I always seem to make things so much harder on myself, I swear.

I have a bit of a dilemma that's I've kinda created for myself. I recently started a new job and my plan the entire time was to have everyone there know of my spouse from the beginning as Hayley. She obviously at this point would rather peoples first knowledge of her be as such. Well once I started filling out all the paperwork and stuff i realized that in some instances I did still need to use her legal name for stuff like insurance and other benefits. Well once that started going on I started getting a lot of anxiety surrounding it and got myself into a situation that needs undoing. My new manager asked me for my emergency contact info and wanted a little get to know you chat. Asked me about my family and such. At the time I thought using the legal name was the way to go since that's what was on all my paperwork, but used a lot of neutral pronouns when talking about her (although He did write "husband" next to her name on my emergency contact info) I had it in my head that I could keep my personal life on lock down among my coworkers. I'm beginning to realize (on my own but also after talking to my therapist) that by trying to bypass this stuff I'm ultimately making it a bigger deal instead of the nonissue that it should be. When talking to my coworkers I tend to only reference her in the "we" sense or as "my spouse". Now I don't know how to correct what I've done to my manager without outting my wife.

I feel like I need to fix that before I start telling other people about my wife cause I'm worried that will create all kinds of confusion and questions. I wish I had just gone with my original plan! I got so worried about forms and if I'm being honest I guess I was also unprepared for being a "lesbian" at work even though I'm extremely comfortable with our relationship outside of my professional life. Any one got any ideas on how to do damage control without feeling like I'm betraying her by outting her to someone unnecessarily? And without looking like a liar/idiot that can't even get her spouse's name right.

I apologize in advance for typos... Using my phone to post always creates a bunch.

Could you explain to your manager and ask that it be kept quiet? They would likely have known sooner or later anyway due to the paper work angle. They might be able to help should you get any harassment from co workers, too.

Well, you were in an awkward situation because you did legit have to use her legal name in some contexts, which is not your fault. And at that point, the rest is awkward no matter *what* you do. So this part of my comment is just validation that you did the best you could with a bad hand you'd been dealt.

You are now more or less in the position I was, despite your good intentions - you were unable to start with the default assumption that she was a woman, and you're going to have to "come out" about her transition somehow. At work I honestly just switched to new name and pronouns with people I didn't know, and I hear some got the explanation through the gossip grapevine and some assumed I'd gotten divorced and remarried (and some, I imagine, didn't care enough to think about it). With the people I did know a little better, I basically said outright "Look, this is awkward, and I'm in this position where I have to either give you TMI relative to our relationship [since we don't know each other that well] or have you assume I've lost my mind by dreaming up a new spouse, so... just so you know, my spouse is the same person, but she's not identifying as male anymore, and when you hear me talk about X, that's her now." Everyone was fine with it, and I found that addressing the whole TMI/why are you telling me this aspect up front helped somewhat. In a manager's yearly review I also did say "and you might've noticed I'm talking about my wife now, which is because of blah blah insert previous canned spiel..." and we moved on from there.

As for the outing her aspect, you can talk to her about it, but the problem is that you don't have a *good* option here : you out her, or you continue to call her male forever. Tell her that either she finds a better middle ground (and who knows, she might be smarter than I am and she can!), or she gets to pick off that list, but you're not doing this maliciously and you can't figure out a better way to handle the way this impacts YOUR life.

I also think it wouldn't be a bad idea to maybe talk to your boss. It is an awkward conversation to have, but surely less awkward than to mispronoun your wife or have to have an awkward conversation with all of your coworkers instead. Explain that you have a wife and what her name is contrary to what your paperwork may say. You don't need to answer more than necessary or go into elaborate detail but it's best to nip this in the bud before it grows. Good luck!

Quote from: blueconstancy on June 26, 2014, 06:54:32 AM
With the people I did know a little better, I basically said outright "Look, this is awkward, and I'm in this position where I have to either give you TMI relative to our relationship [since we don't know each other that well] or have you assume I've lost my mind by dreaming up a new spouse, so... just so you know, my spouse is the same person, but she's not identifying as male anymore, and when you hear me talk about X, that's her now."

I agree with what the others have already said, but wanted to highlight this... I really like this wording! It's a good balance between showing your own confidence, recognizing how it might make them feel upon learning about it for the first time, and also being assertive about "this is it, let's move on now" yet still kind.

Sylvie : Awww, thank you! I've also had a lot of luck with that approach just in general, because it a) lays out the minimal expectations for these random people (right pronoun/names/"wife") and b) gives them a minute, while I'm still talking, to get through the utter confusion and surprise, since I can usually see their eyes go blank for a minute.   Usually by the time I finish the spiel, people are ready to come back with some form of "OH! OK, thanks for letting me know" and we can move on.

I will also note that the "coming out" phase never seems to end... it's been more than five years since transition began, and I just ran into a past acquaintance who asked after my husband!

Thanks for your input everyone. I was all set to march into my managers office and clear everything up in Friday when I found out he was out that day. I plan to do it tomorrow morning. In the meantime I dropped the "wife" bombs as casually as possible with my coworkers. So far so good. I got sweat palms but I think I managed to keep composure everywhere else! Hopefully tomorrow goes as smooth.

Good luck!

Hope everything worked out for you.  I know name stuff can be awkward, but you just gotta be confident with it.  We all aren't  blessed with androgynous names, but at the same time, my sister knows 2 different cis guys named Stacy!