helen,

I am the SO of an FtM (Marco).  Although we aren't married yet, we plan to be sometime after transition.  Our situation is kind of opposite to yours.  Before our relationship got physical, our daughters were best friends and we were becoming close friends too (at that point I just saw him as my daughter's best friend's mother).  Marco and I both agree that before I heard "the story" (about Marco's past), we were subconciously attracted to each other.  After "the story", I saw Marco for the male he was on the inside and our relationship moved to a physical level and an even deeper level of love.  Before Marco decided to continue with the transition he started 17 years ago, I would tell him that I loved him just the way he was (boobs and all).  Although I consider myself a straight woman who has never been intimate with another woman, I did enjoy the parts he had at that point (don't be mad Marco  ).  Early on in our relationship, the thought of a sex-change kind of scared me.  He started transition about two months ago and is close to starting testosterone.  Although I do love him the way he is, I am finding myself becoming almost as excited as he is about having the top surgery and eventually the metoidioplasty bottom surgery.  I am able to see how this would complete him and make him comfortable with his body.  So, after all this, in answer to your question:  I would have to say that my outlook changed gradually.  As I started researching transgender and I really started to understand what Marco has gone through his whole life, my fear went away and it became as important to me that he attain his goal as it is to him.