That's a topic I have thought about recently, being older and looking back on life.
As a (girl-identified) child I wanted nothing more in life than to grow up, get married, live in a little house, and raise a family. By age 8 I realized I had a (physical) problem and it took to age 24 to get that resolved.
At 26 I met my first husband and thought I had found my dream. He (said) he wanted exactly the same things in life but after we married he did nothing toward achieving those dreams - just laid around on his a@@ and expected me to support him. It wasn't long before I walked out. With my dreams shattered, on the streets and penniless, I started drinking to loose my pain in the bottle. That didn't last very long before I realized no one was going to rescue me and that I was going to have to make a life for myself. (My first husband never knew about my past until after we separated. I was young and pretty then and was his "trophy wife".)
I had some skill so I got a job and started building a career which took me to a different part of the country. My childhood dreams were pretty much forgotten and I had resigned myself to being a career girl when I met my second husband at age 30. Initially I was
just not interested but he pursued me until I finally noticed him and eventually gave him a chance. I was sceptical enough by then that I wasn't sure about "home & family" any more but still hoped. I told him about my childhood early in our relationship and he actually understood - he was in tears when I told him, he "felt my pain" as a child growing up that way. Unfortunately he had his own issues (anger and responsibility) arising from his own childhood abuse so it didn't seem wise to bring children into the home before those things were resolved. We were together for 13 years before I finally asked him to leave and by then I was of an age (43) where raising a child was no longer a wise decision.
I have been single 17 years now and the career is winding up. I am looking forward to retirement but still hope for romance, someone to grow old with. There is a man I have been in love with for 4 years (and he with me) but circumstances keep that relationship on an "I wish" level (he knows all about my childhood.) I have dated quite a bit but I am no longer "young and pretty", the trophy wife, and telling a man about my childhood is the fastest way to end it.
When I look back on my life, it is quite amazing - surviving childhood, finding SRS in a time when it was next to impossible, a stellar career, advancing women's rights in the 1970's and 80's, being on the leading edge of technology for decades, having done things I would never have dreamed of, and becoming the kind of woman I so much admired when I was young - but it is nothing at all like what I wanted. Fate has a way of doing that! LOL!
I very much miss not having the chance to be a mother (all my women friends say I would have been a great mother) and I would have been content being in a long-term 'dull' relationship .... maybe the next time around
I still hope for romance, to finish out my days in a loving relationship, but I will just have to wait and see what Fate has in store for me.
(P.S. I think an FtM would make a GREAT partner - someone who TOTALLY GETS IT and male energy to boot!)
