My boyfriend, of roughly 4 months, whom I've quickly fallen in love with, revealed to me last night that he was thinking about becoming a woman. He has been seeing a therapist and he's trying to figure out what he wants, and if he will do anything, or what to do, but besides them I am the only person who knows.

I've been trying to handle it well, a lot of tears and the like. I understand that its simply apart of who he is. But here is the problem, I love him the way he is now and I'm having a very hard time envisioning him any other way.

I want him to be happy... but I also want him to stay the man whom I've fallen in love with. I feel so selfish for even thinking that.

Anyways everything I've pictured with him has changed... I feel so much that I can't even begin to express those feelings.

If anyone wants to offer words of advice I'd really appreciate it.

*note* I asked, and he said he would always be him to me.

Welcome vtor_91 to Susan's family.

So many topics to explore and posts to read or write.

Many article of news, wiki, links, minecraft and chat.

Take some time and read over the links for the site rules.

Each link holds it own section.

• Site Terms of Service and rules to live by
  
  


• Standard Terms and Definitions
  
  


• Post Ranks (including when you can upload an avatar)
  
  


• Reputation rules
  
  


• News posting & quoting guidelines
  
  


• Photo , avatars, and signature images policy
  
  

Safe passage on your path.

Je suis un être humain,Popcorn?

Hugs

Quote from: vtor_91 on March 15, 2015, 06:28:53 PM
My boyfriend, of roughly 4 months, whom I've quickly fallen in love with, revealed to me last night that he was thinking about becoming a woman. He has been seeing a therapist and he's trying to figure out what he wants, and if he will do anything, or what to do, but besides them I am the only person who knows.

I've been trying to handle it well, a lot of tears and the like. I understand that its simply apart of who he is. But here is the problem, I love him the way he is now and I'm having a very hard time envisioning him any other way.

I want him to be happy... but I also want him to stay the man whom I've fallen in love with. I feel so selfish for even thinking that.

Anyways everything I've pictured with him has changed... I feel so much that I can't even begin to express those feelings.

If anyone wants to offer words of advice I'd really appreciate it.

*note* I asked, and he said he would always be him to me.

I know it is hard to hear but she is and always will be the same person. She always has if dealing with GI have a female brain just someone switched the external body parts when going through development.

Same person, same brain just wrong body. Now here lies in the trouble with SO, the body and society.

You feel in love with a woman In a mans body. Wow, yes so what I am getting from you is you are only into men.

That I can understand. Sexuality has noting to do with Identity.

My suggestion is to find a therapist to work out your own feeling of the relationship.

Then work on the relationship together. See where it goes.

Hugs and welcome

Whether or not you choose to continue the relationship depends on whether you can feel comfortable dating another woman. The person you are dating won't change inside, but on the outside, if she transitions, she will have a female body.

For some people that is a problem, for others it is not. The main thing is to be honest with both yourself and the person you are dating. Trying to make yourself accept comfortable with dating a female will only cause trouble down the road. It is no one's business except you and your girlfriend. If it is really important that the person you have intimate relations with has a man's body, then you will probably have trouble. If after serious consideration you feel that  what is inside the person over rides what you want physically or the entire package, then be honest and tell her that.

Wanting to have the entire male package, meaning both physical and mental is not wrong, nor is accepting the fact that the person you have fallen in love with is both mentally and will be physically female is not wrong either. What is wrong is judging the person you are falling in love with soley on the fact that she is a transgender and is really a mixed up man is wrong.

Talk to her. Look inside yourself and don't pull any punches. As long as you are honest, you'll be ok. Keep the lines of communication open with the person you are dating and let her know how you feel. The one thing you don't want to do is to just break it off with no explaination and leave her wondering what she did wrong.


sam1234

Hi vtor_91,

Welcome to Susan's!
It is really good to see an SO coming here to understand and seek advice.

I am on the other end of a similar situation, as I have recently come out to my wife. We've been married for only a few years but been together for almost a decade now since we started dating. It took us hardly 3-4 months in our relationship to know that we always wanted to be with each other. Over the years, we have planned a whole life together, part of which we have already lived and a big part of which lies ahead.

I am not sure exactly what situation your partner is in, but in my case, I did not even know how serious my gender issues were until last year. I had had a feeling of being 'different' all along, but it was only after a lot of internal struggles that I started accepting myself, and I came out to my wife soon after that.

So far, she has really taken it well, and she says that at the mental / emotional level, nothing has changed, because she has always liked me precisely for those 'differences' that drive my gender issues. But she is not OK with me making any permanent physical changes, or presenting as female to the outside world. She does not identify as lesbian, and even going away from each other is not an option when neither of us has done anything wrong. She thinks we should be able to continue living together the way we always have, while I think we should be able to live together even if I physically transition, but these two views don't really match. So we are in a bit of a bind, and just trying to take it one step at a time. FWIW, she knows about me being here at Susan's and has even shown some interest in what goes on here, so it seems like she may come to accept it more over time.

I don't really have much to offer in terms of direct advice, but I just shared my story in the hope that you might find some parallels. Finally, it is up to your partner to decide about whether to transition or not, and how much if at all. And it is up to you to decide, as others have said, whether you can live with loving the same person on the inside even if she physically transitions on the outside, or whether you want both the inside and the outside to match what you originally fell in love with. Neither of them is right or wrong, it is only about finding what you are comfortable with. And don't worry too much about those labels of lesbian or straight or anything else. They are just labels. Finally, it is your own happiness that matters.

You're not selfish, and you can't help what you feel. Regardless of what happens, you deserve to have your own needs and feelings respected.

My biggest piece of advice right now is to keep communicating (it sounds like you're both doing very well at that!) and to try not to borrow trouble yet. The changes, if and when they come, will likely be gradual, and right now you need to focus on coping with the news itself. There are in fact straight women who do stay romantically involved with trans women, but of course you're under no obligation to do so if you find that your orientation isn't flexible enough. But that's a long way off yet.

(My wife transitioned several years ago now, and I admit I did have to go through a period of grieving the man and husband I was losing even though I was keeping the *person.*)

Welcome to Susan's vtor_91 we have a number of S/O's here, I hope that you can find the answers you need. I believe that there is a possibility that this might be able to bring you and your S/O closer together, I mean there will still be the same goofy jokes and the same interests they had before but they will likely be wanting to cuddle more and other things that you might find you enjoy more about them.
If you are willing to stay with your S/O then please do so with an open mind, you might find happiness that you were not expecting.

Vtor_91,

A loving and lasting relationship is rarely based on intimate and passionate sex but that sex can be an enjoyable part of the relationship. There may become a time in any relationship where you have to forego having sexual intercourse based on the limitations of your partner.

The male may develop a case of "ED" where he is unable to penetrate the female while she still desires that part of the relationship. I don't have any basis to know what that might be like.

The opposite case would be where the female's vagina becomes dry and inflexible to the point that any penetration becomes almost impossible and extremely painful while the male still has the ability and need for that activity. I know what that is like as it happened to my wife and me. Out of my loving concern for her I did not want her to undergo medical treatment to make it possible or to cause her pain for my personal satisfaction. It was a difficult adjustment for me to make but it has now been over six years and we still have a loving and caring relationship.

I still wish it could be possible for me to experience being a female even part time with her both privately and publicly. I don't have much hope of her being accepting of any elective changes. That is why any bodily changes would have to appear to be normal and any surgeries would have to appear to be medically necessary.

I am certain that she could accept me growing breasts, losing body and facial hair, and developing other outwardly feminine characteristics if she felt it was just a natural transition. I am also certain that she could accept me having a penectomy, total castration, and urethra relocation if it was medically necessary. However, she would be totally adverse to any of these changes if she thought they were artificial and elective on my part.    How can I ever enjoy being female with her?

mac1 : On the other hand, PIV isn't necessary to have a happy, passionate, and intimate sex life, either.   Which I assume you know! The OP need not feel obligated, but plenty of lesbians manage to have perfectly delightful sex. (And personally, it was easier for me mentally to reframe our sex life as lesbian than to think of it as "missing" something a heterosexual couple should have... even back when my wife was still equipped for it.)

Thank you everyone for your comments and support.

I've been watching and reading, and its given me lots to think about.

Quote from: blueconstancy on March 16, 2015, 11:54:53 AM
mac1 : On the other hand, PIV isn't necessary to have a happy, passionate, and intimate sex life, either.   Which I assume you know! The OP need not feel obligated, but plenty of lesbians manage to have perfectly delightful sex. (And personally, it was easier for me mentally to reframe our sex life as lesbian than to think of it as "missing" something a heterosexual couple should have... even back when my wife was still equipped for it.)

I am not sure what you are trying to say.

mac1 : I'm not sure how else to explain it... bluntly, I'm saying that an erect organic penis isn't necessary for a satisfying sex life. Lesbians do just fine without that. When my wife was unwilling to use hers, it made me feel better to see it as us being "like lesbians" together than as losing something I'd used to have; I occasionally missed PIV "penis in vagina") sex, but that didn't mean we weren't still having sex.  Perfectly adequate, satisfying sex, even. Heck, in some ways she's also even better at pleasing me now that she understands female anatomy more personally.

I had thought from what you're saying that you and your wife still have a sex life even though she can't cope with penetration anymore, but maybe I was assuming too much there. Even so, it's absolutely *possible* for a couple to have sex without having "sexual intercourse" (if by that you mean PIV). It just takes willingness, a bit of creativity, and possibly toys if the people involved are so inclined.

With that said, I think you and I might be wandering afield from the issue the OP was seeking help with, as they're not really focusing on sex questions in the original introduction.