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It hurts...

Ashley, it hurts.

I can't take your pain at having to face this decision away.  I wish I could.

Your story is personal.  But it is oh-so similar to many who have gone before you, and many who will come after will face a similar path.

It seems to me the only valid reasons for beginning transition, or for stopping transition, are personal, and should NEVER involve doing what someone else wants.  The only person I know who stopped transition decided for himself that he didn't want to do it.  No one outside of himself influenced his decision.  He is at peace with it.

It hurts me to see you are faced with a situation where, no matter what you choose, you will lose something dear to you. 

But how many of us have had to endure just that?

Karen

Hello Ashley,

Quote from: Ashley Michelle on January 04, 2008, 02:30:55 PM
ashley on the roller coaster...

well, in about another ten days i will have completed 5 months of hrt.

so much has changed since that first little blue pill.  it seems like a lifetime ago, rather than just 5 months.

like many, at first it was just an "experiment,"  ya know, just to "see."  a "temporary" thing.  sigh.  but it felt....good.  better than that, it felt right.  i dont know how else to explain it.  it works.  i have felt the sanest i have ever felt, all things considered, and i had the best semester in law school yet -- looking at a 3.85 this semester.  law school where everyone is a freakin' genius, and i am doing better than i ever thought possible.  i sleep better.  i'm calmer.  i still have a temper, but it isnt as evident as it once was.  i cry at sad movies (and almost anything else).  i feel sexier.  i feel like me.  and the thought of quitting hrt now makes me feel physically ill.

i told my wife i had gid in late october i think.  at first, while she was of course shocked, she seemed to be very supportive.  now she just seems angry.  and sad.  and hurt.  and cheated.  i understand all of those feelings, and i wish more than anyone that i wasnt what i am.  i've been struggling with this for 48 years, 3 months isnt enough to begin to process anything.  but she has made it very clear lately that as much as she loves me (we've been together 25 years and have had a good marriage for the most part) she will not be a part of any transition.  she told me this morning that her nonnegotiable goal was to keep her husband; and that she wont change, ever.

she is the only good thing i have had in my life, the only thing that has really mattered.  so now i feel stuck.  trapped.  the worms wont go back in the can, the cat back in the bag, or the dog back under the porch.  i cant go forward and cant go back.  i dont want to hurt anymore.  i dont want to hurt her anymore.  i told her this morning that it is twice as bad now for me -- because i still have to fight the damned gid as well as deal with the fact that she is in pain now too.  she is such an incredibly private person -- part personal and part cultural -- she said she would rather die herself than have anybody know about me.  sigh.  i dont know what i should have done and i dont know what i should do now. 

i wont trade her happiness for my own.  it would be easier if she hated me.  i know it sounds sometimes like she doesnt love me but i know she does.  she loves me almost enough.

i remember when i first came to susans and the hot topic was "there are two choices -- transition or die."  i thought to myself, oh yeah sure there are, its not like that at all.

but it is.

i just admitted it yesterday.  i've been on the roller coaster my entire life -- i just now realize it.  and the ride is going to come to an end, one way or another, very very soon.  it has to, i cant keep going like this any longer.  there are only two choices.  transition or die.  those are the only choices there have ever been.  and the only ones there ever will be.  i guess i thought i was different.

but i'm not.


when i left for school she asked me "do you think we're going to make it?"  i smiled through my tears and said yes.  but in my heart of hearts, i'm so afraid the answer is no.  because i dont think i'm going to make it.  not as a boy.  not anymore.  i cant go back to what never was.

the ride is coming to an end.  the only question is how i'm going to get off.




ashley michelle hart
1/04/08

Funny, I too have referenced my life as a roller coaster and that caught my eye about your post. I am sorry for what is happening between you and your wife...I lost my marriage when I came-out to here and sadly there are many in the community that have too...it's not uncommon...

I can also relate, as most here can too, to your comments about transition or die. A lot of people get to that point...I attempted suicide three times last year because of my GID...you can only hide from it for so long...so if you push it to the back of your mind it will only come back in the future...usually stronger then the last time too...it becomes a vicious cycle to be honest...

The only person who can true decide what is right for you is you and I sort of think you know just what way you need to go with your life...I will tell you that it can hurt a lot...hell...more then a lot...and there are costs to becoming your true self...

I wish you well in your journey...the only problem is that unlike a roller coaster...this isn't a ride you can really ever got off of.....

Peace and love,
Isabelle St-Pierre

Ashley,
   I know your pain oh to well. I have been in your position and made it out. It's hard, very hard. Suggestions would be to take it slow, don't rush through, she has to catch up with you. Talk, is very important. She will learn in her own way. You might try going to therapy together if you haven't all ready. You have lied all this time to her, now is the time to not lie at all, not even if you bought a candy bar and didn't tell. You need to build the trust up right now.
   I have been married for 38 years and I'm post op 4 years. We are still in love, not intimate, but I do know others who are still married and they are intimate. I felt for the longest time should would leave me, but now I have no concerns of that happening, at least not because of my transition.
Sheila
 

Hi Ashley,

I feel very sad about your situation.  It is far from unusual, but that doesn't help you does it. 

I am in a very similar position to yours.  My wife of 29 years is beginning to weaken my resolve.  I have told her that I need to be selfish for once and do what I want, i.e. transition, but it is a very hard road.

My wife is alternately upset, then supportive, then angry, and then scared, and I never know which one to expect on any given day.  The Xmas holidays were a b**ch.

Since I told her she has quite literally gone into a state of grief.  She is grieving the loss of her husband, friend, companion, lover, .....   Yes she is likely to lose her husband and (male) lover, but I hope that friendship and companionship will prevale.   She does not think it is enough.

She believes that  her 'dark' periods, when she thinks she has lost me, only happen when she is having a bad day, i.e. she is depressed about something else.  On days when she is 'up' and feeling good she sees me as her friend and companion again.

I have told her that I will try to slow down my transition plans to better accommodate her needs, but she tells me that she wants what is best for me and I should go full speed ahead,and ignore her pain.

She the tells me that she is too old to find another companion, so she is either stuck with me or must live alone for the remainder of her life.  My wife is the light of my life, my truest friend.  If I lost her I would be devastated.  I don't think I could live with myself, but I know I have to try. 
I am damned if I do and damned if I don't.

The bottom line is I cannot win in this situation.  I fear you likewise cannot win.  We cannot have it exactly the way we want it.  We have to suffer yet more pain in order to obtain peace with our gender.

I realise this post has not helped you in any way.  There is no way to sugar coat it. 

Understand that we are all different, and our relationships are all different, hell we have half a century of baggage to wrestle with. 

I wish you lots of luck with your situation, as I too am praying for luck to help me.  I can only hope that as I continue to transition my wife will see that nothing much changes, and I will undoubtedly become a happier person, and good to be around. 

But there is no going back now.  My relationship with my wife will never be the same again.  I sometimes hoped I would awake from a bad dream and realise it was all a joke.  A bloody bad joke at that.

I wish you lots of luck Ashley.

I will keep my fingers crossed for both of us.

Hugs
Jenny

Ashley, I'm 48 also (so you and I and Renate can form a "mid-40's transition club" if you'd like) -- and my story is very similar to yours.  I started hormones and therapy as a way of trying to calm the frustration and the anger, and was really hoping that I wouldn't feel better on the hormones because I knew what it would mean.  And sure enough, 2 months later, 4 months later, I was feeling great, better than I've ever felt, and I was both sad and overjoyed.  Something's coming to and end and something else is starting, and even if your marriage survives, it won't be the same -- there's absolutely no going back to the way you were. 

I'm terribly lucky to have a wife who, after 6 months of very chilly and cordial and academic discussion, really turned the corner and is a huge help to me right now. 

I don't think it has to be transition or die, as there must be options in between, like androgyny, anti-depressants, and so on, but I tend to think of it in the same way you do -- once you start opening the bottle, there's no way to get the genie back.  Going backwards is perhaps the most horrible thing people like us can contemplate, so you're forced to think of what kinds of futures are more palatable than others.  There's the one where I'm living as a woman, but divorced.  There's the one where we're together, but chilly.  There's the one where I don't transition and I'm in a drug-induced stupor, angry and depressed.  And so on. 

I was reading a book on religion and trans-ness last night in preparation to tell my sister, who is a fundamentalist, and I was literally dumbstruck by a chapter in "Trans-gendered:  Theology, Ministry, and Communities of Faith" by Justin Tanis (the chapter 7 is entitled "Gender as a Calling").  "Rather than seeing ->-bleeped-<- as a medical problem to be corrected, a psychological incongrence between body and spirit, or even a quirk of societal organization, I look at my experiences of gender as the following of an invitation of God to participate in a new, whole, and healthy way of living in the world--a holy invitation to set out on a journey of transformation of body, mind, and spirit."  I'm not religious at all, but I was struck by how you can change the terms you use to look at your life and that simple change makes all the difference.  I remember thinking something similar about 4 months ago:  "what if being transgendered is not a curse, as I've felt all my life?  What if it's a blessing instead, and by "giving in" to it, I'm not losing a battle, but actually winning?"  It was a weird flip-flop of perception, but it has helped a lot. 

This may not help you at all, Ashley, but lots and lots of us have been right where you are, and choosing life, choosing to listen to your inner calling, is nothing to be ashamed of.  You can PM me if you'd like to talk.  Your wife, even though she's private, might benefit from joining a discussion board for SO's with a pseudonym so she can vent, too.

Ashley,

Thanks for sharing. 

I learned four things at the TG conference in Atlanta in September to try and save my marriage:
1. Stop criticizing yourself.
2. Do not state what you will or will not do because you do not know.
3. Do not promise what you will or will not do because you do not know.
4. Be prepared to make compromises with your wife.

I really have tried to stop what I am doing three times in the past three years.  I figured I can get this thing under control by myself.  I felt absolutely awful when I stopped and I have felt somewhat better when I continued.  I had no intention of telling my wife because I did not want to burden her and I felt she did not love me anyway.  It took telling her two times with a six month interval and attending SCC in secret for one week before she even understood what I was telling her.

Somehow we became great friends again and I have someone to talk to about TG.  My wife has asked me to not burden the children with my "issues" and I have complied.

My wife cries if I get close to her if I have no clothes because she does not want to be romantic with a girl. 

However we again hold hands when we walk.  We go to the stores shopping together.  I attended a fashion show with her in which I asked her if I could attend.  We went to a clothing store and I asked if she could help me find my size.  She guessed 12M for the jeans and was correct.  I did not buy the clothes I just wanted to know my size.   She calls me Keri when we are alone.

We are no longer lovers but we are again friends.  I wish we were romantic.  I just do not want to be male.  However she married a male and I married a female.  I am the one that is different not her.  I am going to guess she is the one in twenty women that accepts her spouse.  I will say she loves me and I love her.  I wrote very little on the forum for three months because I could talk to her... nonstop... and I have many secrets.

About a week ago I realized how impossible this process is to complete and save your marriage.  I became extremely despondent and I told her.  She said I should call her if that ever occurred again.

One option that I still have is called compromise.  I am trying to put my life back together.

My wife keeps asking me why I have so many blemishes on my face.  She said are you allergic to shaving?  I finally told her last week that I burn the hair off my face periodically.  Let it heal and then do it again.  She said she remembered 27 years ago when we kissed that your shaved face would give me a rash and I liked that.  I felt really bad that she made that comment because I have to get rid of the hair on my face.  This is not an option.

I will interview as a male tomorrow.  TG can be a very lonely experience.  All in all I am doing better now then when I joined this forum two years ago.  My wife tells me to take one day at a time.  I really do not know what I will do but I am not going to stop what I am currently doing and my wife knows that.

Love,
Keri

Quote from: Renate on January 10, 2008, 08:43:48 PM
I just know that for me I couldn't live if I had to take my brain off HRT.
All the other parts of HRT and transitioning are important too, but not as important as that.
Renate

I would live without HRT but it would be an unpleasant existence.
..............................

Quote from: Ashley Michelle on January 10, 2008, 08:32:51 PM
well, she said it today:  "transition or marriage."  black and white, cut and dried, no compromise available or possible.

i'm not strong enough to say, "ok fine then i'm transitioning"

i'm just not.

sad thing is we still love each other.

so i guess i'm not transitioning.  at 47, i know if i dont do it now i never will.  that just kills me inside.  but i cant do anything else right now.

Ashley,
The ability to talk and share your feelings is a great first step.

What is something that you and your wife can do that is low stress and fun?  My wife and I like to take walks so that we had started taking walks again.  One neighbor drove by us when we were walking and exclaimed, "You two got to stop holding hands on your walks because it is making the rest of us married couples look bad."   My wife and I could not stop laughing with that comment!  I have chemically castrated myself and the neighbors are jealous of me holding my wife's hand. Life has much irony.

What I have learned in staring at the wall for about five years is that maybe everything is not black and white.

I have been making a concerted effort to rejoin society for the last of those five years.  I have noted that you are attending law classes which must be commended.  Hey I interviewed today as a male of course.  I sprayed my hair down as my wife told me to do since it is rather long for me since it is about two inches over my ears.  I then put on a sports bra for my B boobs, covered that with an undershirt, which was further covered by a loose button-down.  Then I put on my brand new blue pinstripe suit.  The 34 inch trousers easily concealed my 33 inch female waist.  I then had fun at the interview and I did fine.

The hormones have dramatically reduced my muscle mass so that my old suits were way too big to even be cut down.  My wife said you probably did not want to buy men's suits.  I told her she was correct.  She told me I look "Cute" in the suit.  Cute is a unisex word.

I did set-up a user-id for my wife on this forum and gave it to her yesterday.  I am not sure she will use it.  Many of my friends on this forum suggested that I do that two years ago.  There is a significant others section on this forum.

I feel bad that you and your wife are sad Ashley.  Keep sharing how you feel with your wife and also ask her how she feels.

I feel so sad for you Ashley,

Don't give up.  I understand it looks bleak at the moment but you never know what the future holds for you.  Happiness is just round the corner.  Be sure to grab hold of it when you see it, and hang on for dear life.

Hugs

Jenny

Ashley, I feel deeply for you.  How does one balance such ultimatums with what one knows is necessary?  Even if you hunker down for a year waiting for the horse to learn to sing, I think you should get some therapy because either way this turns out, you're going to be hurting. 

Hell, I'm hurting and I've got love and support.  I can only imagine how twisted your gut is.

Thinking of you....

Accepting (or giving into) ultimatums rarely come out well in the end for people forced (and forced is the right word) to give in.  But I feel for you, its never an easy choice between yourself and the ones you love, and who love you.

Ashley,

I've been dealing with the same situation you have for years now. I'm 59. My wife has taken a similar position as yours. I have felt like I was going to explode so many times over the years if I didn't start transition right away. Somehow, I would always get myself to put it off another day, and then it would subside to a manageable level until I couldn't stand it again.

I don't have a solution for your problem (or mine). I may find that I can't fight this forever eventually. I love my wife so much, and I know I would give my life without a second thought to save hers. Reminding myself of this seems to help meput things in perspective and keep on working at it. I indulge in small measures to get through the hard times and she pretends to ignore them. It hasn't ever gotten easier, only harder.

Good luck, and let us know how you're doing.

Steph

This situation is so similar to mine as well. I am 56 and the love of my life has similar concerns as your SO. We will stay together because we still recognize that we have much more in our relationship that binds us. That is not to say however that we are having an easy time, far from it. We still fight and have very many scars from both of us learning how to adjust to the new reality of me being female.

On the topic of being cheated, I say perhaps but who cheated her? Not us because cheating requires a moral motive, one that I doubt any of us had. If you mean cheated by God or circumstance then sure, I can see that attitude. It is like having a partner with a health problem that changes the way the two in marriage can relate. If I lose my sight, is it proper for her to leave the marriage? If she has cancer and cannot have intercourse again should I leave the marriage? That is not the agreement that we entered into when we said "For better, for worse, in sickness and in health" . We try to focus on the fact that the condition I have is medical not moral and therefore not in the same category as infidelity or some other deal breaking behavior.

The greatest happiness in life is found by moving FORWARD.

And you're doing that amazingly.

Life is tough, but so are you, all of you.  Life isn't fair, and all of us get cheated.  Don't blame yourself for making your wife feel troubled, it's not you, it's just the way things turned out.  If things could be different, you know you'd have them that way, but as it is you've got to do what you got to do.

And what you've got to do is realize even further how right this is for you, in such a way that not even your wife can deny you of it.  NOONE can deny you of this.

The time of the revolution of the USA was a very influential time of thoughts and dreams.  It was at that time that new dreams of this world were realized and put into action. 

"Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness."  NEVER forget those words, whoever and whereever you are.

Hi Ashley.

This is going to sound pat maybe, but I once read this little quote somewhere, and it stuck with me:

"If You love something, let it go. If it comes back, it's yours, but if it doesn't it never was."

I try to live my life that way, by taking each day I share with the people I love as a gift that can be taken away at any time. Ultimately I have to live my life, and sometimes that means letting go of relationships and friendships, but that does not mean what we shared is any less special for it.

That said, perhaps I've not met my soul-mate yet, while your wife might well be yours, and my advice about as appropriate as an icepack in Antarctica. I just don't believe you can ever be happy by giving up a part of who you are for another person - I tried that in my own short-lived marriage, and it just didn't work. I ended up resenting her for my mistake, and that's the greatest injustice I could have done to her, because she stood by me through much more than many people would have.

Good luck, dear-heart.

Ashley, I'm in exactly your position. I love my wife and regret the day I hurt her by admitting I have always been TS but kept it hidden. We don't mention it much now because I've more or less come off estrogen, even though it was making me feel great, and am back to trying to be a "normal husband" and hiding my true self. It's hard, but I just can't stand to hurt her any more. I doubt if I will ever resume transition because I'm 60 and my dreams from an early age of being a beautiful girl are in all honesty unachievable now and I don't want to transition into a lonely old woman. Just being realistic, that's all, I guess I was born too soon.

Quote from: Ashley Michelle on January 11, 2008, 10:12:58 PM
thanks for the encouragement all.  thanks to katie for listening to me for like 8 nonstop hours.

today was...ok i guess.  kind of tough on me.  trying to pretend i'm ok.  i'm not off hrt yet.  trying to postpone that as long as possible.

i guess its kind of like the guy who was condemned to die by the king. 

he told the king "your majesty, you dont want to kill me.  i'm the only one in the whole kingdom who can teach your horse to sing."  so the king thought about it and gave the man a year to succeed. 

somebody asked the man "are you crazy?  you dont know how to do this!  why are you trying?" 

"well," the man said, "a lot can happen in a year.  i could die.  the king could die.  and maybe, just maybe, the horse will learn to sing."

Ashley Michelle, welcome to the matrix:-)

Quote from: Ashley Michelle on January 19, 2008, 09:57:26 PMFOR ONCE, I HAVE TO COME FIRST.

I think this is perhaps the hardest part. I'm not old enough to have the same situation you have, but mine has some similarities. My parents are completely against my own transitioning and my mum is particularly hurt by it for various reasons, all stemming from the fact that she loves me. But I had to tell her the same thing. "I'm sorry that this hurts you, but I *have* to come first this time." It wasn't easy, though, because I (and I'm fairly certain I'm not the only one) grew up trying to accomodate those around me, trying not to hurt people (particularly since I was often hurt by others myself and hated to make others feel what I felt), especially since I was inherently abnormal.

Quote from: Ashley Michelle on January 19, 2008, 09:57:26 PM
FOR ONCE, I HAVE TO COME FIRST.

for the first time in my life, i dont want to die.  for the first time in my life, i'm learning not to hate myself.  for the first time in my life, when i look into the mirror, i can see the real me -- ashley -- peeking back out.  for the first time in my life, i have some kind of concept of what the word peace can mean.  i can have it, if i have the courage.  but i gotta reach out and grasp it.  it wont be dropped in my lap.

Oh, I can so relate to everything you've said. While my transition itself is being taken (VERY) slowly for a variety of reasons, that acceptance that I had to come first was just as bittersweet a liberation. After going my whole life trying to make other people love me by making them happy, choosing to love myself and be true to me instead was wonderful - and frightening at the same time. But today I'm a happier, calmer person, and very few things really get to me. I'm moving in the direction I've always needed to but never had the guts to take, and that makes my heart sing. Even if it fails and I end up dead or whatever, I'll die happy, because I was living with my destiny instead of against it.

Quote from: lady amarant on January 20, 2008, 01:41:57 AM
I'm moving in the direction I've always needed to but never had the guts to take, and that makes my heart sing. Even if it fails and I end up dead or whatever, I'll die happy, because I was living with my destiny instead of against it.

Beautifully said. EXACTLY how I feel too, and exactly the realization that FINALLY pushed me past my fears and into a transition. I was born to transition, to walk this path, whatever happens and wherever it leads. Because of that, even the "bad" stuff somehow seems wonderful. It's MINE, it FITS at last.

~Kate~