Hello!
I joined the forum a few weeks ago and I must say, it has improved my life drastically. I was being noticeably more upbeat and amiable after knowing I was not as alone as I thought. I had discussed my true feelings and my Dysphoria with my wife before, but this sparked a series of events that ended up in a VERY big week.
I want to start off by saying that the love and marriage I have are the deepest and most fulfilling I have ever had anything be in my life so far, I have true mature love and support and I am lucky to have married my best friend. She never subscribed to assigning gender labels or societal labels on anyone, she is just as comfortable with a hetero cis male dressing in a feminine way as she would if they were gay, bi, FtM or anything in this prismatic range that is people. That is why it was hard for me to explain what had taken me more than 25 years to understand about myself. I had been asked why go for GRS when i can just shave and grow my hair long and dress as girly as I want. She always goes on to describe stilettos blonde wigs and pink tube tops in her examples, which were really irritating but I knew she was jesting. I could not express to her the deep longing I had to be as outwardly female as I felt, it ended up sounding superficial and the word selfish was mentioned when discussions got heated sometimes.
I try very hard to explain that even if I were to just live it out dressing, behaving and identifying as the way I am, I would feel severely dishonest; rolling in tar and feathers and telling everyone "Hey I'm a chicken!" I just would not feel genuine to myself and therefore others and I would just end up coming off as a fake caricature of myself.
Now not all is gloom and doom, there is a surprising turn of events that happened earlier in this: I was very tired, as I always am after years of heavy depression I have long bouts of extreme tiredness that make me unable to even sit and enjoy a movie or a computer game, which ended up aggravating the depression and the cycle goes on. As I stayed home and slept through longer that i wanted, my wife and mother came home from shopping and one of them had said loudly and jokingly in a deep voice how they were going to steal stuff and take the tv and computers. At that time I had woken up startled and thought the "robbers" were at my sister's room. The feeling of panic and personal failure at my constant sleeping through things reached a critical mass and I was a drowsy apologetic mess, which severely irritates my wife when I am always sorry. We stayed in the kitchen and started to argue and it then turned into a fight. Being the mama bird she is, my mom tried to referee and play the moderator but her own feelings got in the way majorly. Mom did not know the underlying issues of my reserved and apologetic nature, so she though i was being oppressed. My wife has always been a no nonsense, 'suck it up buttercup' kind of teacher, and while that clashes with my more sensitive personality it has helped and we both try to understand each other's personalities in a healthy way. But sometimes I have trouble noticing that I just need to let something go and move past it as she has trouble noticing that sometimes I just need to be held and told it is all going to be ok, regardless of the situation at hand.
After that at dinner, the tension was palpable and mom just burst out, saying that our relationship was "sick" (this was regarding her perceived submissive role that I was taking in my marriage) and that word
made me feel like it was directed at me, I somehow felt that I was being told I was "sick" and the choking fear and nerves crept up my spine and chest.
Effectively blaming my wife for me being broken and depressed, my wife ended up being so angry she packed bags to leave (since we were living in a large town house with her so we could get back on our feet financially). I was at a total loss as to what to do, caught in the middle of two people i loved who didn't understand each other because they didn't fully understand me. I then decided to do the scariest thing I could think of: Come out to my mom. Now, my mom was not horrible and intolerant, far from it. She, my sister, wife and myself are Wiccan and have known intolerance because of that and open minds are abound, but it was still scary.
I came up and started to explain, as I trembled and shook, with my voice breaking up, she got closer and held my hand and as I told her she just hugged me and kept telling me she loved me. It was like breathing, a weight off I carried for so long. This confession ended up bridging a dialogue that led to my wife and mother to gain greater respect for each other and polarized our bonds. I later came out to my sister and that went fast and as casual s talking about movies, she was so ok with it it was funny!
What my dread was, and the BIG issue, was coming out to my stepdad. He is a huge guy and often (unintentionally) intimidating. After having a talk on a car ride just the two of us, regarding his not at all un-misogynistic views on gender roles and his Romano-Catholic position on a man not suffering a woman to be above him. After having that talk urge me to tears and shakes when I came back home, I was ready for the worst when it came for me to say things. mom said she would "take care of him", I thought maybe hinting or suggesting but one day after they both came home, I was helping with dinner and they came up and he said "So, your mom told me." *Instant seize up* "T-told you?", "Yup." *dreadful silence* " Makes no difference to me, I am ok with it." *double takes taken, bricks being shat, all amounts of liquids being spit out enough to make a wall look like a Jackson Pollock*
So this big scary thing ended up just being OK! It was unbelievable and so very relieving. Later it was said that he really thought that he should be against it considering his faith and upbringing, but he just couldn't see anything wrong with it. Faith in humanity restored! All of this led to now, talks and talks about what i thought and felt, I ended up finding out mom felt hurt that I "didn't trust her" to say this to her until I was almost 30 and that it was kinda fishy I didn't indicate anything before just a few years back. I wanted to explain that I didn't fully understand myself, coupled with fear of ridicule, persecution, ETERNAL HELLFIRE... those kind of things give one pause to reflect. I never considered making anyone feel trapped by my decision, I realized I sort of came out after I got married, and there was the fear that I had known before that for sure and that I basically trapped her into a situation where she could not leave me, because she could not stop loving me. I hopefully soothed those fears, I don't know how eloquent I was, I am bad at communicating what i think on a good day.
We had been talking about how life will move on from here, how my family should treat me, how my intimate life will be (discussed with just my wife of course, cause otherwise..AWKWARD...)
I had basically given my wife no choice but to live as a lesbian, which again, she does have Bi tendencies but she thought she made a commitment when we married so it was hard for her to struggle with her feelings and needs over this. But after the clearest and deepest communication in years we are starting to see that we can have a very healthy intimate relationship and a very satisfying love life even after GRS, and maybe even especially after ;P
We had settled on doing the change slowly: Hair, skincare, manicure, wight loss, gender neutral clothing leaning towards popularly feminine styles ( until i lose enough weight i cannot shop in most female stores *sniff*) It will take an enormous expense especially us trying to get on our feet and getting our own place. Tallying all of it it would be near 7 figures of expenses that will have us struggling, and I do not want to be that selfish. The door is not closed on it however, and we will make a nice savings nook for it so I can eventually have the surgeries. I am hoping It will not be too late, but seeing so many great older ladies looking fantastic here, I don't feel so bad about it taking 5-10 years.
With all of that I end with a few questions for you wonderful people to help me out in deciding where to go.
1. Would anyone know the names of any clinics or support groups in British Columbia near Vancouver that provide the psychological evaluation and support needed before HRT?
2. How much would HRT round out my hips and butt? (very important to a latin lady!) I would like to not need to have hips/butt implants If I can help it.
3. Unless I am mistaken, most of us here are not millionaires, so I wonder how one could come about gaining the funds for the huge expenses of the doctors visits and surgeries on a minimum wage income?
4. I am very afraid of voice feminization surgery, I rather take vocal classes. Are there any free courses or videos that are easy to understand and comprehensive?
5.Are there any reliable forms of hair removal that can remove a LOT of hair from body-wide nooks and crannies without relative hassle, or do i have to hire a personal sheep-shearer for the rest of my life?
Thank you everyone for taking the time to read this, I hope my story helps others in some way as other stories have helped me.
Take care, and have a blessed day!
