This morning, jacked up on good chocolate and the inspiration of Transgender Warriors, I'm writing emails to my ex-wife and my (more recent) ex-partner to tell them I'm transitioning. Emails rather than letters, because I've found that with both of them, they respond better to the more informal flavour of the medium (plus my handwriting is shocking!).
It's surprisingly easy to write to my ex-partner, because there's a lot of love between us. Writing to my ex-wife is harder, because we're just barely talking to each other, but I want her to know, so here we go. Just feels like time. More hot water! More towels! ;D
I only contacted the ones who I am directly responsible for the relationship imploding.
I let them know I knew it was my fault we didnt work and then explained to them why and how my being trans effected the relationship.
The ones who were mean to me I never contacted.
Interesting, it honestly never crossed my mind to even tell EXes anything. I suppose the ones that I am still friendly with will find out when other friends at their level of friendship do (I.e. my best friends all already know, but I have friends that I don't have in the loop, but they just aren't as important to me). I do know one thing though, I will offer no apologies to any of them, I always tried my best, and I know it sounds childish, but when relationships have failed it really hasn't been my fault, at least not yet.
Good luck with your letters Padma, I hope that they are understanding and compassionate in their responses.
I'm partly writing to my ex-wife because I'd started discussing friendly divorce with her last year, then dropped out of contact when all kinds of things started happening at once (of which this is one). SO it's partly to take up that thread again, but also to let her know more directly stuff about my transition that she's probably already heard on the grapevine of gossip that binds our Buddhist order together ::).
Good luck, Padma, I hope you get positive responses and they are supportive of you :)
All three of my ex's I sent letters too explaining why I let the relationship implode finally understood.
I am friends with all three. Two of them I have occasional corespondence with and anouther I chat with all the time and we are now friends. Close friends. She is likely my biggest fan other than Sevan.