All well and fine with the sentiments of Donna and Veda.  I wish you well.

I have not come out to my wife and do not plan to, having found a path to control dysphoria with therapy, meditation and "conservative" measures not requiring me to transition. 

In the course of investigating my options in discussions with my wife over years, mostly as her comments in response to others who have been couples where one partner transitioned, several things became patently obvious; clear as day; absolutely predictable outcomes which would result from disclosure and efforts to transition.  First, she married a man and would not accept being married to a transitioning TG woman having married a man and wants to continue to be married to a man.  Second, she is not a lesbian and needs a man not a woman as a partner.  Third, if she were thrust into the role of being the partner of a MtF  transitioning she would not be able to continue in the marriage.

Here are my words of caution.  Much like the sentiment of the previous posts, when I directly ask my wife why she loves me, what features of my personality appeal to her.  Clearly, mostly my more classically feminine personality features are the core of her attraction to me, but not to be construed as evidence in any form whatsoever that she would accept a decision to transition.   Be cautious.  As many of the members of this forum have chronicled in their experiences disclosing to a SO or wife, even when accepting of the need to transition, the prognosis of the marriage is more often than not grim.

I am not arguing against transition.  If it is what is needed to live an authentic and tolerable life, then by all means, that is what should be done.  Just be aware of the consequences.

One of the things that I have found very disconcerting on this subject is the amount of power that wives have over such a personal decision.  It's almost as if they are seen as the gatekeeper and one has to ask permission to pass.  Yes they can have a decision in what happens, but only in as far as how they react to the reality of the situation.

Whoever your partner is, they have the absolute right to say and be as they see fit, but not to treat you badly because of who you are.

I know for certain if my wife came out as a lesbian (or a man) if I had a problem with it she would have no trouble making it clear that it was not my decision, and that I would either support her or get out of the way.

That is my right as well.

I think part of the problem, as I have been coming to understand it, is that negative results are expected, so that is what happens, as a self-fulfilling prophesy.

I've yet to put any of this to the test though.

Sorry for the edit, trying not to double tread.

I guess one of the biggest things is my personal outlook.  I've never been suicidal, and my bouts with depression have take the form of nihilism, not despair.  I've survived worse things than divorce.  And now that I have come out to myself, I have hope on my side like never before.

I know I'll live, and maybe that will help when I come out by reducing my need to have everything work perfectly the way I want.

Not that it wouldn't be a loss, but it wouldn't be a loss so profound as to make me stop moving forward.

I entirely agree.  We've got to understand the right the SO has to pursue her wants and needs.  More often than not, particularly in the setting of a later in life transition, the spouse  is hit with a dramatic change in the nature of the marital relationship that was not part of the "deal" at the time of marriage. 

My only point of the previous post was to raise the caution that this freqeuntly leads to failure of the marriage and divorce even if the spouse is supportive of the need to transition and even if the spouse remains civil if not frankly friendly, an ally, through and after the process of transition.   Some spouses are remarkable willing to continue the marriage  under  the new ground rules of the now F-F relationship, committed because of love for the transitioning partner.  Many times this is in the setting of polyamorous marriages, couples where sexual intimacy has become a lesser part of the relationship or where the spouse may have bisexual tendencies.  There are others, probably the exceptional cases,  where happily the relationship simply evolves to a new equilibrium.

Just be aware of the potential outcomes and do what you need to do to fulfill needs for a meaningful life.   At the same time, recognize that your spouse has the right and need to do the same.

Steph

If I had to boil it down (and I will cause it is late) I would say respect your wife and respect yourself. Be understanding of her shock, but realize that it isn't right to have to keep "the secret" as you have. If you can work it out together it is best. My suggestion is no deceit.  Be up front as much as you can without bombarding her. Be gradual. I visual shock of too much, too soon can freak her out and set back any progress. Yes, GOOD LUCK. It can work out.
Monica

Thanks, Steph Eigen for the buzz kill.
My sisters at the Ingersoll center tonight had given me such rays of hope and personal examples of spouses giving support and continued love and marriage. My own wife had been looking at me in a positive light lately. My therapist had been giving me a great and needed boost of confidence.
I am not sure if I needed the buzz kill.

Maybe your caution may save my marriage, if I were to pay attention.
Burying and subjugating who I really am because of fear of my actually loving wife will most certainly lead to a horrible marriage based on lack of truth. Resentment to the max!
My therapist was pointing me in a different direction than your caution, based on the description of the nature of my marriage and of my wife.
My therapist also was suggesting that fear of disclosure to my wife of 41 years gives an unfair power over my future.

You may be right, Steph, but I have been dead on the inside in my own marriage lately because of going by your strategy. An emotionally dead husband is neither a husband nor a living spouse of any kind.

I have tried the way of lying, deceit, and non-disclosure masked by inward meditative checking out.
It has not been working. My wife even looks miserable lately.

Buzz kill not intended. 

If disclosure and transition is needed, by all means it is what you should pursue.  Surely your therapist knows your situation better than any of us on this forum. 

Just be circumspect about the consequences of your decisions and actions to follow.  I am in no way suggesting you plan your life specifically to preserve your marriage, especially if it is not a functional one.

Steph

Quote from: Donna on January 19, 2017, 02:10:38 AM
My sisters at the Ingersoll center tonight had given me such rays of hope and personal examples of spouses giving support and continued love and marriage.

Although I've only been there once (Ingersoll Center), and it was my first time in any kind of 'public' setting,  I felt so welcome... just that one experience helped me so much, and continues to help.

If you feel any 'buzz kill' I hope you can recall the feeling of being among your sisters there, that whatever you chose to do, you have a community.

Quote from: Donna on January 19, 2017, 02:10:38 AM
My therapist was pointing me in a different direction than your caution, based on the description of the nature of my marriage and of my wife.
My therapist also was suggesting that fear of disclosure to my wife of 41 years gives an unfair power over my future.
You may be right, Steph, but I have been dead on the inside in my own marriage lately because of going by your strategy. An emotionally dead husband is neither a husband nor a living spouse of any kind.
I have tried the way of lying, deceit, and non-disclosure masked by inward meditative checking out.
It has not been working. My wife even looks miserable lately.

I hope you remember that others warning of caution is always perfectly justified, they provide it from their own experience, and this makes it valid.  We do not all have the same circumstance, and not every one has such a positive environment as we do in the Pacific Northwest.  There are still places in the world, hell, places in this country, in which being trans is considered a crime punishable by death.

Follow, the advice of your therapist, and your own heart, if you have the ability to move forward with love and kindness, please do.

(edited to add content)

Thank you both. Thank you to all here for your loving caution.
My marriage is great, but my wife has very little idea how miserable I feel about having to bury myself.

I've spent significant effort continuing to ensure my wife's support.  She's been very helpful and can see a future as wife and wife.  I've had to compromise a lot, but they are worthwhile. 

The hard part is when I'm guilted into something because it might bother my kids who are grown.  It's always been them before me....and it seems to continue. 

Quote from: Donna on January 19, 2017, 11:34:50 AM
Thank you both. Thank you to all here for your loving caution.
My marriage is great, but my wife has very little idea how miserable I feel about having to bury myself.

Please excuse this post if anyone thinks I am derailing, but I want to ask/say something to you Donna. I am wondering if there is a reason you are withholding how miserable you feel hiding your true self. When I came out, I always thought that if people were to really understand what/why I am transitioning, they needed to understand my emotional struggle. I found it useful for people to know the desperation behind my decision. I told them I was faced with two choices, continue as male and be really unhappy and uncomfortable, or take a second very risky choice of being who I really am. If people don't understand how strongly you are driven to be yourself, maybe they will try to fudge their support some. Without knowing your emotions, maybe they can think, "Oh its just "his" hobby." Maybe she could even think it will just be a fad. I think I got a lot of acceptance because I said essentially, "This is life and death for me mentally." This was not put out as an ultimatum but as a look into what I had to deal with. After I let people know this  essential truth, I felt good about putting it in their ball park to know how they wanted to proceed. My thoughts only. Wish you the best.
Moni

Moni,
In the next few days I do indeed plan to describe my misery and depression to my wife. This is the conversation we are going to have. This will be my coming out.

Moni has captured the essence of the situation, something I've come to expect from her thoughtful insights.  I think I can speak for all of us who've participated in this thread--we all understand the anguish, pain, tearing uncertainty often resulting in hear paralyzing fear and inaction; a very real existential threat that may lead to contemplation of suicide.

There is substantial risk to coming out, transitioning, becoming the person you really are, shedding the veil which hides the self, living authentically.  Needless to say, anyone who reads the accounts of our courageous sister here on the forum recognizes the ordeal that must be faced in this process.  On the other hand, there is the risk of remaining closeted living as an actor playing the role of the wrong birth assigned gender.   THe decision fall to each to determine which risk is greater, which path offers the lesser risk. 

Quite a few years ago I read an ancient rabbinical exegetical commentary on the biblical Exodus which has stuck with me and helped guide many decisions for me.  Essentially it cast the event as a metaphor for choosing a path in life's decisions, asking this question:  Would you rather be a slave in a predictable but unfavorable situation, one which is safe in it's predictability, one where you will not starve, one where your daily routine is fairly secure or would you rather escape slavery at the risk of entering the unknown, unpredictable wilderness; a place where you might starve, struggle or even die but do so as in a state of freedom to determine your own destiny.   Generally we tend to tolerate "slavery" as long as not too oppressive. 

Each must determine the threshold where the safe but enslaved life is no longer tolerable. Safe and miserable as a slave vs. Face risk and uncertainty  to find  joy of self realization as without bondage.  It is the heroic theme of most human struggle.

Steph

Donna,

You have my heartfelt best wishes for success. 

Steph

Early on in my endeavor of taking on the Trans-Beast for real, neither my wife nor I had any idea where this may lead or what the future may hold for "Us". We've been together for a long time one way or another. No matter how much she means to me and my life, there was no way I could expect, or even think to ask, for her to stay in my life after such a major game changer.

Early on was also when I came to realize one simple question answered a lot BIG complicated questions:
"Which Pain is Worse?"

Life is a series of trade offs. They all come at some cost as well as some benefit. There is never a perfect solution. Usually a succession of tweaks to keep things generally headed where you want to. A lot like sailing.

Quote from: Donna on January 22, 2017, 11:56:01 PM
Moni,
In the next few days I do indeed plan to describe my misery and depression to my wife. This is the conversation we are going to have. This will be my coming out.

If we look at what Moni said I can actually tell you how it ends up if you don't let them understand the pain and trauma. I know with my Family it took them a long time to work it out...and I still don't believe they truly understand. Trying you protect them from your feelings out of some sense of misguided love will only work for so long. You can bet if you are trying to spare them, they will be doing the same for you...consequence, nobody really genuinely understands how the other feels because nobody genuinely expresses how they feel.

So you end up in  a situation like I did at Xmas, when I really needed that support, I found hostility, because as Moni put it "Without knowing your emotions, maybe they can think, "Oh its just "his" hobby." Maybe she could even think it will just be a fad" so dropping back into male mode really should be no problem.

I hear many of us and I include myself putting out spouses and family ahead of our own needs because we feel that is the right thing to do...where it actually makes things worse because we have not balanced out our needs with our families. It is natural to want to put them first but until you put yourself first and take care of your own issues you can never be best you can be, with your family.

Liz

Okay, sooo, even after revising my input on this topic several times, I am sure I am not going to win any friends with what I am about to say. But, honestly, my conscience will not let me not say something..

But, I better frame it from my own history, and let each of you decide how to apply my thoughts, if you so choose..

In the aftermath of my own disclosure, and then my efforts to explain myself as clearly as I could, and then my efforts to find compromise with her, and then my efforts to slow down my changes, and then my efforts to justify my actions, and then my efforts to maintain the status quo and keep my relationship with my spouse, my biggest, most revelatory epiphany, the most important thing I see now, that I did NOT see then, is how very, very, VERY, one-sided my entire perspective was...

Yes, it was life or death for me. But, I had been lying about my deepest feelings, and hiding what I knew to be my true gender from her, for the entire time I knew her. Even when I net her, and wooed her, and made promises to her to be her man, and to love her, and honor her, and protect her, I was lying to her.

And after all that, when I couldn't keep my truth from exposing my LIES, I had the audacity to continue to make demands on her, and revile her when she didn't 'understand', and yet, I continued to USE my spouse as a balm for my own pain, without her consent, just as I had done from the start, and for almost two decades.

Yes, she tried, and failed, to find peace with MY truth. But it was never, ever HER truth...

Yes, she became abusive, yes she behaved badly, yes, she made my life a living hell...

BUT, it was ME hat had lied to HER all those years, and when I think of how utterly unfair it was for me to waste her life, and then to try to manipulate her into staying with me, a person she never actually knew, I am soo very ashamed and mortified at my own selfishness. I despise what I did to her. There was nothing honorable, nor justifiable to my actions. I used her. It really comes down to that. Then, I expected her to magically understand, adapt, forgive, and CHANGE into somebody that she was not. Irony, anyone?

Marriage is not about keeping secrets, nor pretending, nor lying, nor anything else but the communion of two souls, heart to heart, with the intention of staying true for a lifetime. At least, that's how I see it.

At least that is how I think it ought to be...

I was WRONG to lie and manipulate and guilt HER into compromising HER desires and priorities.

What I should have done, was 'woman up', and tell her immediately, and release her the moment I knew for a fact I was female. But I did not, I took the low road, I was not a good person.

Did I mention I was selfish?

The fact is, if our roles were reversed, and had she told me that she was really a man, I wouldn't have lasted a week with her going forward. I expected my spouse to be a saint, when in fact, I rarely have even a fraction of the goodness in myself that she manifested every single day of her life. I still demanded male privilege and deference, even when claiming to be a woman. Irony, anyone?

I just don't kbow what to say to those that choose to continue to live in lies with an unsuspecting spouse. It is cheating her of her rights as a woman, as well as a human being. It is the very definition of infidelity, and is, in my opinion, even worse than sexual infidelity. How on earth can one justify such things? Well, I know the lies I told myself to justify my own actions, but they were still untruths, and the corrosive effects of such dishonesty left a mark on my soul. I am diminished by my deceptions to her. I can live with the lies I tell myself, that is on me. But I cannot justify the harm I did to the woman that chose to believe in me and build her life around me. I hope to someday rise above the depths of my own failings. I am not there yet.

I don't expect to win many friends on a trans site with such views. But the truth is truth..

I only wish I would have had the strength of character to NOT waste a single moment of my ex's life. But I did not..

What I did may have been something I thought I had to do, but it was cowardly and selfish and not honorable, not at all.

I am ready to own my hurtful actions now. I cannot go forward as a sentient being without acknowledging the grievousness of my past actions. I intend to be a better person than I ever was in my past lives.

Do as you feel you must. But realize, lies are lies, and they have consequences on innocent lives.

Missy

I also told my wife in late December, what helps me is the fact that I've taken the first step, reading other people's stories gives some good insight. Painted toe nails seem to give me an edge mentally. Good luck)

     If you haven't told her you want to transition and ultimately have GCS, I absolutely urge you to do so. She may be able to reconcile your dressing, but the added betrayal of the transition bomb could be too much for her to deal with. Imagine, she feels betrayed now, if you wait and drop this tidbit on her at a later date, she's going to think you've lied to her again. Not good.....not good at all. Be frank if it's your intention to transition.
     If you haven't already, I urge you to speak to a Gender Therapist unless you're 100 percent sure of your heart and mind.