Quote from: SiobhánF on April 23, 2017, 08:35:11 AM
You weren't a bad person. You were clinging to something that wasn't going to last and you were trying to keep what wasn't yours; her freedom of choice. Now, you have the hindsight to realize that you made mistakes and you are more aware of your emotions and can control yourself more. You grew as a person and that's not a bad thing. You're in a better place because of the conflict you went through. You are wiser; stronger.

Thank you for the insight I did try to keep her freedom of choice for myself. Wise words that gives me better understanding.

Today I feel very bad for what I have done to cause that mess. I feel that I am slipping back into depression, My head is spinning I have negative thoughts just want to cry and feel disabled. Memories of how bad it was and must have been for her is flooding my mind as I am sitting here trying to concentrate on work. How can I forgive myself for that mess. I was the cause why I am sitting today without my child under my roof. It eats me alive although I do see her every weekend I forgot what it is to be a parent in a way because she is only visiting I am not raising her.

It eats me to know some other guy is having more access to my child than I do. He is there in the week and weekends she sees him during the week after school. I guess I just have to suck it up because what can I do about it. I will always be the other parent.

I wrote an email to my ex and don't know if she read it saying sorry about everything and taking responsibility for my actions. I wish she did read it because it is really from my heart. I know there will never be a change of heart from her side I know my chance is blown. The idea is not to get her back but to set my heart at piece that I did say sorry. Yesterday when I dropped of my child I broke down in tears in front of her and my boyfriend. I was standing in front of a woman I cherish and I can't even give her a hug and say I am sorry. She will flip out.

I guess I love her enough still till this day that I want to see her happy. Even if it is with someone else. She would have never been happy with me ever after a came out and caused that mess.

You have come an incredibly long way from the way you say you felt in the beginning. The fact that you can see your part as well as hers in your relationship issues is really more than most people can ever do. Just remember to not accept the blame for her actions and decisions. It's good to be able to see what you did but counterproductive to fall to the point of wanting all the blame for what she did. It takes two people to make a relationship succeed or fail.

I too get these moments of complete self blame. My wife and I keep going back and forth right now. Sometimes though I think if I just could have kept it quiet and suffered through life without ever admitting who I am then life for everyone else would be so much easier. That's the catch though. When I think about making it easier on others I am forgetting how much harder it would be for me. To be quite honest I was afraid I could not avoid self harm even the next few years.sometimes my kids were the only reason I did not do it already. For me transition is the only hope I have seen really in my life for happiness.

Quote from: josie76 on April 24, 2017, 07:07:18 AM
You have come an incredibly long way from the way you say you felt in the beginning. The fact that you can see your part as well as hers in your relationship issues is really more than most people can ever do. Just remember to not accept the blame for her actions and decisions. It's good to be able to see what you did but counterproductive to fall to the point of wanting all the blame for what she did. It takes two people to make a relationship succeed or fail.

I too get these moments of complete self blame. My wife and I keep going back and forth right now. Sometimes though I think if I just could have kept it quiet and suffered through life without ever admitting who I am then life for everyone else would be so much easier. That's the catch though. When I think about making it easier on others I am forgetting how much harder it would be for me. To be quite honest I was afraid I could not avoid self harm even the next few years.sometimes my kids were the only reason I did not do it already. For me transition is the only hope I have seen really in my life for happiness.

I do take some of the blame for her actions and I shouldn't. I sometimes wish I did not say a thing and kept it for myself. I don't know what is harder for me being away from my child during the week or having depression from dysphoria.

At this stage I exchanged my pain of not living as my authentic self at that stage to not being with my 3 year old each day. Having her grow up with two moms and in a broken home.

Knowing that I contributed so much towards that broken home is eating at me. I could not be there as a dad because I was a broken person. Now I am a broken person because I can't be there everyday. I feel that I should have been stronger and been able to handle not transitioning for my child at least.

So for me it was just exchanging pain around.

You totally have come a long way and are healing, that is evident. I too think you are sounding like you are being a smidgeon too hard on yourself but perhaps that helps you come back from a point where you put it on all on her. The truth is, nothing is ever totally on one person, actually not even close.

With that acceptance will come growth and more healing. I have battled depression my entire life, so i know how days flip back and fourth from good to bad and back.

Cherish your man and his support.

Quote from: RobynD on April 24, 2017, 11:59:05 AM
You totally have come a long way and are healing, that is evident. I too think you are sounding like you are being a smidgeon too hard on yourself but perhaps that helps you come back from a point where you put it on all on her. The truth is, nothing is ever totally on one person, actually not even close.

With that acceptance will come growth and more healing. I have battled depression my entire life, so i know how days flip back and fourth from good to bad and back.

Cherish your man and his support.

Maybe I am being a bit hard on myself I am having a session tomorrow with my therapist and will have a chat to her about this. Depression is a bit tuff today and anxiety is eating at me where I am sitting of living without my daughter in my house for the rest of my life.

When I feel so bad I see male in the mirror for some reason also and my dysphoria gets worse and I wish I could turn back time to make the hurt go away.

My boyfriend is a real sweetheart in this situations and so caring though. I could not ask for better.

I am sitting here today and can feel the significant loss of losing time with my child not having her under my roof. I only get her one day of the weekend the other six day's she is with mom. It is eating at me alive. I feel that dysphoria is a curse due to what I cherished was taken away. I feel very down because of this I fear of slipping into a depression hole.

I am sitting and memories of my past pops up. I was a parent but not that great I am spending much more quality time with her now than I did then. As a transgender parent I am more of a parent but the loss of that time is just disabling me. It just sucks and I don't know how I will ever get used too the situation where I can accept that loss. Where I don't cry when I drop her off for the week. Where I don't go home and it feels empty.

Being transgender was something but the cost of transitioning was greater than I could imagine, my ex warned me and say you are going to transition and still not be happy. Well here I am today still not happy. transitioning for me can't make up for that loses of my family unit and time with my child.

I am working on building a new home with a new person we are staying together for 4 months now it is still early days and things are going well. We did have rough patches with depression and anxiety though. We might get engaged this year he doesn't want to say that we are going to but we had a chat about it. We had a chat about kids and there is hope for children of our own. The thing is it won't be my own blood child the best I thought I could do is ask my sister to donate a egg. It would still be of my blood line then.

It is sad for me where my life has gone because I pictured myself in a complete different situation at this point of time. I was supposed to be a husband have my own internet startup, it failed because I could not function in life and work on it any more. I was going to have one more child so I would have been the father of two. But that is what I wanted and where I imagined myself. I could not have thought I would sit here a transgender woman divorced and without my child writing this post. How dysphoria changed my life and the choices I made.

I can tell you  guys all the good things about now and how my life has changed for the better. My opportunities but once depression and hurt comes it feels as if you can't enjoy those things. I don't know what to do anymore.

I hate the feeling of being broken and hurt.

Part of the grieving process is dealing with the sense of loss.  To simply ignore the things you have given up in the process of transitioning would be to deny reality.  You have paid a high price for the path you have chosen.  However, at some point in time you simply must move on to the next square.  Repeatedly recounting all of the "if only(s)" doesn't really get one anywhere.  Like a home owner whose dwelling has burned to the ground, you simply have to stop staring at the ash heap and get on to the rebuilding process recognizing that a new structure will take time, energy, and produce a fair number of disappointments and frustrations along the way.  I hope your life will soon take on a phoenix-like quality.  All the best.   

Sorry your feeling depressed. Life sometimes gives us changes and we often participate in those, that cause the rest of life to be bad for a while. I'm dealing with some of this right now too and it feels like a pretty dark place, even though I have many sources of positivity and hope for the future.

Somehow at times, we keep getting drawn back to that darkness. We mourn loss, we over mourn loss, we hope for the impossible and repeat those cycles sometimes many times.

The positive though is as the poster above said, you can occupy a new space and a new existence with new people that will eventually be better than the one you are mourning. When you you are in the thick of the darkness though, that is very hard to believe. Think of how many people look back at the past and say "that hardship was one of the best things that ever happened to me as it built me into the person i am today".

I'm preaching to myself here too as intellectually i get all of this, i don't always feel it emotionally though.

Don't be so hard on your self you didn't ask to be born in the wrong body, I am in a similar situation now I,ve come out to my wife but she wants me to be the husband still but I can't hopefully you will sort the depression out but please hang on.

I went in to my therapist yesterday and had a nice chat. I spilled the beans of how I feel now and my new revelation in how I feel about my ex. She then went on and told me I am butting being a man in a box with my ex and my child and that gives me reason to want to go back to being a man. She told me I must but being a woman and a man and my child and my ex in seperate  boxes. She then asked me if I look at the man box without my child and ex wife as a reason is there anything about being a man that would want me to go back. I could not answer her I could not think about anything. The only thing is that sex normally ended up in orgasm that I don't have now but it is not that I want to go back to being a man for that. I can think of all these reasons why I am sitting today as a woman but not a single valid one why I should have stayed a man except to have my child under my roof.

She was impressed with my progress and said what I am going through is a good thing. The depression is not good but the revelation is. I don't want my ex back as a romantic partner again, what I have in my boyfriend is more than enough. She can't love me for who I am and that really sucks. But she can't be with a woman. I can't be with a woman as a woman also. It sucks what it came down too and the steep hard price I payed for this.

In a way wanting to stay in the marriage was a way of me taking away my freedom of choice in transition and having to stay a man in turn. I was doing this because I was trying to protect everyone. I was trying to do the unselfish thing and do the right thing. When she gave me freedom of choice I ended up transitioning. So it shows what I really wanted.

((( Hugs ))) Amore, I think you are beginning to get it. No one said transition would be easy and in your case it has been very hard on you. But you are beginning to see the light and move forward with what you need. Cherish the time you get with your daughter and never run your ex down to her. She has a young impressionable mind and you don't want to give her any impression except that you love her.
  You are doing well and moving along.

Hugs,
   Jeanette

I do really get moments where I am like why did I do that stuff but then again I think back at how I felt at that moment and what emotions was attached to it. I can't really dismiss my need to be a woman anymore, I could go on and on about the reasons why I wanted to stay a man but the need to be a woman was too big and overpowered that reasons.

In the end when she kicked me out of her box I had no where to go but the woman box. The man box was not separated from them. I could not see myself being that man without them. Today if I separate those boxes I would not have chosen the man box anyway if it stood alone. Even if I chose the man box I would have lost them.

It gives me an uneasy feeling here where I am sitting knowing this is how it turned out. Knowing that I did not have a choice. I was happy until this damn thing came along again. A part of me is still beating myself up and don't want to accept that I could not do anything to stay a man. It would have saved me a lot of hurt right now.

I've learned in life that there is no going back in general. Even if you take the steps that you think will get you back, you arrive at a very different place. Your best choice is to move forward and make your life count for those you love, society and yourself.

To quote Dr. Seuss "Oh the places you will go "

Quote from: RobynD on April 27, 2017, 01:02:14 PM
I've learned in life that there is no going back in general. Even if you take the steps that you think will get you back, you arrive at a very different place. Your best choice is to move forward and make your life count for those you love, society and yourself.

To quote Dr. Seuss "Oh the places you will go "

You are right going back would be impossible and if I take the steps to go back I would arrive at different place. I can't undo that she had boyfriends and have one I can't undo the feelings I have for my boyfriend. I can't undo the 11 months living as a woman and what that did in my life. Even if I go back and take the steps to be a man I would have breasts no facial hair. I would be sterile also. My whole perspective about myself changed also and my sexuality. I can't undo that. I can't erase other peoples memory that I lived as a woman.

I won't find anything in place where it was and I can't erase my ex's memory and make her look at me in the same way she used too. I can't make anyone look at me the same way they used too if I would have gone back to male. It would also confuse my child even more because she don't know who Rickus is she only knows Amore.

If I look at where I was and where I am I am slowly moving forward in myself and my transition. I am maybe having grs later this year which means me and my boyfriend can connect better. I have a decent job. I at least get to see my child once a week and I am great full for the time even though I miss her during the week like tonight. I just want to sit and cry if she is not with me. There is nothing in this world that can replace a child's love.

The worst thing is I can't go back because even if I go back my child still won't be with me. Because I would end up at a different place as a miserable man. Suffering from dysphoria and mad at life.

Quote from: Amoré on April 27, 2017, 01:17:22 PM
I at least get to see my child once a week and I am great full for the time even though I miss her during the week like tonight. I just want to sit and cry if she is not with me. There is nothing in this world that can replace a child's love.

The worst thing is I can't go back because even if I go back my child still won't be with me. Because I would end up at a different place as a miserable man. Suffering from dysphoria and mad at life.

I can empathize with you, there. I would be distraught if I weren't allowed to see my children. I think it would cause me more distress than living a lie as a man. There really is nothing in the world, like you said, that could ever replace the love of your children. Mine are everything to me, just as I believe yours are to you.

Quote from: SiobhánF on April 27, 2017, 01:34:36 PM
I can empathize with you, there. I would be distraught if I weren't allowed to see my children. I think it would cause me more distress than living a lie as a man. There really is nothing in the world, like you said, that could ever replace the love of your children. Mine are everything to me, just as I believe yours are to you.

That is the thing for me even though I had a massive need to be a woman. Being transgender and super dysphoric I had a massive need to be with my child everyday and I still do. It absolutely breaks me to only see her weekends. I had my depression bouts over this also I don't know really which one was worse. The depression from living an illusion as a man or living without my child under my roof now.

Quote from: Amoré on April 27, 2017, 01:41:41 PM
That is the thing for me even though I had a massive need to be a woman. Being transgender and super dysphoric I had a massive need to be with my child everyday and I still do. It absolutely breaks me to only see her weekends. I had my depression bouts over this also I don't know really which one was worse. The depression from living an illusion as a man or living without my child under my roof now.

Feels like you can't win, either way, huh? I feel the same. It's hard to live with, but I take it one day at a time. It's the best I can do for myself.

Quote from: SiobhánF on April 27, 2017, 01:56:47 PM
Feels like you can't win, either way, huh? I feel the same. It's hard to live with, but I take it one day at a time. It's the best I can do for myself.

It does feel like that you feel like you are being pulled in separate ways by to forces. I also take it one day at a time that is how I got this far. My biggest concern is that my child wants nothing to do with me one day for some religious reason or something. Her mom told me one of the reasons she can't be with me is because it is wrong in the eyes of God to be with a transgender person. So she can't be with me as that is one of the many reasons. I am scared she brainwashes my child.

Quote from: Amoré on April 27, 2017, 02:02:05 PM
It does feel like that you feel like you are being pulled in separate ways by to forces. I also take it one day at a time that is how I got this far. My biggest concern is that my child wants nothing to do with me one day for some religious reason or something. Her mom told me one of the reasons she can't be with me is because it is wrong in the eyes of God to be with a transgender person. So she can't be with me as that is one of the many reasons. I am scared she brainwashes my child.

Amore,

   I can relate to your worries in regards to your wife's religious beliefs. The same is getting in the way of my daughter and family accepting me being trans too. She believes I can be fixed if only I give myself to God. She believes I have some hidden trauma from my childhood that is responsible for my failure as a father and husband, my drug abuse and alcoholism, and now my "thinking I am Trans". There is no defense or reasoning with someone that believes this way.
   I understand your fear and feel your pain. But it is survivable.

Hugs,
Jeanette or Laura, maybe both