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Some questions for all you gals who transitioned while married

Started by monica.soto, November 20, 2012, 08:14:58 AM

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monica.soto

Oh wow, what a great story Angie! You guys sound really lucky, but I guess luck is only a small part in what happens

Should I be worried that I haven't heard a disaster story yet?  ;D
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RedFox

Quote from: Brooke777 on November 20, 2012, 09:24:40 AM
I agree, I am not dead either. But, my Son's Mother did go through a grieving process. She does consider her husband to be dead. She considers her friend to be alive. It's like she split me in two and killed off part of me. It is a really painful thing to have someone kill half of you.

I'm having the same problem with my spouse.  Just this morning she was going on about how she is attracted to me physically as a male (I haven't begun transition yet), but since she knows I see myself as female she's tried to be "considerate" and see me as such.  As she says she see's me as a woman she's not attracted to me and wants nothing to do with me physically - and can't see how we have any future together.  As I haven't committed to transitioning yet (and won't until I observe the effects of HRT on my psyche), she is uncomfortable with my current state.  I got five minutes of "are you a man or a woman?!" - commit!  Very upsetting to say the least.

At least some spouses try to get educated and understand what we go through.  Mine has done zero research and her version of support is telling me she wants a divorce, along with constantly calling me by my male name and refusing to hear or acknowledge my female name.  oh. and we've been together for ten years - eight married.  And two little boys (2 and 4) in the mix as well.

Sorry for the rant.  I read this thread and it rubbed a fresh wound.   :-\


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monica.soto

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monica.soto

Quote from: SageFox on November 20, 2012, 09:57:20 AM
As she says she see's me as a woman she's not attracted to me and wants nothing to do with me physically - and can't see how we have any future together.  As I haven't committed to transitioning yet (and won't until I observe the effects of HRT on my psyche), she is uncomfortable with my current state.  I got five minutes of "are you a man or a woman?!" - commit!  Very upsetting to say the least.

Don't be sorry about your rant, knowing my wife like I know her, everytime I come out to her in my head, the scenario that you're describing seems to be the most probable.

I hope it gets better for you Sage.
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Brooke777

Quote from: SageFox on November 20, 2012, 09:57:20 AM
At least some spouses try to get educated and understand what we go through.  Mine has done zero research and her version of support is telling me she wants a divorce, along with constantly calling me by my male name and refusing to hear or acknowledge my female name.  oh. and we've been together for ten years - eight married.  And two little boys (2 and 4) in the mix as well.

I'm going full time in about 2 weeks and my Son's Mother still does not use my female name or female pronouns. She even still tells me that she will always see me as a man, no matter what. I came out to her on April 2, 2012. About a month ago she gave me advice on my hair (first nice thing she did). About 2 weeks ago she saw some clothes on sale and got me some (2nd nice thing). Finally, this weekend, for some reason, she wanted to help me with my makeup and spent 2 hours using me as a living canvas.  The point of this is that even if it takes longer than we would like, there is still a chance things will improve.
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MadelineB

Sorry in advance for the long post!

I gave some advice last night to a young transgender woman that I am mentoring. Even though her gender dysphoria nearly killed her this year, she was falling in love with a straight girl who could never love a woman in a million years (except as a friend) and wondering if true love was worth not transitioning. I discussed my response with my wife, who agreed that I answered just right. Her first words were "No No No No NO NO NO".

I told my transgender little sister that it is complicated, and everyone is different - some people can't or don't need to transition - but when you are someone who needs to transition in order to live a full and happy life, you are guaranteed to break your own heart and the heart of the person you love if you enter a romantic relationship with someone who can't love the person you really are.

I told her if you are a woman inside, you need to be with a bisexual, pansexual, or lesbian woman, or with a bisexual, pansexual, or straight man. If your partner can't love a woman, even if you tell her going in to the relationship that you are transgender and need to be a woman, she will genuinely believe that the love of a good woman will fix you, that she just has to help you appreciate being a man, and convince you that you are not and can never be a woman, and you two can live happily ever after as man and wife. She will still feel utterly betrayed and bewildered when you transition, and she may even hate you for it.

A person who is not themselves transgender, or has never been close to someone who has transitioned, just can't in their gut comprehend how basic and unchangeable the need to be our true gender is, or how painful it is to put it off or ignore it. So when you change it will feel like a choice to them, even if they are well-read and compassionate people, it will still feel like you are choosing the other woman over them and your life together.

I told her I wish so much that someone could have explained to me the things I understand now about myself, and about gender and sexuality and relationships and marriage and love.

If you marry and don't transition, you could set yourself up for depression, metabolic syndrome, alcoholism, anger, distance, and potential death by suicide or stress. Whether you die slowly or quickly from your pain, or just become the zombie walking dead, you will break her heart and kill or deaden your own.

My wife and I have been together for seven plus amazing, sometimes difficult years, including 15 months since I came out and began the transformation that erased her husband and revealed her wife.

It hurt both our hearts that we were certain we were meant for each other. We have both saved the other's life more than once and in more ways than one. Neither of us would be alive, let alone in any semblance of well, if we hadn't been in each others' lives. In the end, love of course was not enough to reverse the facts of biology, psychology, and reality. We were and are each others' best friends in the world, but even our friendship frayed and nearly broke under the strain of our mutual frustration and grief. The marriage had to end as we knew it, as the man she knew and love ended his life as a man and began a new more genuine, connected life.

Waiting to transition almost killed me, literally, and made me so fragile that a gust of wind could have blown me away. My wife had to save me by letting me know that she would rather have me alive as a woman, than dead as a man. Ironically, the emotional reality has been that our fears did come true in a way-- I really am dead as a man, but I am more alive than I have ever been as a woman and as a friend.

The real reason we are splitting now, but staying close supportive friends, is that she loved the man I was, and the idea of growing old with me, so much, that living with me and being married to me now makes her burst into tears because her heart can't forget what she has lost, even as she is happy that I survived, and genuinely likes me more as a woman and can see that this is who I was meant to be. She resents terribly the decades I survived as a man, and why couldn't I love her enough to survive the rest of my life with HER as a man. Even though she knows I couldn't help it, and would have died without this, she still resents what life has done to US.

My very happiness as a woman reminds her that she believed I was happy with her as a man. It's hard on us both. It's hard on my heart to see that my gender expression - and being happy as the true me - brings sadness to the person I love the most.

It broke my heart to accept that she could never love this woman, me, the way she loved the man she thought I was. It broke her heart to accept that I can't possibly love her enough to stay the man she thought I was, because love can't change that I am not that man.

But after the heartache comes acceptance, and in time, healing.

My only advice to those already married, is be honest, be kind, be compassionate, and don't wait to do what is right for self-care. You can't control the outcome, and no one is to blame. You can love one another, preserve what can be preserved, and let the rest fall away and be mourned, if you are lucky, hand in hand.

History, despite its wrenching pain, cannot be unlived, but if faced with courage, need not be lived again.
~Maya Angelou

Personal Blog: Madeline's B-Hive
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kathy bottoms

I was going to purge and give you some advice about coming out to your wife.  But, unless you want to hear the advice it can wait.  For now I'll just say my transition is just starting, but I couldn't dream of ever going back.  Even though I'm going through hell right now, I can't imagine how I could have survived the mental distress I was suffering each and every day.  I was honestly at an end point.

So, I'm 61, been married 34+ years, have two sons 26 and 29, and a daughter in law and a grandson of 8 weeks. 

Only my wife, cousin, and a couple friends from work are fully aware of my life as it is now, and that obviously liimits what I know about how others feel.

There is no effect on my job, since I retired early, and because I came out to a couple friends I worked with I never hear from the old office anymore.  That saddens me. 

I have to get on with other work now.

Hugs,
Kathy

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Carlita

Speaking from my own experience, I think that even if Dear Prudence is filled with a ton of misconceptions and misguided attitudes that really wouldn't be acceptable in an agony aunt discussing any other area of sex, relationships or gender, the sad truth is ... she has a point.

I just don't think there's any getting away from the fact that if the husband of a straight woman transitions, then his/her wife is going to feel betrayed, bereaved and - no matter how hard she tries to be loving and reasonable - somewhere between a little bit and massively bitter.

The fact is, she married a guy. She loved and probably still does love that guy. But she loves him as a guy who makes her feel desirable and feminine. And part of that love is that she wants his dick inside her. I mean, excuse the crudity, but that's what it comes down to.

My wife is incredibly loving, non-rejecting, tolerant, etc, and she tries her absolute damndest to come to terms with my dysphoria. But deep down she's heartbroken by it. We're still together. I haven't transitioned. But part of her has already discounted me as a man and the reason I'm not doing anything isn't her, it's our teenage son (he's already had to endure far too much grief and family trauma and it just wouldn't be fair to burden him with this, too).

So I think we kid ourselves and place unfair burdens on our partners if we expect anything other than the collapse of the relationship we have with our wives. That's not to say that a new kind of relationship can't or won't evolve: maybe it can. But I think that it's unreasonable to expect that.

And the truth is, if/when I ever transition, then I'll want a man, too (even if finding one would be as likely as a lottery win!) , so I know exactly how my wife feels ...
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monica.soto

Thank you Madeline,

your response really got to me, sometimes I do feel zombified by my life, I'm here but I'm not here, it's a big part of me that's missing. Sometimes I almost cry when I see shoe ads on TV. (lol). I have struggled with self destructive tendencies and alcohol, but that's really gotten better since my marriage, and there are so many things that make me feel good about married life that it makes this decision heartwrenching.

With my wife and our family unit I guess that transitioning would really end the happiness that exists now, and I can't even begin to consider unleashing that storm. I guess that when finally deciding to transition it becomes a case of giving up one for the other. Maybe it's not the case in the future, but such is a sacrifice one must be willing to take.

In the end transitioning is really a selfish issue, insofar at it involves putting yourself and your wants and needs before anyone else's concerns. I wish it could be easier, but in the end wishes are meanings.

I really do feel that I am a woman though.
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Beverly

Quote from: monica.soto on November 20, 2012, 12:13:13 PM
In the end transitioning is really a selfish issue, insofar at it involves putting yourself and your wants and needs before anyone else's concerns. I wish it could be easier, but in the end wishes are meanings.

I would say that transition is a desperate measure, undertaken when all else fails and the pressure of being true to yourself means either that you come out or destroy yourself through suicide or mental breakdown.
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Brooke777

Quote from: bev2 on November 20, 2012, 12:24:50 PM
I would say that transition is a desperate measure, undertaken when all else fails and the pressure of being true to yourself means either that you come out or destroy yourself through suicide or mental breakdown.

I tend to agree with this. For me it came down to suicide or transition. After one failed suicide attempt I decided that I should at least be alive for my son.
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monica.soto

Quote from: kathy b on November 20, 2012, 10:44:42 AM
I was going to purge and give you some advice about coming out to your wife.  But, unless you want to hear the advice it can wait. 

gimme gimme gimme!
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monica.soto

Quote from: Carlita on November 20, 2012, 12:08:58 PM
And the truth is, if/when I ever transition, then I'll want a man, too (even if finding one would be as likely as a lottery win!) , so I know exactly how my wife feels ...

yeah, as with my sexuality I think it might be very fluid, but being monogamous and believing in the monogamy thing I have ambiguous feelings about my genitals. I guess I just can't see that far into the future, but my priority would be:

Transitioning
Hormones
Electrolysis
Hair (implants, forehead lowering)+FFS
BBA  (breasts and Butt!)
Not sure about SRS, I'm waiting to see how technology refines this procedure in the future... (Stem cells! Stem Cells! everywhere!!!!!)

Anyhow, thanks for taking the time to answer me Carlita! hugs and take care
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blueconstancy

(All I will say about the dick thing is Amazon sells 'em. ;) I'm being flippant, but in an otherwise happy couple, there are workarounds - after all, no woman is guaranteed that her NOT-trans husband won't have problems in that department, either. Viagra wouldn't be such a big seller if that were true!)
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Brooke777

When I first came out and she said she could never live without dick, I offered to keep mine. That was not enough, it was just an excuse she was using. She just does not want anything romantic with a woman, and hates the idea of someone thinking she is a lesbian.
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monica.soto

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kathy bottoms

Quote from: monica.soto on November 20, 2012, 01:36:27 PM
gimme gimme gimme!

My advice is fairly simple.  I got similar advice and was warned about holding info back from my wife, but I didn't listen.  My mistake.

First be deadly honest with yourself about transition, and know that you must have the same complete honesty with your SO in the first discussion with her.  So understand with that absolute honesty that you not only will be transitioning, but you will be accepting the consequences and effects on your life and marriage.  Even though you can't tell what direction those changes will take, you still must acknowledge acceptance of the those unknown factors.  Remember, she married a man and she will feel you lied to her about who, and what you were.  That will drive all other decisions she initially makes about your futures, and you can't control or change what she feels inside.

Secondly, understand where your transition is going to take you, and then don't hold anything back from your SO just to save yourself some pain, or to keep her from suffering in some way.   Holding back will only make things worse when you tell her more in the future, because she will loose the trust that you share, and she will think you've lied again, and betrayed her in some way.  No explanation you have for your actions will help after that, and she will question anything you tell her in the future.  In her mind you would be capable of lies whenever it's convenient, and she will think your going to do it again.  Trust me on this, since it was the biggest mistake in my relationship with JoAnn, and in her anger she said she can never trust me, - ever!   

So just get it all out no matter how much it hurts, and make sure you're ready for whatever happens,.  There will be anger, crying, hurt, discust, and maybe some hatred.  But after the emotion settles, maybe you can start talking again.  I'll never have the luxury of a fully trusting discussion again, and it's mostly due to the horribly incompetent way I handled that first discussion. 

I wish you the best.
Love Kathy
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LizMarie

Kathy's advice is excellent. I mistakenly hoped that "true love" would help us overcome this. But it's been rejection after rejection, plus I get repeatedly accused of lying to her. That's true but it's true because I loved her and tried to be the man she expected me to be. But that apparently doesn't count. Instead I get lectured about how I am an "embarrassment", about what the neighbors will think, about how horrified her parents and siblings are at my "bizarre" "choice of lifestyle" now, and much much more. The only reason we're still together is she cannot yet support herself and we need to finish getting the house ready to sell.

But through all this I think back to January 2012 when I started thinking about taking the car down the highway, revving up the engine, and just flicking my wrist to hit a concrete abutment at high speed. No one would have known and it would have been all over. It was when I caught myself having those thoughts and thinking about what that meant about myself that I realized I needed help. The outcome, since beginning therapy at the end of March and HRT in September has already been amazing. Close friends have been supportive yet at the same time say that they are experiencing a totally new me, one less somber, more talkative, friendlier, happier, and more at peace.

What have my costs been thus far? Complete rejection by my spouse which will end in divorce sometime next year, complete rejection by my youngest son and his spouse, major rejection from my eldest son with complete rejection from his spouse and her family, and totally being cut off from my eldest son's children.

Was it worth it? Yes. I am finally happy for the first time in my life to a depth that I could not have imagined just a year ago. As for those who rejected me, I cannot live their lives for them and despite having devoted 35+ years of my own life to their needs, their expectations, and their desires, they turned on me as soon as I sought to live for myself. So, to be quite blunt, until they change their attitudes, they can all take a long walk off a short pier.
The meaning of life is to find your gift. The purpose of life is to give it away.



~ Cara Elizabeth
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monica.soto

Thanks for your advice Kathy! if and/or when I come out I'm sure to follow it.

I'm very much sold on the idea that Truth hurts, but Lies kill.

hugs!
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monica.soto

Quote from: LizMarie on November 20, 2012, 02:55:45 PM
What have my costs been thus far? Complete rejection by my spouse which will end in divorce sometime next year, complete rejection by my youngest son and his spouse, major rejection from my eldest son with complete rejection from his spouse and her family, and totally being cut off from my eldest son's children.

Was it worth it? Yes. I am finally happy for the first time in my life to a depth that I could not have imagined just a year ago. As for those who rejected me, I cannot live their lives for them and despite having devoted 35+ years of my own life to their needs, their expectations, and their desires, they turned on me as soon as I sought to live for myself. So, to be quite blunt, until they change their attitudes, they can all take a long walk off a short pier.

I'm so sorry about the fallout from your transition, talk about gratitude.

I think my situation would tend to go in what your experience has been, and I truly hope that at least your relationship with your children will get better with time.

take care!
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