Now that I'm beginning therapy and getting ready for HRT, my wife who has intermittently been supportive/depressed and I just told the last of the family, our two boys about my pending transition. Our boys have been very understanding and cool about the whole thing. Her new condition is that I wait until the youngest is out of high school(which will be 8 years). I have let her know in no uncertain terms that I will not be waiting that long and plan to be fully completed with everything in 5. Anyone else go through this sort of pressure when transitioning?
~Tryss
I have not had that for a problem but today many schools are trans aware and often have children cross living and attending classes. If you youngest attends a large school it's possible one of the classmates is trans and under treatment. If this is the case, it will be no big deal to your child.
I did not have any children, nor was I actually married, but I did have the brakes applied by my ex at every major intersection.
I am very sorry to hear about the conflict you are having with your wife, and I hope the two of you find a way to work things out.
What I did find, in my own case, was that my ex was more concerned about how me being female reflected on her than my long-term health and happiness...
Did I mention that she was now my ex?
Missy
Thanks Missy, Dena,
This is not a large school, unlikely to have any trans-students, but she is making the guilt trip sound like the end of everything if I don't comply. I just can't say I'm going to wait 8 more years to start/complete my transition.
~Tryss
Then ask you kid if they talk about Jazz Jennings in school.
Quote from: Trystlynn on January 22, 2017, 08:22:13 PM
Now that I'm beginning therapy and getting ready for HRT, my wife who has intermittently been supportive/depressed and I just told the last of the family, our two boys about my pending transition. Our boys have been very understanding and cool about the whole thing. Her new condition is that I wait until the youngest is out of high school(which will be 8 years). I have let her know in no uncertain terms that I will not be waiting that long and plan to be fully completed with everything in 5. Anyone else go through this sort of pressure when transitioning?
~Tryss
It came to a head for me when my girls were 8-9 years old and I knew then I had gender issues and so did my wife. I was dressing a bit at home and being very unsatisfied and really wanted to explore and find out why I had nearly killed myself again. It was more than I understood. As the obvious slapped me in the face I started to try and get her on board with my experimenting with things but back then I didn't really know what was going on or even how to get help, it came to a head one day and she got really upset and just said that there was no way I was going to tell the kids...I buckled and went back into the closet as fast as I could...the next 10 or so years were just a spiral into my own personal hell. I didn't understand why things were affecting me so much until I first understood what Gender Dysphoria was....that summed up my issues perfectly. By this stage my kids had grown up so when I approached my wife and hit her with the TS bomb they were no longer an issue.
I can't blame my wife she didn't understand, I didn't understand...she is now my biggest Supporter. Once she understood what was going on for me she has had my back. Love her to bits
Liz
I think this is a balancing act many of us find ourselves in when we have a SOwe're trying to keep as we transition. They have a timeline in their heads and it's usually a lot longer than ours. Simply put, we've been dealing with this all our lives and feel like a shaken-up bottle of champagne. When we let that cork out, we just want to let everything flow. For our SO's, obviously they're just trying to come to terms with it all at once and need time to process. For many, I think there is a natural tendency to want to slow things down so they can do that. It ends up being a difficult and repeated negotiation as both sides find out new information that affects the timeline.
For me, I totally understand how you're feeling. When I first came out as genderfluid to my wife, she was also talking on the order of years before I'd be going out in public in any real feminine presentation. We've been talking about moving at the point our last kid starts high school and she wanted me to wait until then. That is over 2 years away and all I could think was no way am I waiting that long.
For us, I've tried to temper my exploration of gender presentation to give her time. She's still not seen me wear anything more feminine than stud earrings (not feminine at all when you consider guys wear them all the time). At the same time, she understands that while I currently identify as genderfluid, I still need to explore to make sure I truly understand what my identity is. So getting out in public presenting as fully female is important. So right now I do that in certain safe situations and I have to do it by getting dressed/made-up and slipping out of the house without her seeing (even though she knows I'm going) and then slipping back in and getting it all off before she sees me. Thankfully our house is designed in a way that makes this pretty easy to do, but still.
Sorry, I know I've kinda blathered on here a bit and I'm not sure if any of that was helpful. In the end you have to be honest with her that the timeline she's proposing doesn't work for you. It does no one any good to wait 2 years if the GD is going to be so heavy on you that you'll split or do something worse before you make it those 2 years. At the same time, since you seem to want to stay in your marriage, you'll have to listen to and seriously consider her perspective and try to find a middle ground you both can be reasonably comfortable with.