Susan's Place Transgender Resources

Some may have seen my thread of a few days ago about my wife's reaction to my body-shaving.  There were some painful conversations initially.  Things have calmed down a bit but there is much tension in the air.  More depressingly to me, based on some of the things she said, I don't think she will ever accept me as anything but extremely straight and conventional.  (Though it may be a moot point.  The episode also served as a catalyst for bringing up other significant issues in the marriage not directly related to trans issues. So who knows.)  She was angry and/or honest, brutally so.  Language like "sick... freak... disgusting... makes me want to vomit... I'm normal... you should have never married."  It really, really hurt.  I'm having trouble moving past it.  But assuming we can patch things up I'm pretty sure it would be on terms that consign me pretty close to the male binary.  I just don't know.  My dysphoria generally makes me feel incomplete rather than in pain at being male.  Maybe I could eat the ->-bleeped-<- sandwich for the sake of the marriage.  But I have to say the thought of that makes me feel very sad.

I feel for you, those words might as well have came right from my mouth! Literally in the same boat although I have yet to feel the joys of shaving my legs. Trying to pretend to be the man my family needs me to be but after realizing what's inside me, feels like I'm loosing ground with keeping myself buried inside every day. Good luck to you hope it turns out for the best.

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Same kinda situation. I'm still learning my way through it. I do know that it takes a special kind of person to be capable of staying in a relationship with someone who comes out trans after they were married. I just take it a day at a time and try to find ways to be happy without destroying my entire family. Hang in there. You already know what the worse case is, so remain positive. It may get better.

I'm at the end of that process and the relationship won't survive. Living a lie isn't worth it for me. You may have to sit down and decide what is more important. Living in a body you don't like and being married or being yourself. Its a sad truth. I can say that deciding to transition was the best thing I ever did and if lose everything I ever had it will still be worth it.

Some relationships can survive, and some can't. I told my wife about my feeling female when we first met, about my history of being on hormones when younger etc. At first she was, I think, in denial, and then supportive, going to psychologists with me etc. Eventually I think it just became too real. She is attracted to men, and I was moving from that. So our marriage ended. It was worth it, we're still good friends. But others will tell you positive stories about a relationship surviving

Em

Quote from: randim on May 29, 2018, 05:05:36 PM
Some may have seen my thread of a few days ago about my wife's reaction to my body-shaving.  There were some painful conversations initially.  Things have calmed down a bit but there is much tension in the air.  More depressingly to me, based on some of the things she said, I don't think she will ever accept me as anything but extremely straight and conventional.  (Though it may be a moot point.  The episode also served as a catalyst for bringing up other significant issues in the marriage not directly related to trans issues. So who knows.)  She was angry and/or honest, brutally so.  Language like "sick... freak... disgusting... makes me want to vomit... I'm normal... you should have never married."  It really, really hurt.  I'm having trouble moving past it.  But assuming we can patch things up I'm pretty sure it would be on terms that consign me pretty close to the male binary.  I just don't know.  My dysphoria generally makes me feel incomplete rather than in pain at being male.  Maybe I could eat the ->-bleeped-<- sandwich for the sake of the marriage.  But I have to say the thought of that makes me feel very sad.

Randim
   Wow, I didn't read your  previous posts but those comments sound really mean and hurtful. Is this the path she usually takes in an disagreement, go for the jugular? It kind of sounds like you have two decisions to make. Do you want to go forward with progress to satisfy dysphoria and is this the person you want to do it with? Forgive me, as I don't know you or your partner, but you are talking a long time in your one and only life to closet this aspect of yourself. Can you do that and be happy? I hid for 50 years, and I can think of all the accumulated pain that I dealt with. I hate to see someone else do that. Sorry, just my opinion.
Moni

It sounds awful, but there comes a point where you have to consider your own happiness, it would be unfair on you and your partner to continue a relationship where one, or both, of you aren't fulfilled... relationships require compromise, sometimes a lot (having been in open relationships in the past), but dysphoria would always take priority for me...

There is having a hard time accepting and acting out in anger, which is normal even ok, and there is being hateful and abusive which is never ok; unfortunately, it sounds like you are dealing with the later of the two.

I've been on both ends of the spectrum where spouse's are concerned, my first marriage I ended up "suppressing" my feelings for her sake and faked my way through being what she needed me to be... She was happy, I was miserable. Needless to say the marriage ended when I finally realized I woke up every morning hating everyone, and everything, it really isn't any way to live.

My second marriage has been the exact opposite, I know it hasn't always been easy for her but in her words "she loves me for who I am, not for how male or female I look". The difference is my wife and I went to high school, so she knew me well enough that I really had no secrets, when we met again after my first marriage she knew about the situation, so she had time to adjust.

Either way, you deserve to be with someone that treats you with love and respect, even when they are angry.

Quote from: HappyMoni on May 30, 2018, 04:21:06 PM
Randim
   Wow, I didn't read your  previous posts but those comments sound really mean and hurtful. Is this the path she usually takes in an disagreement, go for the jugular? It kind of sounds like you have two decisions to make. Do you want to go forward with progress to satisfy dysphoria and is this the person you want to do it with? Forgive me, as I don't know you or your partner, but you are talking a long time in your one and only life to closet this aspect of yourself. Can you do that and be happy? I hid for 50 years, and I can think of all the accumulated pain that I dealt with. I hate to see someone else do that. Sorry, just my opinion.
Moni

It's complicated.  Part of the issue is our ages and the length of the marriage.  We are both approximately 65 and have been married 35 years.  That's a lot to walk away from, though in truth it hasn't been a great marriage and there have been many strains. I did not come out to her as Trans prior to the marriage.  Stupid.  Thought I was over it or could handle it I guess.  She clearly holds a grudge for that.  Not unreasonable in some ways.

And the marriage has been sexless for a couple of decades plus.  Based on our "talks" this past weekend it's clear she blames me for that exclusively and considers it an enormous loss (can't really disagree about the loss), though it's a bit more complicated.  I thought we was going to get divorced 24 or so years ago when it came out that she had been having an affair for a year or so.  At the time, she was a full-time mother with no job, so we agreed to be housemates and co-parents until the kids were older and she had some income.  And then her affair went south and there we were in the house.  We end up staying together for the kids and adjusted to become companions and friends.  The sex never rekindled.  I nursed a grudge about her affair and she had made clear to me at the time that sexual incompatibility had been an issue with her from the start of our relationship.  All in all, I didn't find the circumstances all that arousing.  But the arrangement seemed workable and warm enough.  But still, I have felt enormous guilt about being trans, and about the sex, or lack thereof.

During this time I either was suppressing or being pretty discreet with the cross-dressing.  Suppressing completely a lot of the time.  I started doing it again about a year ago and this was the first time she really had to face it I guess.  Kind of ridiculous to explode so over shaved legs (some straight guys do it just because they like it) but it hammered it home to her I guess.  But however you spin it, her reaction had large does of cruelty and heartlessness in it. Which is more stuff to think about it for me.

So... Decisions, decisions.  I am trying to get established with a gender therapist and start working on some of this stuff as a first step.  I just don't know how bad my dysphoria is or what it will take to settle it.  I honestly don't know if I need to do a full-blown transition.  For much of my life the dysphoria has seemed far away, almost like a dream.  I don't know if that's because it's not that bad or I am Olympic level at repressing it.  But it always seems to come back, and when it does it can be hurricane force.  I just don't know how feasible it would be to try and keep it down any more.  I had been fantasizing about finding some middle, non-binary ground, but it seems pretty clear to me that my spouse has a strong preference for male binary only.  Not the simplest path to navigate, though many here have undoubtedly had worse.

Randim,
   I did bone up a bit on your posts. We are of the same generation. Although I am thoroughly in favor of respecting the feelings of an SO especially when not told to start with, secrets like ours are not the kind of thing that we talked about ever, ever, ever! From the earliest age, this was something you kept as a secret to survive. I think at some point, her anger at finding out about the secret has to be channeled to something else. She is an adult, she could have left! If you are truly friends and you stay together, you forgive and let go of some things. You had to let go of her affair, correct? Well, you said the relationship wasn't perfect, I get it. The thing is, I think you have to give serious consideration to finally letting go of the guilt for being trans. You did not cause yourself to be trans. It wasn't your plan at 2 years old to pull out the old trans card to cause yourself massive guilt and mess with your SO! It is a part of your makeup, as it is mine. You can run, you can hide, but it will always find you because it is you. My experience says, you will only find peace in yourself when you accept that you are a little different than you were 'supposed' to be (as set forth in Home and Garden) and that that is okay. That said, there is no reason to take being abused by anyone including her.
Moni

Thanks for the kind words and support, especially yours Moni.   I don't know about the marriage.  Hope it improves.  But I do have to admit I haven't been a great partner in ways that just have to do with being a friend -- being attentive, noticing things, etc. I suspect a lot of that has to do with building high walls around me that she couldn't see over.  There's a lot of truth to the old pop lyric "Do what's good for you, or you're not good for anybody." 

Quote from: randim on May 30, 2018, 05:15:04 PMI am Olympic level at repressing it.  But it always seems to come back, and when it does it can be hurricane force.  I just don't know how feasible it would be to try and keep it down any more.

OMG, that is so me.  I am another Olympic-leve repressor.

My wife asked me why I kept it "secret" from her for so long.  The answer was that I didn't know myself.  I wondered a lot over the years if I might be trans, but always, I managed to convince myself that the answer was no.  As long as I was convinced, however wrongly, that the answer was no, I couldn't come out, either to myself or to anyone else.  I wasn't keeping a secret from her; I was presenting myself as I thought I was.

The person I was keeping the secret from was myself.  And I am a little bit pissed off at my older self about that.  So I understand how a spouse might feel.  But it's water under the bridge now.  The only way forward is to forgive myself.

Luckily for me, my wife gets it, that I wasn't intentionally keeping a secret from her.  So we have moved on from that.

Keeping dysphoria down is nigh-on impossible.  So the choices are to resist it and deal with the consequences, or to deal with it and deal with the consequences.  I am sorry that you have to make that choice.

Hi Randim I'm sort of in same situation as you .ive been married for 3 years though and together total 6
when I couldnt deal with my feelings I knew it was time.but after month of pain and explaining my wife went even let me touch her...she jumps away if I even get close and she would always say if I knew my whole life why didn't I tell her
.i hope things work out for you it is hard but your wife may come around but at the end of the day if one person in a relationship isn't happy things may implode I just hope you can work things out

Xxx
Chloe

Sorry your facing that in such a long relationship. Her anger and hurtfulness is in no way justified in my opinion. So you forgave her for her affair and then went on to support her lovingly (emotionally i'm talking not financially) for two decades and she gets that bent out of shape over shaved legs? What if you did not like one of her grooming habits ?Should you threaten, degrade her verbally and hurt her? Of course not. That does not sound like a platonic friend at all, that sounds like very conditional love and one-sided friendship.

In takes two to have couple sex and unless  both of you has absolutely zero interest, then that is something a romantic partners need to come to an agreement on. Ignoring it does not make it go away. I also think it sounds like you need to free yourself and forgive yourself or the repression. I would guess you sensed a partner that would go off the deep end and that added to the desire to repress.

I would seek immediate counseling with her and educate her on what dysphoria is if she is willing. People do turn around from such positions, it happen but it requires work on their part. if not, then moving on while always scary because of the change aspect, should lead to a better quality of life.