For what it is worth, after a good 40-50 years of playing, I came to the point of needing to take the Trans-Best on for real. My wife/gf/bff/reality-therapist of a good 30 years back then knew of my gender issues from about day 1. Still, dropping the T-Bomb on her did not go all that well. She felt betrayed, lied to and saw a wasted lifetime together and absolutely no future since I was no longer "just a cross-dresser". If only I knew back when..... was was her favorite refrain often followed by "I did not marry a woman"
It takes time for an SO to get over the shock, much less even grasp what we are going through. Putting things in proper perspective, we spent pretty much an entire lifetime barely getting a handle on our GD. Our SO has had mere milli-Seconds in comparison.
After a few days she has come around to CD'ing a few days a weeks I take that as a great positive sign. In the early years with my wife she would generally leave the house for the few hours or most of the day when I needed my escapes from maleness. TBH - It was a good thing because after she started staying home any sort of closeness, romance and forget intimacy was not to be had with the image of Joanne, that other woman, firmly in her mind. There will likely be rules, some unsaid, as well as boundaries. Especially since you live in a small isolated town. Even for me, living within 3 miles of Times Square NYC my wife has her fears about the close minded neighbors.
Time is your friend when it comes to saving the relationship. Time and LOTS of communication. The oft times difficult emotionally charged discussions. Listen to the message and not the words. When the filters are off some things just may be said to hurt you as a way to get even with the hurting she is feeling