Hi all, haven't posted for a very long time! My partner started taking hormones for a few weeks (she is pre op male to female) and it all to me has suddenly become very real. I was doing really well, embracing the fact that she is becoming the person she wants to be, but since the start of the hormones things haven't been that easy for me to accept. She has become very moody to the point that she blames me for being in a bad mood when it is her. Her general attitude I am finding difficult to deal with. I don't know how strong I can be with this. It has made me realise the reason why I have a lot of male friends, I don't get on well with other females (I mean this is the nicest possible way), I see the bitchy moody side rather than the nice down to Earth conversations. I never thought I would have a relationship with a woman, I consider myself to be heterosexual but when I met my partner it was totally different, we fell for each other and I knew about her being trans before we started seeing each other, it has never bothered me, i have supported her and embraced her change. Now she seems to have changed completely, I am struggling to find love. Our sex life has become different as well. There has been talk of strap ons for the future and it doesn't sit well with me. We always said we would take things easily and she has mainly always been quite good not to say things which I don't know if I will be comfortable with. Last night in bed she said 'well, one day you might suck my nipples' (tmi sorry), my reply was 'no I don't'. I kinda felt a little bit repulsed at the idea what with my feelings at the moment. She looked so hurt and I felt terrible about saying it, but I don't feel ready to think about things like that. Is this a sign the relationship is not right for me? Is it possible to be in a relationship and for it to be known sexual? The way I feel at the moment about everything, I don't know if I could cope with something I am not used to. I am not a bitch, I am just struggling to cope with the change. Please if anyone has been in the situation or could offer me some support I would be very appreciative.

Hello Princessme,

I am in exactly the same (but opposite) situation to you.  My wife of 18 years is pre-op FTM   Those hormones cause chaos in their bodies...  Think of your confusing teenage years   I understand every single emotion you describe, barring the fact that I am comfortably bi-sexual, so none of the sexual stuff gets to me.  My way of coping is two-fold:
Do not take anything personally. Understand that the mood is due to the hormones.
Secondly... You know when we have pms... the triggers are real, the emotions are real... but our reactions may be slightly over the top.  I am thinking it is the same thing just 100 times worse

In terms of whether this is the right relationship for you, or whether you can deal with what is coming your way... Chill out... don't allow fear of the unknown prevent you from having a wonderful life.  If you get to something you cannot deal with, address it.  I have found that stressing about things that may or could happen are just counter-productive (and it makes us fat lol)

Good luck.  I am sure you will work it out

Quote from: princessme on April 05, 2013, 04:59:24 PM
Is this a sign the relationship is not right for me? Is it possible to be in a relationship and for it to be known sexual? The way I feel at the moment about everything, I don't know if I could cope with something I am not used to. I am not a bitch, I am just struggling to cope with the change. Please if anyone has been in the situation or could offer me some support I would be very appreciative.

No, it's a sign of a maturing relationship. As all relationships will and should and must. Because we will, and should and must.

Where will it be in 5 years time? You have to wait and see. Because that's what we all do and should and must.

Thank you all for your kind replies. I am feeling somewhat more positive today about it all. I plan to discuss taking things steady again. I really do love this lady with all my heart and would love to continue the relationship, I think it really is fear of the unknown. I hope we can both work through this because we are just so right together

 I wish you could find a way to give her the pleasure of suckling on her breasts.  It won't hurt  you a bit to do that, and it would be very meaningful to her.

My wife does that for me.  I don't use my penis anymore, but I have other ways of satisfying her sexual appetite.  When she's had "hers" she asks what she can do for me.  Sometimes she sucks my limp penis, other times it's my breasts.  Frankly, at this point, I prefer the breasts.

If she cares about you and satisfying you sexually, why shouldn't you try to return the favor?

Randi

Quote from: princessme on April 05, 2013, 04:59:24 PM
Last night in bed she said 'well, one day you might suck my nipples' (tmi sorry), my reply was 'no I don't'. I kinda felt a little bit repulsed at the idea what with my feelings at the moment. She looked so hurt and I felt terrible about saying it, but I don't feel ready to think about things like that.

You never know where life will take you. Over 30 years ago after two experiments at transitioning I decided no way and tried to be "normal". That eventually turned into meeting and later marrying a woman who evenentually went for SRS 25 years ago.

Fast forward to 3 years ago when I dropped the nuclear T bomb on her. A bit of a surprise for her even though she knew and supported my TGness to a point. When we talked about the future she often said "I had the chance to marry a woman if I wanted to. I like men! I like what they got. I like....." you know the drill.

Today we still have no idea what the future holds. She is Joanne's #1 advocate now promising bodily harm if I try stuffing things away again. Especially if it's for the sake of my wife's feelings. She is even changing her mind about sex.

Yet we both acknowledge there is no way to know the future. Though we both dearly love the other and are still in love, you just don't know. As I discover through experience life as Joanne I may decide I too like guys. Though past experience says otherwise. (past experience also said I can do normal) My wife may find she only likes sex with guys.

Being open and honest about your feelings is important to the relationship. This of course implies the lines of communication are kept open. My wife and I weathered a few bad storms over the 30 years we've together. Our mutual love, friendship, desire to be together, and communication helped us get through those periods.

You cannot change who you are or your feelings any more than your spouse can. If the others happiness is paramount, it would not be fair for her to expect you to change who you are, just as you didn't ask her to change who she is.

Right now I can speculate you are overwhelmed. First the start of HRT followed almost immediately by talk of you turning lesbian for her. That on top of wild mood swings. Many trans people do tend to ask a lot of their spouses too fast. The natural fall-out from letting the genie out of the bottle. Unfortunately they forget that they spent a lifetime trying to sort this all out. You haven't.

It sounds to me like the Festivus ritual of "Airing of grievences" may be in order 

Advice from an old woman.....look you both one day a while back met, feel in love, and like any relationship and lives spent together we all must accept both the good and the bad. Now if you have always embraced each other and loved each other with no regard to what life has thrown you then your love has been tested and it has I am a soOOooo sure as is everyone's but thinking is the worse thing you can start doing now and I say this because all throughout a loving relationship she has endured you and your moods for instance, all throughout the years embraced and loved you while you were having your moody (insanity days + weeks), your periods, and the dramas of you being you and she has been compassionate and accepting that this is you. Now she say she is moody, wow hearing a "Bio-female" complaining  about moods is sorta funny or understatement......no you don't get it? Okies now you talked about being hetro, lol (sorry) it's just that you are a person who if you really love her as you stated and now your questioning yourself and not feeling what you already know or at least I am sure your a bi-sexual woman, (and always have been) and or a lesbian and I say this because she has always been a she  and your a woman so what does this mean..........if you don't know then Idunno what to say but my ex-wife once said to me (divorced because of family values) Anywho she said, "I am a bi-sexual woman and why it is because my love knows no gender, know of no color, and know of no race" Today I am a happy married to a woman and the both of us accept each other because true love knows the heart speaks louder than the mind.

Remember those "nice down to Earth conversations" well they will all return when your stormy love calms.......they will I promise. =)

In my support group, we have lots of people that have stayed in relationships, but it isn't always very easy. (I know about people going the other way as that's my experience-- I'm FTM, but the idea is still the same.) Another thing is that some people are not really ready to think of themselves as gay-- or at least people would perceive you this way.

There is the thing that this is adolescence-- like going thru teenage all over again. A lot of changes are things that are more pronounced right now than they will be in the future. I believe estrogen can make some people more "in touch" with emotions, I guess you could stay, and it takes time to get used to that. I got a big spurt of anger with testosterone, but time and so on I am learning to deal with it.

Your desire to deal with this is going to help... But it won't solve everything. You're dealing with a huge change in some ways...




--Jay

Thank you for your replies firstly and sorry it has taken a long time, I have Bipolar Disorder and due to the amount of stress I have with my relationship, I went slightly crazy and had to have time out in crisis care. Though my relationship is floating along, I can't say things are improving, emotional abuse is still continuing to the point of being sworn at in the street which is both heartbreaking and embarrassing. We have discussed how she is with the hormones and how aggressive they make her. I am a very laid back and chilled out person most of the time and find these outbursts intolerable. Without sounding rude, I will not be doing anything I am not comfortable with and if I am worth the effort (because believe me, I have given my all to this and to try make transitioning easy for her at the risk of my mental health) she will have to do some serious considerations of my feelings.

Also, I came here to seek support as a partner and without (again) sounding rude, I feel a little bit hurt by some responses.

I really wish I had some little gem to offer up for you. I'm in the beginning process of my SO's transition to female. He hasn't started hormones yet, but I know when that begins its time to hold onto my seat.
That being said, you need to keep yourself safe physically, mentally and emotionally. If you are feeling abused or are being pressured into doing things you don't want to do, take that seriously. Don't wait until you send yourself back into the hospital. No matter how much you love someone it doesn't do anyone any good to live like that. I'd say your feelings of questioning your relationship are valid because females are not generally your cup of tea. I won't say that it wouldn't ever become a totally fulfilling relationship because sometimes its not that clear cut. But your sexual orientation at this point should only be secondary to your well being.,

Thank you for your reply. I feel better for venting. I am in the UK and can't seem to find much support for partners at all and believe me I have tried. Explaining to my partner there is a problem is hard because she doesn't realise how much she is changing. I agree, I can't change how I feel sexually, I am attracted to who I am attracted to, I am normally drawn to people by their personality, but this person I have fell in love with has changed personality wise. When I was in crisis care, she cried one day thinking that the relationship would end once I came home. It was heartbreaking and I asked for things to change but the moment I cam home, things continued exactly how they had been going. I feel so hurt most of the time. It so very difficult.

Hi princessme

I'm so sorry if responses hurt, please report them to Mods and we will deal with them.

My apologies as well as I have not been following this thread. I shall keep an eye on it in future.

Do you think your partners personality is changing in some way possibly in a need or response to how she is being regarded or treated in public?

I know I became more assertive and had to control being aggressive after being hormonally reassigned. I think it was due to my confidence improving as I relaxed into being me (finally). But my increased aggression was noted by my therapists who advised me to monitor myself, assertiveness is fine, aggression is not.

Maybe she just needs that to be noted, aggressive trans*woman can start to suffer abuse from clods in the world, and that can be dangerous.

It certainly sounds that she is deeply in love with you, even though the nature of the love between you both may have changed.

Her personality will change, at least mine has, I have very little of his personality at all, and in fact I have referred to the changes I have undergone in terms that he has died. To be honest he has.

Sadly this may be a major stumbling point, and one you will need to think through carefully.

You have to remember that you are the most important person to you, you have to protect yourself, and you have the absolute right to enjoy your life. You should not and I pray will not ignore your rights for the sake of hers.

She has made the decision that she has to transition, it is her choice. You have rights and choices as well.

When we start this journey every one of us knows that life will change. If we don't know that, then we haven't been honest with ourselves.

I am in no way whatsoever the same person who started this journey. I meet people who have not seen or met me for a few years and they don't recognise me physically, AND THEY DON"T RECOGNISE ME PERSONALITY WISE.

They usually, and I had this yesterday from an ex-student who visited me, make a comment about it. My ex-student sat with me and we had coffee etc and she suddenly stopped and looked at me and said 'you are a woman, you have changed totally. I can't see P in you at all'

Unfortunately in your case your partner is not seeing or is not accepting those changes.

You have the right to feel hurt, desperately so, I also think you need to start thinking about long term plans of dealing with the situation.

I'm so sorry.

I am here whenever you need me, you can pm me at any time.

Hugs

Cindy

Thank you so much for that, I found it helpful. I realise my partner feels stuck in limbo, kinda not functioning as a male, but not  yet the female she desires to be. A lot of the time I have to actively encourage her to be that person because she lacks all motivation, but then gets annoyed if she thinks people are looking at her in public (I am very observant because of my own issues and have never noticed anyone actively staring). I did mention that sometimes in public she draws attention to herself with the kind of clothing she wants to wear, i.e short dresses that are also revealing that look strange on her still very masculine frame. I am doing my best as a partner to help her not embarrass herself but embrace herself. It's hard work. The shouting at me in public is often when she is insecure of herself, which draws attention to us. I think that she jumped into taking the hormones before really fully understanding everything it entailed, I say this because I attended her last gender appointment with her where they ran through what would happen sexually, and she said to me on the journey home that 'it would not happen to her' (referring to erectile dysfunction) and it has. Also the lack of sperm storage has really hit her hard now and she regrets not doing it, I begged her to get the forms filled out for weeks to the point I filled them out for her and she did nothing, kept saying 'I will get round to it' and never did, now she has jumped into taking hormones and obviously they have irreversible effects on this. It's all a big mess. She has not been very considerate of myself or my 4 year old on occassions where she has reduced us both to tears with her insecurities. I have gotten to the point where other than the school run, I prefer not to go out as a couple because it seems such hard work. It shouldn't be like this. She states she uses me as her safety net, but I am also the person who gets the brunt of the temper. I ask her to leave things and she continues. Having previously been in a relationship with domestic abuse and violence, I feel quite vulnerable when I sense this kind of pattern emerging. I love this woman, she loves me I just with things could be easier. I can't be the backbone of the relationship all the time, she really needs to learn to be more independent from me and start treating me like a person and partner again.

I will say up front that not everyone's personality changes on hormones or during transition - and in fact, had that happened to my wife, I would have left, because I refuse to be married to a stranger I don't necessarily like. (It was one of my greatest fears, actually, which is why I'm mentioning here that it doesn't *have* to happen.)

It sounds as if your partner is in a difficult in-between stage and relying on you a great deal for emotional and other support, while also seeing you as the only "safe" target for temper and bad behavior? That's not altogether surprising, since it can be human nature to heap the most nastiness on the people we trust to love us unconditionally... but it doesn't mean you should have to put up with it. Frankly, I'm impressed that you stuck things out this long, given that you have a history of abuse to make you (rightly) sensitive to the first steps down that path again. I don't have any really good suggestions for how to make someone else behave and treat you well (if I did, I'd've magically fixed up my abusive mother right away!), but I'll reiterate that you do NOT have to calmly accept inconsiderateness and taking you for granted. And don't ever let anyone tell you that it's transphobic or bigoted or unreasonable to expect that your partner treat you with respect and care, either. She's damned lucky to have someone willing to be as loving and supportive as you are, and she's throwing it back in your face.

As for the sexual stuff... sure, there are people who have romantic relationships without sex. (Asexual people, elderly people, people with sexual dysfunction, to name a few.) You don't *have* to be happy with that, but by the same token it's also perfectly OK to decide that a relationship without sex is fine by you and choose to stay with her regardless. It sounds as if she hasn't generally pushed you in that regard, which is good - if unexpected given her other lack of consideration - but I'll chime in as a voice saying that you are under no obligation, ever, to partake in sexual acts that make you unhappy. It's common in our society to tell women otherwise, but your body and your sexual choices are yours alone.

And now, having been rather hard on your partner, I'll add that transition is fundamentally a very selfish experience which takes a tremendous amount of mental and emotional energy. It's been my observation that a lot of generally kind, caring, thoughtful people will have wacky moments (or longer stretches!) where the stress and effort of transition turn them temporarily into pod people. It's like the strain of sleep deprivation while caring for a newborn that way. If, and this is a big if, she's *trying* to meet you halfway and in calmer moments acknowledges that blowing up at you is unreasonable, and you have some indication that she's making progress, there's a decent chance that when the hellish midpoint/limbo part of transition is over she will return to being a better partner. However, what constitutes "enough" progress and how patient you're willing to be is entirely up to you, and again, nobody else gets to tell you whether or not you tried hard enough to salvage *your* relationship. (That's a rule I live by in general, not just for transition; romantic entanglements always have depths that outsiders don't necessarily know.) Love sometimes doesn't conquer all, although it's a damned good start.

Quote from: Cindy. on June 13, 2013, 04:19:32 AM
Hi princessme

I'm so sorry if responses hurt, please report them to Mods and we will deal with them.

Though I only made one contribution I will also offer any appropriate apologies. I do assure you I and I think most other contributors here have only positive intentions.

But we are all, like you, new to this.

We are as frustrated as you are by our inability to get all the answers we need. But for those of us who may have been looking a little longer, it has become apparent, the problem is often, the questions we ask.

I do hope you will take Cindy up on her invitation, if you feel it is appropriate. I do also hope you will accept that, when any of us her do seem less than fully sympathetic, it is because we are essentially all in the same boat. Lost, hoping to find a way. A better way. Any way.

Ahh, more hope to the situation! Thank you for your contribution blueconstancy. I realise at times I hope that transition would make her happier and that at the moment she is far from that and that I have to be there to support this beautiful flower to blossom fully, but not being a walk over and taking the crap, this is something in me that I need to work on self esteem issues are low for me. It is hard for everyone. Spacial, I often feel that I am in the wrong for having feelings and looking through some of the posts, I felt that I was the one at fault and should be trying harder, yet I cannot try any harder than I do already. I found your post useful thank you I realise we are all in the same boat and I hope that my post helps support others as well.

Quote from: princessme on June 13, 2013, 03:29:29 PM
Spacial, I often feel that I am in the wrong for having feelings and looking through some of the posts, I felt that I was the one at fault and should be trying harder, yet I cannot try any harder than I do already.

That's a perfectly reasonable observation.