Like you and Katrina I am married, and still am after dropping the T-bomb on my wife. Just that alone was worth many many hours of sleepless nights. By the time my third support group meeting was over I knew two absolute truths, 1) I needed to be there, 2) It is almost too late to tell my wife what's up.
Obsessing for me is a bit of an occupational hazard as well as a personal trait. I get paid well to What If things to death. Unfortunately obsessing in my personal life usually led to very bad answers. This time, having realized another absolute truth; "I know what does not work"; has brought me some amount of peace in any decision/conclusions I made since they were a break from my past ways of doing things, also known as how I was NOT handling being trans.
Being trans and coming out has PLENTY of pitfalls, so being worried, being prepared for the worse, is a good thing. It's nice to have a Plan B if Plan A does not fly since you have a partnership (spouse). Of course, if you are a member of the Transition or Die club, Plan B is best off being an eventual divorce. After a good six years of coming out to my wife and being on HRT she is still expecting me to dump her in spite of all I say to assure her that will never be the case. (Yes, she also says "She did not marry a woman" as well as being totally honest about her can't promise anything feelings as we both go down this road I'm leading us on)
I've been on/off low dose HRT several times as sort of a brain/emotional reset. For me it works, and works well. During my WTF am I doing
meltdowns and stopping for a short period, the effects of being off HRT come roaring back with a vengeance to remind me that I knew what was best to do so stop this other silly thinking of going back to what does not and never will work.
How well HRT alone will work I think will depend a lot on how severe your GD is. On low dose years ago after a month I was in a far better mindset. After four months when things downstairs started to take a hit, that was in direct conflict with "Being a normal guy". So I stopped.
When I started this new phase 6 years ago, transitioning was the absolute last thing on my To-Do list. Been there, tried it twice in my 20's. My goal was to find a way to get these two major aspects of myself to live happily together inside of me. However, a funny thing happened on my way to finding inner peace, transitioning became a very real option. I still present primarily as male and need to for I cannot take the risk of going full-time right now. Most days I feel I do not need to transition to live another day. Most, but not all. Just like most days I know I need to keep on doing what I am for myself. But not all, especially lately with all the transphobic fallout and sensationalizing Caitlyn Jenner's coming out. I stopped my earlier transition experiments in my twenties between the world was far less tolerant then and at 6ft tall I stood out in many ways. Having spent a good part of my life before that as a target, I wasn't about to volunteer for being one. Last month was not a good one for me. I'm glad it's not my 60'th birthday coming up next week or.....
Opps, sorry for the obsessing
