I have very few experiences crying tears of pain and loneliness as much as I did during Pride 2017 weekend.

This year was my second unsuccessful attempt to celebrate pride. The first year my girlfriend suffered from what seemed like a transient stroke right as we were getting ready to leave. We called 911 and they insisted she go to the hospital based on the symptoms. We missed the parade and the first day's event. We did make it for a few hours on the second day, but the crowds were small and sleepy. I'm happy that I did get to experience that small part though because this year's experience was a lot worse for me. I originally had high hopes for Pride 2017. I was looking forward to frolicking in the park and showing affection for one another. girlfriend had previously asked me to marry her and had been planning a wedding ceremony that would take place right within the festival. I said not now to her, given so much upheaval in our relationship. Prior to transition I asked her to marry me three times, but she always either said not now or no. Instead I was really hoping that Pride 2017 would have been a time for us to connect and find that love. Instead I felt the opposite.

My girlfriend, volunteered to help out with the Libertarian booth and march with the Greater Rochester Libertarian Party again this year. I told her my plans are the same as last year, I just want to watch the parade and take it all in since I've never seen it before. Also, I'm personally am not a big fan of politics lately with the whole Trump president thing and all the alternate facts, and conspiracy theories. The whole thing has me exhausted and I just want a break from it all for the weekend. The original plan was for me was to take in the parade with my good friend, her girlfriend and her family that just moved here. Unfortunately a day or so before the parade my friend's girlfriend suffered from a TIA (mini-stroke) so that meant all of my specific plans were up in the air. I had no clue if my friend or the new family would be making it to join me.

The night before the parade my girlfriend was supposed to go grocery shopping but instead ended up shopping for supplies to make a tutu and spent the evening attempting to craft them and modifying a Libertarian shirt. Up until this there was no discussion about what we would wear to pride as both of us could have put in a lot more effort. In fact I get the impression that dressing up can be half the fun part of Pride. But through life's struggles we just didn't have the bandwidth to deal with the stress of it. You see what I wear can severely stress her out. She hates her body, and how it doesn't fit in clothes, so if I'm wearing something sexy or pretty it's usually been very anxiety provoking for her. So I tend to avoid rocking the boat for these reasons and in this instance focused on taking care of our daughter so my girlfriend could prepare for her political event. Then we had to get up really early so that we could take Lola to a birthday party that started at 10am. The party was for the kids of my girlfriend's friend. It was with a transfamily that used to be two women but one transitioned to male recently. They have two kids together and celebrate both birthdays on the same day since they were born one week apart. My girlfriend has been in contact with the wife as part of her support system of being a partner of someone transitioning genders . I had only met the wife briefly once and the husband never. To make the morning even more complicated, my girlfriend had to be at the line up to march in the parade by 11AM. So that meant I had to wake up really early so that I could get ready if I was to come, but I really needed more sleep to recover from a long work week so that I could enjoy Pride not feeling so tired. In the end my girlfriend left first and brought Lola to the party and then I had to get there in time for my girlfriend to go line up. All of these commitments and logistical issues belong to my girlfriend. She has a tendency to over book us for things and gets annoyed when I suggest this is the case. I just wanted to relax and enjoy the weekend with one another.

After a hectic morning getting ready and picking up Lola from the party, I finally arrive at the parade and let my friend know where I was since she was now unexpectedly coming. She was originally going to have to work, but took the day off due to her girlfriend's hospitalization. As I navigated to the parade I saw an aquaintance there that was hanging with other friends and drinking at a bar/restuarant on the patio area. I said hello, chatted for a bit and moved on to find a good spot for Lola and I to watch the parade. Initially I picked a spot towards the end because my girlfriend said she would just join us at the end since she was group 30 out of 150. But about 5 minutes before the parade started my friend called me and let me know where she was, so tried to make my way to her but was blocked due to to many people on the sidewalk (I had a stroller) and the street was now closed off since the parade was starting. At this point the loneliness really started sinking in since I was with my 3.5 year old daughter and she didn't really seem to be enjoying herself much. Neither my Dad or any of my other kids wanted to go to see the parade with me. The parade was amazing to watch, so many proud people. But unexpectedly I was overcome with sadness due to feeling like I have missed out on so much life. Why did it take me so long to just not give a ->-bleeped-<- and be myself? The combination of my frustrations leading up to that point, loneliness and sadness overcame my emotions. Eventually girlfriend finally came marching by. She came over and asked me what was wrong. I explained it as best I could at that moment, but it seemed that at the root of it all she annoyed at me for being so emotional and sad when I shouldn't be in her mind. This was a turning point for me. Her struggle to decide what to do (keep marching or stay by my side) was as though she was putting it on me to tell her to keep marching and catch up. I emotionally lost it at this point. How was this a hard decision for her? At this point it seemed pretty obvious to me that she had made her decision as to what she wanted to do and what her priorities were. I had to leave at that point and take a walk because her being so frustrated with me was making it hard for me to stay calm. It's as though my sad feelings were invalid in her eyes. I walk only 30 seconds and found a vacant building for sale, so I walked behind it and cried. But the music was so loud from the parade that I couldn't get away. I plugged my ears and not knowing how to handle the overwhelming emotions of that moment and just screamed while plugging my ears. I was getting worried about myself at that point, I knew this wasn't good. Then I looked down on the ground right in front of me and found a florescent light tube on the ground. This seemed like a merical to me since one of my coping methods when my emotions are out of control is to smash these types of lights. What's the chance that I would end up at an abandoned property with one of these at my feet? I picked it up, smashed it, put my game face on and walked back and told my girlfriend she could go find her Libertarian friends. But she was waiting for my friend to join us at that point. She had contacted my friend for help and she was working her way towards us. Calling my friend is something I should have done once I got stuck trying to navigate to her, but I totally forgot I could call her for some reason. Plus I figured the parade had started and I didn't want to bother her and make a fuss I guess. The day continued to get worse at the end of the parade. My girlfriend went with her Libertarian friends and I took Lola to the van by myself. We finally made our way back only to find out she needs to go potty. So we walk back to the parade area found a bathroom and then walked back to the van. Then I couldn't find a parking spot at the festival and someone budged and took a really good spot I was going to pull into. I started to cry again having spent an hour dealing with trying to get to the festival. Surprisingly I found a parking spot a minute later and finally make my way to the gate to wait for my girlfriend to bring me my ticket. She doesn't see my text, I call her and she then sends someone from the Libertarian group to let me in (I was hoping for her to let me in). My girlfriend then spent many hours helping at the the booth. Luckily my my cousin and his wife were there and found me, so at least I had some company. At one point my girlfriend asked me if I'd like to meet the guy running for city council and I stupidly said yes. To be honest I was very annoyed at this point and not at all in the right mood to talk politics. He started his spiel, but I had to excuse myself and told him honestly that I didn't want to deal with politics on pride weekend. I thought my girlfriend was going to spend a lot less time at the booth. But by the time she joined us Lola was getting tired and didn't want to leave the playground. So I waited with Lola while my girlfriend checked out the Drag Kings (which she has a thing for). It sounded cool, good music was playing and I was started feeling very lonely again. We get home and pretty much go separate ways for the evening after I left the bedroom since my girlfriend spent the time talking to one of her Libertarian friends over Facebook messenger that her and I were splitting up instead of talking to me while I was right there next to her in bed.

The next day my girlfriend decided to spend the whole day at the libertarian booth while I stayed home and took care of our daughter. I spent the whole day crying or fighting back tears. I made a post at one point on Facebook about how sad I was feeling. "I didn't know my heart could feel this heavy". That was it. I never even posted again on that thread. Well later that night I was reading something and laughed. Having been the first time I'd laughed that weekend I tried to share it with my family, and made a comment that I'm finally not sad for a moment. My girlfriend used this as an excuse to roll her eyes and vocalize that she thought I was being over dramatic and attention seeking with the post. The reality was that I had never been that low in my life when I made that post and didn't really know what else to do.

I've made a few more attempts to let my girlfriend know how I feel about the situation but she feels 100% valid in how she handled herself and has offered no form of apology. I have come to realize that if I continue in this relationship the way it is now, I will be accepting this as a valid way to treat me and I will sink into severe depression. I'm fearful of a bad break up. I've experienced two other break ups where we had kids together and they were all very negative and hostile break ups. I've come to realize how damaging these situations are for the kids and I can't and will not do this again. I will be the best I can be as I go through this and treat her with as much love and respect that I can. However this is definitely a turning point for me. I can't ignore this situation.

I think part of my problem is just a lot of insecurity about myself. Transition has really taken me for a ride in that department and I don't know how to get it back. But I don't think my girlfriend is helping me much right now. Does anyone have any tips on how to improve this. I honestly feel like just making myself sexually available to lots of people and I know something is wrong if I'm going down that road.