Good riddance to your beard, Buckeye. Accomplishing that is maybe the most important step of all. I remember it took me nearly two weeks after I admitted to myself that I was trans before I got up the nerve to lose the beard. Meanwhile, I was waiting for the right chance to sit down with my wife and oldest daughter and break the news to them that I'm trans, and that at first I didn't know what to do about it, but this is who I know myself to be. They did not take it well.
I compromised for over two and a half years, by not doing anything at first but going to a therapist, and then little by little feminizing myself pre-hormones, very slightly, very slowly. I did take my wife's input, and let her put the brakes on my forward progress although without bringing me to a dead halt. I compared it to driving in first gear. It was hard on me, it was hard on both of us, but we did consult with each other.
I also took her to see two therapists with me. That made three times total in our marriage we'd been to therapists together. Each time ended in her having a dramatic emotional meltdown and stalking out, accusing the therapist and me of being in conspiracy to put her down. Because she has some heavy unresolved issues that she has never accepted dealing with. We have not had a normal marriage all along; we have rarely or never been able to talk about things the way normal healthy couples are able to. She has been emotionally abusive toward me for many years, and at times physically abusive too, but I stayed with it because I believed it was my duty, and for many years I remained in denial that I was an abuse victim. Just as for many years I'd remained in denial that I was trans.
Both of the attempts with therapists quickly broke down because she could not handle the process, anytime it shone a light on her own issues, she staged another dramatic emotional meltdown and that was that. So I became progressively less able to work with her on my transition timeline.
Once I started hormones, it was a major revolution in how I experienced my self, my body, and who I am. I began blossoming as a woman for real and it began the deep healing I'd been badly in need of since childhood. Further, once estrogen had transformed me, it became increasingly hard to maintain maleness. My skin became so much softer and more sensitive, the feeling of rough male fabrics became intolerable, so I took to wearing 100% women's clothes (plain blouses and pants) to work every day, and wearing loose flowing housedresses at home.
My last attempt at saving my marriage by going to a therapist ended a little over a year ago and it was a complete failure. She expressed an angry paranoid belief it was a conspiracy against her. She proposed she would find a therapist for us, and I agreed. But then she never did, so that was the end of attempts at therapy.
Meanwhile last year my dysphoria at the least trace of maleness had become aggravated to excruciating agony, and I felt I would not be able to go on in life unless I transitioned soon. The benefits of both estrogen and my social life which was now completely female brought me to realize that this was the only way I could go on living. The thought of being forced back into maleness brought on extreme panic attacks. My gender therapist kept telling me to take care of my own needs and never mind my family's disapproval. He became impatient with me because I kept holding back, longing to preserve my family ties that were being broken. He kept urging me to go ahead and break with them already and forget about them.
When I finally transitioned to full time last year, it was by following my own inner guidance, neither held back by my family not pushed forward by my therapist, but just thinking for myself and managing my needs for health, sanity, and safety the best I could. I feel I transitioned at the right point in the process, having given my wife and family adequate chances for input into it. My parents, sisters, and children all judge and condemn me for being "selfish" and only caring for myself, not caring for anyone else; these accusations wound me very deeply and painfully, because I did hold back from transition for their sake for years and years, until I was breaking down from unbearable pain and unable to go on without transition. They have never known the intensity of the pain I carried quietly inside all those years, so they are not in a position to judge me fairly. Still, they continue to judge me unfairly, so I have lost my family and have become in effect orphaned.
The reason why I need to leave my marriage now is not because I transitioned, but because of the long-term abusiveness in the marriage, and threats of violence from her. And because she refused to work with me. I was willing to work with her, but it just broke down. And then the abusiveness and threats of violence meant I had to get out like any other abused wife. I have been getting counseling at Women Empowered Against Violence, a place that helps abused wives to get out, rebuild their lives, and recover from the history of abuse and reclaim their self-esteem.
