As some of you will know, last July I had my orchiectomy and then in December FFS.

The same month of July a friendship, which I had maintained on and off for five years, blossomed into something way more. I fell head over heels in love with a gorgeous lady. She supported me through my orchie and facial surgery, holding my hand as I came round from the GA.

But her children have been really difficult about me and us. Two of them deny the reality of transitioning and one of those two left home to live with her dad: she's 16. She says her mum pushed her out. These children have been my partner's lifeblood for years and whilst the other two are older now, 19 and 22, that doesn't lessen the pain for her and by extension for me.

Anyway, my relationship has become more important to me than my transitioning. I probably need to be told, as my partner regularly does, that the one wouldn't have happened without the other. Indeed, she and I had a brief moment of more than friendship back in 2013 but I couldn't cope with myself as a man and it was fairly disastrous in some ways. That comes on the back of nearly killing myself twice through self-medication, of hating my male body (though not my penis) and generally being pretty femme most of my life. I sent off for hormones aged 15 and my earliest memory, aged 4, is putting on my sister's undies. There's a lifetime backstory of believing I'm female. But I'm not a binary thinker on gender.

When I went out for my orchiectomy I knew I had also fallen in love with this person and told her so. Are the two things genuinely linked? Did I need to transition, to love myself, in order to love her?

But I do wonder if this whole thing would be so much easier if I quit the hassle of it. I've lost my testicles, which a significant part of me now regrets, so I can never get them back nor the testosterone that goes with it. And, yes, my face has changed. But it wasn't that drastic. I could live androgynously perhaps. Practically speaking, what testosterone would I need to take alongside estrogen? Without getting too graphic I do have a sort-of function down below too. As it happens I don't think my performance in bed would be remotely good as a man: I hated it for years. But I would still love my gorgeous partner and that's the main thing, the most important thing in my life right now. Incidentally, this is not a conversation that's easy with my partner, though we have held it, because of course she has staked everything on this: her children's wellbeing has arguably been affected by my decision to go ahead with transitioning.

I know this is a muddled post. But I feel torn and often anxious. I want to make my lover happy in all respects and although she's fantastically supportive, life would be so much easier if I was less obvious about my transitioning: if I lived, as many do in Thailand, something of a half-way house. I've never been a gender absolutist anyway so I don't have any massive hassle about gender fluidity. I would still take estrogen and dress femme or adrogynous. But surely I'd need a little testosterone back, wouldn't I? Especially to keep things working down below.

Argh. Argh. Argh. This way madness lies. Help.

If I wasn't resisting transition so much over such a long time I'm sure I'd wonder if I really needed to. As I move forwards in transition I usually feel relatively normal, so much so that's its almost like I'm not trans. But if I stop too long all my problems come back and worse. I've had it a few times now, and I'm absolutely certain that how I feel now won't last if I don't keep going.

Thanks for this: so in other words, it's easy for me to say this now but if I were to go back I'd be in a far worse state? If that's what you mean a good part of me knows that to be true. In the brief moments when I came off meds following unintentional over-dosing I was in massive depression: I couldn't live as male.

But could I live like this: not have the vaginoplasty, take some T, a little viagra () and live androgynously?

If you're anything like me, then you only feel this way because you are currently transitioning. If you were to stop it would all come back. I'd guess you'd slowly start to feel unhappy, but not really sure about it to start with and you'd not want to mess up things so you'd keep going with it until things got bad again. Then regret for going though it all again.

No idea what it would take to work as a compromise. I'm kind of ok with presenting male for now, but I'm pretty sure that's just a temporary situation. If that doesn't work I plan on having SRS, still presenting male, and seeing how that goes. I'm really just trying to delay the inevitable. In a new relationship I don't really think that's a good idea because you'll probably just be storing up problems for later, and not giving yourself the opportunity to have a relationship without those problems. I'd hope you can do that with the current person though.

I have found slowing things down has helped me gain some acceptance - perhaps the classic boiling a frog.

What a great post AnonyMs. Thank you. That's very helpful.

xx

Hmmm, very tough decision indeed.
If it were me, I'd be thinking along the lines of what if the relationship with this woman didn't work out two or three years down the road. Would you try to go back to transitioning, and having regretted losing two years?

I guess what I'm saying, my decision to transition was for me, and no one else entered into the equation. Selfish? Perhaps, but for 35 years I was always appeasing others. When I started living full time, it was for me, I was in charge.

Wish you ouck

I completely agree Nina and thank you for your thoughts.

If I didn't have this relationship I would get vaginoplasty tomorrow if I could and continue with full transitioning. She and I have talked about that and she's very very supportive. It's also not a decision I can push her to help make. Were this relationship to end I would bitterly regret not having done the transition.

But the fact is that I am with her now and love her very very much. It's very tough.

Hi Rachel,

Keep yourself at the centre of your thoughts. By this I mean that, as trans people, we have spent most of our lives trying to fit in for others. We are in this situation not because we just want to "see what trans is" but because we are. Your partner knows this, and was aware of the situation before this current relationship started. It sounds as though she's saying to you that these current issues are not down to you. Maybe you should believe her.

Children/young adults are sometimes (often?) some of the most conservative and change-resistant people around. And sometimes they're not. I acknowledge what you say about their actions but, cliche as it is, maybe it says more about them than you.

I'm guessing from your recent posts that you've been in a bit of a trough post FFS. If you've not already done so, maybe a check in with the therapist might help?

I wish you all the very best at this difficult time. I know how hard it can be trying to square off with a cis partner.

Take care, with love & hugs


Ros

I look back when I married my ex wife, I married her partially because I did care for her, but I also did it to hopefully suppress my feelings I had about wanting to be a woman. I thought if I got deep into the relationship,those feelings would go away. First couple years was ok, but then I started having a lot of angst, anxiety...and I took it out on her.
In the end, only regret I have is having married her and wasting her time. Thankfully we were only married 8 years.
If I had of been true to myself then like I am now, things would have happened sooner. Or, perhaps the marriage was a wake up call. I dunno.

I notice that during the "honeymoon" period of a relationship and for a few years after, the other person is more important to me than I am to myself. It's a mental state I think a lot of us go through, and it eventually wears off. Not saying you will stop caring about someone, but eventually your own needs do resurface. Your desire to transition probably will as well.

Quote from: Kylo on January 30, 2017, 05:58:14 AM
I notice that during the "honeymoon" period of a relationship and for a few years after, the other person is more important to me than I am to myself. It's a mental state I think a lot of us go through, and it eventually wears off. Not saying you will stop caring about someone, but eventually your own needs do resurface. Your desire to transition probably will as well.

Absolutely!! ^^^^^^^

Thanks for these lovely and thoughtful comments so far. Since my second surgery I've had one appointment with 2 psychiatrists at the GIC but I have also asked for a counselling referral specifically with regard to the family and relational issues which have arisen.

It's true that I have been feeling low since FFS. I found it a physical battering and was quite ill in the aftermath. The hormonal changes too from coming off estrogen, when I have no testosterone left, have left me emotionally mauled. I'm still now on what would be considered a low level of estrogen input, lower than when I self-medicated but that's because I felt ill on a much higher one. Part of the reason I like the lower dose is that I assume, perhaps incorrectly, it keeps up my libido and functionality down below with the male bit that's left. That's for her.

My partner is really supportive and took the decision to be with me through the transitioning. Some of the doubts lie with me because I know she has never been with a female before and she likes aspects of my previous maleness. She was very keen on me before as a man, but I could not reciprocate. It's only in July, the same month as my orchie, that I was able to love her and told her so. But she keeps reassuring me that she wants to be with me that she wants me to be happy and that this, in turn, will make her happy. She has staked one hell of a lot in terms of her children.

I live with this anxiety of rejection. It's one of the reasons I spent so long tightly coiled with an impenetrable casing. I wouldn't let her, or anyone, in. I lived for myself and did my own thing, mainly in Thailand. I told myself I would never let anyone back into my life: a life which has seen a lot of pain: two failed marriages and I have buried three of my children- one through suicide

Now, two of her children have rejected me, her and us. Others more on the periphery reject me and us. And so some of my current thinking is wrapped up in not wanting to be rejected: not wanting to lose that which has become most precious of all to me, namely her. I love her, adore her. When I awoke from the FFS surgery and felt my hand in hers it was the most viscerally awakening moment of my life. I have become dependent on her love, I know, but it's wonderful and wholly unexpected.

Great thread, Rachel and everybody else. I've heard these statements made before if their decision was right to transition, start hrt, ffs, even grs. This just goes to show us, how complex, resilient, and fragile, the human condition is.

I will learn from this thread.

You've been rejected by these three young people (sorry, I can't call them kids, even the 16-year-old), and you want to turn that around by bending to them.  This has nothing to do with your identity, Rachel.  You are who you are.  If they rejected you because of your profession, would you change that?  Because of your skin color?  I'm sorry, but you can't control what other people think.  You can only be yourself, as best you can, and let other people make their choices, however painful.  Including this woman you love -- perhaps she recognizes, better than you, that her children are old enough to do what they need to do, and she needs to do what she needs to do.  This is kind of how people discover who they are.

If you tried to be someone else, you would fail, because you can only be yourself. 

As to matters of libido, I've found progesterone (bioidentical) can do wonders for that.  Women have libidos that aren't driven by testosterone. You don't have to live as a post-menopausal woman.  Something to talk about with your endoc.  There is more to hormone therapy than physical development -- there are also matters of psychological well-being to take into consideration, too.

Finally, I'm curious about this averring that you don't have genital dysphoria, and yet you say you'd get SRS "tomorrow" if it weren't for this relationship? 

But she's "very very supportive" so it's not like she's stopping you.  Well, except for liking certain aspects of your maleness... I tell you, I was in a relationship during transition as well, albeit a pre-existing one, and yeah, she was very very supportive, and very very loving, but she was also very very sad about losing the kind of sex life that she wanted.  And this wore on me.  Because I needed a certain kind of sex life, too, and it had nothing to do with retaining anything down below.  Or retaining any aspect of the previous role in life that I had pretended to fill.  And when it came down to it, the most honest thing for both of was to go our own ways, because an authentic relationship can only be founded on being fully authentic people.  If either of you are making sacrifices out of fear of loneliness, I'm sorry, you're not being your true selves. 

I don't think the dream you harbored all your life, Rachel, was to live in a half-way state of androgyny. 

Quote from: Kylo on January 30, 2017, 05:58:14 AM
I notice that during the "honeymoon" period of a relationship and for a few years after, the other person is more important to me than I am to myself. It's a mental state I think a lot of us go through, and it eventually wears off. Not saying you will stop caring about someone, but eventually your own needs do resurface. Your desire to transition probably will as well.

I so much agree with this! And I've read this from a lot of others. I am now 100% convinced that it's something that will never go away. It may become quiescent for some short or longer periods, but it will always come back, and usually stronger.

Warm greetings

Sarah

Gosh there are some brilliant replies here so far. There's so much to think about. Sophia, I have pm'd you.

The progesterone is a brilliant point. I am due to see an endo so I will discuss that with him or her.

On the penis / dysphoria thing it's just that I really really want a vagina. I can't wait (were it not for my partner) but I don't hate my penis particularly. I don't like using it for sex and for years could barely do so but I don't massively hate the thing. I did hate my balls as the source of testosterone and hence why I got them cut off and why, when I came round from orchiectomy, I exclaimed 'I feel fantastic.' I've never smiled so much as the weeks after my orchie

Such a lot of this angst is tied up in my new relationship ...

p.s. I also know it won't go away but would resurface after the honeymoon period. My partner fully accepts that too though.

Quote from: rosinstraya on January 30, 2017, 05:46:14 AM
If you've not already done so, maybe a check in with the therapist might help?

I agree with this. During the month before my start of HRT I had a major meltdown.  I almost cancelled my HRT appointment which I had been on the waiting list for 2 months for.  But the weekend before my appointment I had a session with my therapist and she helped me so much.  She was tough and asked me some questions that I had been avoiding for a long time.  I wonder how long she had those superbly targeted arrows stored up in her quiver? Anyway, she asked them at exactly the right time and that got me over a tough spot.

Yes I've just requested counselling from my two psychiatric doctors, specifically re. the relational issue and the angst that's giving me.

The support on here is quite, quite, fantastic.

Just to show that I'm not exactly back tracking in, and of, myself ... today I have done my voice training, put on makeup and repainted my nails. I've dressed femme, walked in public and been out for a run. The angst is tied up with how things effect, and are affected by, my relationship.

I had an orchiectomy to reduce my need for medication and to stop the T flow at the source.  I wanted to have and love the permanence.  It has not made any difference in my libido or erectile function but playing the typical role of a male in bed has little interest for me.  I like a post where another girl talked about her "shenis" as words do matter. 

Potential regrets are reasonable to consider any time we take a pause and reflect on a journey with such profound impacts.  As much as i love my wife, family and friends this is ultimately our life to own as we will.  We can maintain empathy and compassion for those we love while being true to ourselves.  That truth includes our ability to define ourselves.  Who else deserves that power or knows us so deeply?   Relationships can be supportive and even foster dependance without being controlling.  It is a bit of a dance eh?

My concerns regarding GCS still outweigh my needs to proceed.  We vote with our feet at times and I have not stepped fully into the GCS arena yet.  This discussion thread is very helpful.  Thanks all