Hi,

I've recently posted on the therapy thread about my first experience with that. I've now had a second session with more to follow, but it has already started to clarify for me a decision I have to make about coming out and planning to transition.

Do I stay in the closet and live out my days unhappy, but with a wife and children (both under 3) I love dearly, and never want to hurt; or do I come out causing pain and confusion to my family, but possibly (down the road) finding myself in a happier life.

I'm struggling with the selfishness of taking the second path, as I've always focused on making others happy. Plenty of people in the world live unhappy lives, and are unable to change them. I'm in a position where I could, but does that mean I should?

I know I need to make this choice myself, but for anyone on this forum who has faced this huge dilemma, how did you weigh up the different sides?

Thanks,

Megan.

Megan my own decision came after a very long career surrounded by death each and every day. Almost every single person who died in my care expressed regrets of one kind or another. I promised myself I would not be one of those people and would do what I wanted instead of what was expected. I lost a 16 year marriage and a daughter. My son is still with me and has been wonderful. He says almost every day the change in me is beyond belief. I am no longer the angry, isolated, depressed and so many other words person. He says I am more of a Mom than his biological one and is happy I made what he called the hard right choice. If you decide to stay in the closet and live repressed there is a large chance you will eventually begin to despise your SO and anger could follow and you would lose so many years being held back if and when you finally transitioned. Do not be one of my patients who died with regret of things not done, loved or seen. I am not saying run right into transition right now, but start to evaluate just where you see yourself in ten years. In my case transition has led to a whole new life. I do not know if it will for you or not so take time to carefully see how you feel inside and what you would lose in the short or long term. 

Jessica, thank you for your thoughts, and I'm sorry you had to loose loved ones in order to get to where you are now.

I think you're right about my feelings turning my relationship into a negative one even if I don't act.

I plan to continue my therapy for now, but in the end I may have put my faith in the adage "The truth will set you free".

Megan.

It is tough to make decisions when you don't know all the facts, risks, rewards, ups, downs, etc.. For me making this sort of decision is all the more difficult since I make a good living "What if'ing? things to death.

Just getting to point to feel that you qualified to make such a decision for yourself can take a long time. I basically new I was TG since 5 yet did my best to make a go of being a male. I got to achieve my life long dream of being seen as and accepted as a woman. Yet, I still don't know what would be best for me when balancing all the other important aspects of my life which also make me me.

Two huge factors are my wife and my career. My wife is as OK as to be expected. It is not fair for me to ask for promises just as it isn't fair for her to ask for promises. Yet the 6 years of so me finally becoming a for real person has also made our love for each other stronger. This process hasn't been easy for either of us, her especially.

So much of my sense of self is tied into my career. Actually it's like getting paid to play to me. If I need to go full-time, it will be a shock for them. When you see me in male mode it is pretty much impossible to see me as a woman. A big part of me taking on the trans beast was due to me loosing a dream job. I wound up just being yet another chipped tooth cog in some gigantor military contractor and not the hero engineer that can always get things done. In fact being that person was not just discouraged, but made impossible.

Oddly, this whole process of personal growth and learning who I am has made a full-time transition decision a lot more difficult. As I am finally feeling comfortable being me, being happy in my own skin, being me; the more I have to question Why? Back to part-time for sure. Full? Perhaps, depending on financial exposure at this point.

The bottom line for me is "Where does my true joy lie?" That is an easy question to answer

My advice would be to reconsider what you think makes others happy.  IMO there is no shame in thinking about this issue, exploring it, without necessarily bringing others in.  You may not be ready to share it; however, it would be also bad to keep a whole secret world from others who expect openness and honesty.  It is a tough decision to make isn't it?  Fortunately for you, you have found a place where many have had to make the same decision and you can draw from the experiences to make a better one for yourself.

As far as it being selfish to choose transition, I disagree.  I don't think it is selfish to simply want to be you.   One of the main issues that I have to deal with is being pressured to be something that I am not inside for most of my life.  The question is, what does it mean to know thyself?  How do you know which decision will result in you being able to be you?  I advise you to take your time making this decision and not to rush to a judgement.

My situation is totally different.  My wife has been accepting of me because I sought a woman who would understand me.  However, I find myself to feel so ashamed of it that coming out to my family is extremely difficult and I have not done so yet.  I want to, but I find myself sometimes saying in my head, "What am I doing??!"

I wish it wasn't a big deal.  I wish that I could just come out and everybody would accept me and I could move on with things without worrying about how it would be perceived.  In some ways, the fact that I have this difficulty is making it difficult for me to do things that really want to do right now.  I wish that I could get some help with this aspect!

Hi Megan,

I think I understand what you're going through - my situation is somewhat similar (minus the children). Initially, when I had finally figured out I'm really trans (only a few weeks ago), I thought I could never do anything to jeopardize my relationship with my husband and his happiness. Because one of my (distorted) views is, everyone else deserves to be happy, but I don't. So I jump to neglecting myself and my well-being for the sake of others.

I'm only very slowly letting go of this (after all, it's been a lifelong habit, not easy to shed). What is making this easier for me is the help of my therapist, my friends, and the realization that without transitioning, I will continue on the downward spiral that I've been on for quite a while now, with a foreseeable unhappy ending. This sounds dire, but I want to spare my husband and my family this trauma, and I'm beginning to accept that for me transitioning is not selfish, it's life saving (please note that I'm not saying that this has to be the case for everyone - I don't mean to invalidate other experiences). I'm beginning to understand that I have a right to be if not happy at least content and at peace.

That said, for the sake of my husband and family I decided not to rush anything. We're taking one step at a time.
:hugs:

Odds are very high if you continue living your life unhappy and to please someone else that you will become one of the 41%. The only reason I didn't was a friend caught me before I was able to execute my plans to kill myself.

Some people are unhappy because of circumstances they cannot change but let me ask a question - What would you think of the ethics and morality of someone you knew who was deliberately living a lie? Would you trust that person? Would you have a high regard for that person?

Living a lie for someone else's sake is corrosive. You know the lie is there. You know you are lying to everyone you claim to love. Little by little, you self-esteem dies, because honestly, how can you respect someone you know is deliberately living a lie? You withdraw and your rare social outward moments are you lashing out in anger, not because you're really angry at whomever, just because that latent anger inside at your own known lies and they become a convenient target.

I was known for a legendary temper since I was young. No one knew why. It took every fiber of my being to avoid lashing out physically at someone, and who knows? Maybe I eventually would have failed at that and hit someone I loved. I came to hate myself, to despise my body. Intimacy in my marriage suffered off and on for years and years.

My spouse knew something was wrong. She later told me she wondered if I was gay. If only it had been that simple, hm? But she was afraid to open that can of worms both because of my temper and because she feared the answer. And when the answer finally came spilling out years later, she accused me of lying to her and deceiving her throughout our entire marriage.

So what had I gained by living my life for someone else? Years of unhappiness. And my marriage is over anyway. And two of my three adult children refuse to speak to me or allow me to see my grandchildren by them. What did my sacrifice gain?

Absolutely nothing. Nothing I did was appreciated even one iota by those for whom I did it. I was a fraud and that's all they chose to see.


So I'm going to close here by saying that years from now, you're going to be in the same boat as me. You will reach the end of that rope. You will either try to kill yourself or be forced to face yourself. And if you face yourself, odds are high you're going to lose everything you love as they come to see your entire life as a lie, a fraud, and a deliberate deception of them, nevermind what you supposedly did for them.

Knowing what I know today, if I had the chance to do it over, I'd have said to hell with it all and just gone and transitioned years ago. Living my life for those I loved turned out to be one of the sharpest, most painful daggers I had to face when I discovered that their love for me was completely conditional, very limited, and easily thrown away at the slightest excuse.

I hope and pray that you do not end up where I ended up.



P.S. Consider this...

Selfishness is not living as one wishes to live, it is asking others to live as one wishes to live. And unselfishness is letting other people's lives alone, not interfering with them. Selfishness always aims at creating around it an absolute uniformity of type. Unselfishness recognises infinite variety of type as a delightful thing, accepts it, acquiesces in it, enjoys it. It is not selfish to think for oneself. A man who does not think for himself does not think at all. It is grossly selfish to require of one's neighbour that he should think in the same way, and hold the same opinions. Why should he? If he can think, he will probably think differently. If he cannot think, it is monstrous to require thought of any kind from him. A red rose is not selfish because it wants to be a red rose. It would be horribly selfish if it wanted all the other flowers in the garden to be both red and roses."

― Oscar Wilde, The Soul of Man and Prison Writings

Thank you, that was helpful,

Wow, I'm off the grid for a few days at a wedding and I come back to an amazing amount of help and guidance, thank you all!

Since opening up to my therapist a few weeks ago, I've been really struggling to keep a lid on my thoughts and emotions when around my family, with the obvious result that my wife is now getting concerned about me being down and distant.

I'm not religious, but there was a sermon at the wedding I just attended where a Canon described the three types of love in a relationship:

1. Companionship, sharing your life with another person.
2. Passion and Intimacy, you know that one ;-)
3. Unconditional, putting others ahead of yourself.

When I heard the third and final one, I thought yay three out of three, then the Canon went on to describe this as also sharing honesty and truth, and I knew I had failed.

As much as I love my wife and family, their love for me is based on a lie about who I really am.

I have my third session with my therapist tomorrow, and I think it's time to start planning how to finally be honest and truthful with my wife.

Megan.

Quote from: meganjames on September 28, 2014, 02:40:38 PM
3. Unconditional, putting others ahead of yourself.

Whoever came up with this one was most definitely NOT Dysphoric!

There does come a time though where you have to look out for yourself. Had I not come out and started transition just based on my previous lab work and overall health I would be dead by now. When it comes to your health you have to do what you have to do and it is the other persons responsibility to do #3 to you. Yes, #3 goes both ways so never forget that. Unconditional to me means that I would do ANYTHING for my partner especially when health came into the picture even if it made me uncomfortable or challenged my sense of self. 

Jessica, I would go so far as to say about #3 that many of us who are or have been dysphoric live or have lived like that, in my case because I didn't feel any self worth otherwise. Living for myself wasn't possible until I knew who myself was. I could only live for others.

Megan, this is just a suggestion, of course, but you may I want to explore other "narratives" than the "it's all been a lie" one. (There actually was an interesting thread about this here). I find that using this narrative, I become all defensive, feel guilty, and I also have a tendency in this narrative to invalidate my past life with my husband - which greatly complicates communication with him. It's true I didn't reveal (partly because I didn't have full cognitive access to) this part of myself until now. But I have been authentic in my love to him. Being trans is a part of me without which I am not complete, but finally acknowledging this is not going to change every aspect of me.

Remember, one step at a time :hugs:

The problem with #3 is that it often gets done to the exclusion of loving oneself. Modern psychologists would likely caution about #3 except in the right context.

Further, none of those three work if you can't love yourself. And when you know you are living a lie, that you are deceiving everyone around you, it has this corrosive effect on your own self-esteem and you can't love yourself.

Good luck with the therapist and figuring out how to approach this, but I'm going to recommend that you prepare for the worst. There's actually a chance things will work out between you and your spouse but if you go into it prepared for the worst, then anything less can be seen as a kind of victory.

Quote from: Jessica Merriman on September 28, 2014, 02:50:50 PM
Whoever came up with this one was most definitely NOT Dysphoric!

There does come a time though where you have to look out for yourself. Had I not come out and started transition just based on my previous lab work and overall health I would be dead by now. When it comes to your health you have to do what you have to do and it is the other persons responsibility to do #3 to you. Yes, #3 goes both ways so never forget that. Unconditional to me means that I would do ANYTHING for my partner especially when health came into the picture even if it made me uncomfortable or challenged my sense of self. 

As clergy, I myself have a bit of a problem with thinking that unconditional love means putting the other ahead of oneself.

Unconditional love is loving the other regardless; my wife has been understandably, but I think excessively upset and angry about me coming out to her, she's trying to force me out of my own home, she's forced my hand in telling my adult children and is talking divorce as soon as possible. And yet I love her. Oh, and I get criticized for saying I still love her because she thinks if I did, I'd make the TG go away. I'm not saying that is perfect unconditional love but I'm trying for reasonable, human, unconditional love.

When I think of unconditional love, I think of Jesus saying that we are to love our neighbor AS ourselves. That does NOT say love your neighbor MORE than yourself, but AS MUCH AS yourself! I think Jesus (and I think all major religions) would want us to love our neighbor AS ourselves, but if we don't love ourselves, our neighbor doesn't get much love either, do they?

To love others, it is critical to love yourself first. And then you SHARE that love. Once you can love yourself, you've got plenty to spread around to others. Put them on an EQUAL basis with yourself; not yourself way ahead of them and not way behind them.

And now let me go back to my struggle to love myself a bit more...

Megan,

I was in your shoes about the same exact time you posted this.  I chose to come out, the anxiety prior to the decision was way worse than the aftermath so far.  I feel so extremely relieved after coming out and accepting this.  I too am ending a marriage, no children however.  My wife shocked me beyond belief when she supported my choice, I thought the worse possible scenario would happen.  Everyone will have a different outcome for sure, but I can say so far this has been the right choice for me!  Hope this helps you.  Best of luck!

I've been thinking about this too and this is my dilemma as well.

It seems I have to choose between being happy with myself or having others make me appear to be happy.

Work, I am not 100% sure about but we have gay and lesbian employees who are really really open about it. If I told you where I worked you wouldn't believe it either, but it's NYC and the culture of NYC is accepting of LGBT. I earn a decent salary too but male privilege isn't really an advantage as women tend to get promoted high up too. They really don't care as I don't face customers, I just do my thing and I can be counted on to make magic happen. That said, there is always the possibility that they could find something else to let me go for. However, I'm fairly confident I can find another job in short order. I am in demand, I am an industry expert at what I do and employers want me. I'm not exaggerating or boasting, just stating that it would be easy to bounce back from a job loss. But transition thrown in the mix throws it off completely.

The family part I don't know. My wife has already said that it might be hard to accept me as a woman and it would be like I had died. I don't know what that means really but it sounds bad. I love my kids dearly and I want to be there for them. I also do not want them to be excessively bullied in school. I love my wife too, a lot, but if she wants to go her own way I won't stop her.

So what do I do? I have to yet figure that out. I don't think I can live with less than a full transition though, but who knows. Maybe the wife and kids will adapt and we all get to be happy. That would be the best outcome. Or maybe we split up and we get joint custody of the kids. Less than ideal, but I could live with that. Worst case is she gets to exclude me from their lives and I become virtually dead to them. I don't know if I could live with that.

If you value the relationship with your wife, you have to be open and honest with her above everything else. The first things she will feel (rightly or not) is betrayal of trust. You need to talk to her ASAP and let her be part of the journey. She may decide to leave the relationship and that is her right but you will have your integrity and you will know you did the right thing. Be ready for accusations of lying, misleading and withholding information and don't expect any sympathy for YOUR suffering and pain, at least not at first.

If she sticks with you, it an be an amazing release of pressure having someone close that you can be open with. It is really hard when we have to hide ourselves in our own homes which leaves us without a place of refuge. A situation that you will want to avoid at all cost though  is telling her and then  letting her force you back into the closet and refuse to talk about it or deal with it.

OlderTG - Thanks for your perspective, and I agree with you. In conversations with my therapist it is becoming clear how I have always put others first, usually as a good deflector from people focusing on me, and the part of me I have always kept hidden.

I've been having therapy sessions weekly for 4 weeks now, and I'm still working on resolving who and what I am, but I do know now I will come out to my wife and family, as soon as I have better on handle on this myself.

Leeloo_Dallas - I'm glad it's going well for you, I hope I get a similar reaction.

ImagineKate - It sound's like we're in similar boats, I also have a good career, and could afford to move on from family if my wife insisted, and still support them (which I always would), and also myself. I guess I'm lucky being in the UK, that legal protection in the workplace is strong here. Whatever decision you make, I wish you the best.

JessicaH - I've got a big bunch of major family events soon that I don't want to ruin. But once done, I plan to open up and then see where I go from there.

Megan.

Where you are now, I was a year and a half ago. I had a three month old when I came out to my wife. I tried the whole "I'll do it when no one is around" thing, but realized my son would someday be awake more than asleep.
Honestly, I'm happier now. I can openly express myself, go out with friends as Chelsea, and I haven't even started hrt yet.
I still have my wife and son, and we want another kid. We still are evolving our relationship, but I think we'll be ok in the end.