I never really know what the proper etiquette is. This is follow-up to my thread yesterday, but I figured a new thread was warranted. Today was the big day. I came out to my wife as Transgender (initially as genderfluid) back in September. In February I shared my discovery that I was indeed transsexual and that I would be transitioning. Today, for the very first time, my wife was introduced to the real me in person. As nervous as I was, I think it went pretty decently.
Leading up to today her therapist had her viewing a bunch of different pictures of me on a daily basis. This was to prep her. Today, my wife, her best friend, her grandmother, her therapist and I all met in her therapist's office. I chose to wear a pretty low-key outfit. Capri skinny jeans, sneakers and a short sleeved tunic top. Full makeup but just a little jewelry. I didn't want to go in all dressed to the nines, I wanted to keep it simple. She's talked before about me being "a better girl" than her so I didn't want to make her feel that way.
They all went to the office first. I arrived a little later and the therapist brought me in. Thanks to all the encouragement I got from you folks in my last thread, I made it a point to enter confidently and proud. I felt almost energetic as I greeted them all and sat down. My wife was initially staring at the floor and it took a minute for her to look up at me for the first time. To my surprise, when she did, she didn't fall apart. She was very visibly distressed and did end up crying at multiple times during our meeting but she did good.
At no point did my wife ever become mean or abusive in anyway. She admitted she was holding back some emotion but she stayed focused on making the session productive. Her therapist spurred some conversation and we talked about a few different topics. My wife had a hard time looking at me but did so a number of times. Hardest for her however I think was hearing my voice. While I've not got a truly feminine voice yet (haven't started vocal therapy yet), I do tend to naturally speak higher when I'm presenting authentically. She struggled with that a bit.
Her grandmother and friend were very helpful and participated in the discussion as well. They both support me as well as my wife so it made for a good environment. There were a couple things she said that were hard to hear, and it was very hard to watch her so emotionally distraught. At the same time however, I stood my ground on a few topics when necessary. I think this was a bit of a discovery for me. I felt a lot more confident challenging her on things than I normally do. I'm sure some of it was the presence of third parties in the room to help keep things from getting out of hand, but also I just felt more natural and able to address things more directly when needed.
So that was really good both for me personally and for the productivity of this session.
After the session, when I got home, we were able to talk to each other pretty normally. She admitted she's still shaken, but she was able to talk about it without tears or anger. The real test now will be to see how things progress from here. I talked with her therapist a bit and she said in their session on Monday she'll be challenging my wife to keep moving forward. More exposure to me, getting herself ready for the changes that are happening, etc. Hopefully, full-time at home is in my near future, because the back-and-forth between identities is seriously exhausting.
