Thank you so much for this post.  I wish I found it about a month earlier, it would have helped in the coming out part of my life.  I'm going to share this with my wife and hope we still grow as a couple.

Again, thank you for this.  It means a lot to me.

This whole thread is gold, and I'm appreciating it so much. Thanks to everyone for sharing. Even the difference of opinions is informative and helpful.

As it looks like transition is becoming more and more likely in my near or distant future, I'm glossing over this every once in a while as a reminder. A few things in it sound like no-brainers - ie communication - but it's easy to forget to talk everything through before you up and do it or start making plans.

The role-taking thing was an eye-opener, though. This current leg of my trans explorations actually came about when I realized I was a BDSM switch instead of just a submissive, and that made him nervous about what his kink role in our marriage would be. As it turns out, my dominant side went entirely hand-in-hand with my masculine side. So not only did he have to contend with the idea that his sub wanted to beat somebody up, but also that his sub wanted to be a man while doing it. I do sense that he is very anxious about what it will mean to be a straight husband in a marriage with another man - it'll be necessary to assure him that I won't want to compete with him, that I won't want to "out-husband" him, that I'll still want him to kill the spiders while I do most of the cooking and cleaning. Our domestic and BDSM roles won't change, and I'm not gonna go all 'bro' on him... well, at least not a lot.

Maybe I can get him to write a corollary to this when all is said and done: "Advice from a husband how to not blow up your marriage"

Quote from: BT04 on December 22, 2017, 11:02:11 AM
Maybe I can get him to write a corollary to this when all is said and done: "Advice from a husband how to not blow up your marriage"

That sounds like a great idea! You know, it sounds like your husband is in the same place as my wife; she is still straight, but doesn't want to divorce (not yet, at least). I imagine that he'll either find a way to reconcile his feelings for you and his orientation. You could say that he's a "you-sexual". In my case, I would be exstatic to hear my wife say that she's a Bridget-sexual, but she'll probably not be doing that, tbh. I hope he finds it in his heart to stay in your life.

Has anyone succeeding in talking their spouse into therapy/counseling after they have repeatedly refused?  My wife of 14 years has always suffered from severe depression, and has refused therapy repeatedly on her own or as a couple. I have always been her rock, but now that I am ready to finally address some of my issues I don't think I will be able to rely on her in the same way. How can she help me when she still has so much left to work through herself?

Quote from: Lea L on December 22, 2017, 10:07:59 AM
This whole thread is gold, and I'm appreciating it so much. Thanks to everyone for sharing. Even the difference of opinions is informative and helpful.

Hi Lea L,

I'm Laurie. I see that you are new here. So please let me say, Welcome To Susan's Place! Come on in and take a good look around.  Perhaps I can even get you to hop on over to the Introductions Thread and  create a post to tell us a little bit more about yourself so we can get to know you a little better and greet you properly. I'll add some links and information below that can help you get more out of our site. Please take time to become familiar with them especially the RED one as we are always getting questions that are answered there.
 
Laurie
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Quote from: Lea L on December 22, 2017, 07:31:53 PM
Has anyone succeeding in talking their spouse into therapy/counseling after they have repeatedly refused?  My wife of 14 years has always suffered from severe depression, and has refused therapy repeatedly on her own or as a couple. I have always been her rock, but now that I am ready to finally address some of my issues I don't think I will be able to rely on her in the same way. How can she help me when she still has so much left to work through herself?

Welcome to Susan's Place. It's difficult to force somebody into therapy but you might mention it to your family doctor. Depression can have many  causes from social issues to chemical imbalances. Possible by explaining that her depression isn't the result of her inability to deal with it but may be the result of something she was born with could reduce the stigma of seeking therapy. The solution to her problems could be restoring a proper chemical balance.

Thank you for the warm reception! I will try to put together an intro post soon (how not to keep it novel length!?)

Yes, I have tried coming from the chemical imbalance perspective as well, since her family has a history of depression.

I go to my first therapy session on Jan 2, and I'm going to try to be open with her about it. Hopefully my going first will help pave the way? Maybe?

Quote from: SiobhánF on December 22, 2017, 11:30:25 AM
That sounds like a great idea! You know, it sounds like your husband is in the same place as my wife; she is still straight, but doesn't want to divorce (not yet, at least). I imagine that he'll either find a way to reconcile his feelings for you and his orientation. You could say that he's a "you-sexual". In my case, I would be exstatic to hear my wife say that she's a Bridget-sexual, but she'll probably not be doing that, tbh. I hope he finds it in his heart to stay in your life.

Well, that is yet to be seen... he's at least a "me-romantic", but he's currently under the impression that our sex life will probably not exist after this, even though I still find him attractive. He has joked, though (and in a well-meaning way) that he'd still kiss me "depending on how long the beard is". Good thing I don't intend on growing one out! We are most DEFINITELY not divorcing - it's not even on the table. So at least there's that.

I hope you and your wife make it through all this... even if she doesn't have my husband's sense of humor about it. (The humor really does help, for what it's worth.)

My observations
My wife has contended with my strange and mostly wierd kinks over our 13 yr marriage. I now know these were me trying to figure me out. Once i started transitioning i knew all that behind me was attempts to hide my true female self. Saying that makes me somewhat understandable to her. Last summer she found out about my secret side but i didnt come clean when she caught me underdressing. Realy wish i had at that time.
This December she asked if i liked having breast and i just blurted out that i loved them and the conversation began. It is for sure a hard thing to discuss but it must be done openly and honestly. I have gone thru a lot in a little bit of time but for her its been monumental.
Its not about sex with us as we haven't been intimate in a long time( due to above mentioned kinks) but it creaps her out in a lesbian sort of way now even just to kiss me. I am seeing a counsellor and she has started as well. We are doing our best and things are progressing. She is getting on board and talking is helping. She suggested a wig and told my she will help with cloths shopping as i pick to much frill. She is trying to help with makeup now so these are makeing us a little closer. She does refer to me as girlfriend for the most part.
I all i can say is its the daily talks we have over coffee every morning. It has become a ritual thing and its all a work in progress and that hour we set aside to vent, cry, scream and just plain answer any and all question with out judgement is majorly important.
No one should underestimate the power of talk, two weeks ago my wife went thru the roof when i wore a skirt and blouse for the first time in front of her. Last monday i left for work in a blouse and womans jeans, lipstick and pink nails and blush with her blessings and today i have been in pantyhose and a mid thigh red yellow white and black animal print dress all day with hardly a second look. Dont give up and i wish all similar results.
💓💗Donna💞💗

This post has given me a lot to chew on. ( or choke on.) Yes at times I have been selfish. And forgotten who has consistently been one of my few allies.

I am fortunate that my partner is bi- sexual. But this still isn't what she signed up for.

Part me wishes I was a lot less chicken ->-bleeped-<-, and that I just would have came out decades ago. I didn't want to be alone. And I thought I could out grow this. I still harbor a ton guilt.

I can't fix the past. But I can only move forward. For our marriage to work, I have to accept the facts that things won't be perfect because of the decisions I made. I kinda thought this would just go away. I was wrong. And it nearly cost me my life.

I have to move forward and always keep her needs in mind and in my heart. While I continue to try to find myself.

Cailan - Thank you, it sounds like really great advice - have definitely taken it on-board since its relevant to me.

Sonja.

Hello,

I experienced a very humbling experience recently that came from my wife and daughter. Their claim was that I was an over achiever who simply achieved. They set up a hate crime against me, and could only hope for  fate to teach me a lesson without killing me. I have had real trust issues with them both since. I am male to female, and had similar responses to hate crimes in the past. Feeling insecure, a little suicidal, and that I am inadequate, and suffered from low self esteem. These trust issues, that are real trust issues, involve my safety, security, and welfare. I no longer can trust my family to respect my will. I simply stay alive on survival instincts, the sad news is my academic and spiritual growth has been abbreviated. I have a hard time in knowing who to care for, and who to keep in mind when doing my work. My family seems to have undertaken being responsible for my real, and veritable PTSD syndrome. I can look at them in the eye, but not with the trust of unconditional love. I no longer feel that my attachment to them is safe. While I have not been badly hurt, I am bent out of shape. For me it is futile, I surrender looking for any hope, inspiration or self esteem in our relationship, I do not even consider them to be relevant since their actions are irrational. Have anyone suffered from a rebellion from family against them to the degree of a hate crime, if so please let me know so we can talk.   

Quote from: Wendyway2 on March 08, 2018, 12:17:04 AM
Hello,

I experienced a very humbling experience recently that came from my wife and daughter. Their claim was that I was an over achiever who simply achieved. They set up a hate crime against me, and could only hope for  fate to teach me a lesson without killing me. I have had real trust issues with them both since. I am male to female, and had similar responses to hate crimes in the past. Feeling insecure, a little suicidal, and that I am inadequate, and suffered from low self esteem. These trust issues, that are real trust issues, involve my safety, security, and welfare. I no longer can trust my family to respect my will. I simply stay alive on survival instincts, the sad news is my academic and spiritual growth has been abbreviated. I have a hard time in knowing who to care for, and who to keep in mind when doing my work. My family seems to have undertaken being responsible for my real, and veritable PTSD syndrome. I can look at them in the eye, but not with the trust of unconditional love. I no longer feel that my attachment to them is safe. While I have not been badly hurt, I am bent out of shape. For me it is futile, I surrender looking for any hope, inspiration or self esteem in our relationship, I do not even consider them to be relevant since their actions are irrational. Have anyone suffered from a rebellion from family against them to the degree of a hate crime, if so please let me know so we can talk.   

Well, not so much a "hate crime," but I have been on the receiving end of some toxic language and attitudes coming from my wife, and further from my kids because of her. So, I don't know what I can do besides biding my time until I feel secure enough to move out.  She's nice when she wants to be. She'll be an absolute bitch towards me one minute, then act like a considerate friend the next. I don't know what to trust anymore, either. Emotional abuse is pretty toxic.

Quote from: Wendyway2 on March 08, 2018, 12:17:04 AM
Hello,

I experienced a very humbling experience recently that came from my wife and daughter. Their claim was that I was an over achiever who simply achieved. They set up a hate crime against me, and could only hope for  fate to teach me a lesson without killing me. I have had real trust issues with them both since. I am male to female, and had similar responses to hate crimes in the past. Feeling insecure, a little suicidal, and that I am inadequate, and suffered from low self esteem. These trust issues, that are real trust issues, involve my safety, security, and welfare. I no longer can trust my family to respect my will. I simply stay alive on survival instincts, the sad news is my academic and spiritual growth has been abbreviated. I have a hard time in knowing who to care for, and who to keep in mind when doing my work. My family seems to have undertaken being responsible for my real, and veritable PTSD syndrome. I can look at them in the eye, but not with the trust of unconditional love. I no longer feel that my attachment to them is safe. While I have not been badly hurt, I am bent out of shape. For me it is futile, I surrender looking for any hope, inspiration or self esteem in our relationship, I do not even consider them to be relevant since their actions are irrational. Have anyone suffered from a rebellion from family against them to the degree of a hate crime, if so please let me know so we can talk.

Hi Wendyway

I have had no end of issues with my family...mother, father, brother and many here could attest to my state of mind after many of these encounters...my wife and adult daughters are 100% supportive and back me every time as well as go out of their way to try and protect me from as much of the hate as possible.

My Family whilst certainly not in the "hate crime" league have had at times a severe impact on me and more recently I have discovered the level of their deceit. It has shot my confidence all to heck and as recently as this morning I feel really worthless as a result of interacting with my Father in particular.  Feel free to PM me if you would like to chat/vent.

Take care
Liz

Thank you so much for everyone that contributed to this Article in one way or the other.

I am a 41 year old M to F person with the Dysphoria.  I told my wife about my issues in the 3rd month of our marriage 11 years back.  For some reasons, she had to suppress that from the outside world.  Slowly it started to grow.  The final trigger for me happened in the summer of 2016.  From that time, living itself has become unbearable.  I have been into depression most of the time, but I didn't want to quit.  I lived to fight this thing out while saving the family life.  Now we have a 10 year old daughter and a 7 year old son.  I have opened up to my daughter.  Initially she said it feels bad to not have a father.  But when I told her if she prefers me as a suffering father or a woman who is truly happy and will dedicate the rest of the life to her, she then made her decision that she wants that woman who will be happy.  The difficulty still is about my son.  Not sure how to treat him.  More so, he is so much fascinated about me and does everything what I do.  He follows me at each and every step.  That's my wife's biggest worry.

She came with me for two sittings with the Psychologist who referred me to the Endo.  Then she came for the first sitting with the Endocrinologist last Saturday.  Today I had to go all by myself.

I have forwarded this article to her from my new email id and requested her to go through it.  So far her adjustment to what I have told in the 3rd month of marriage, especially living in India (a society so idiotically glued to the age old customs and millions of Gods), what she has been coping up so far is beyond anyone's thoughts.  She is doing so great.  However, my mind these days is only occupied with one thing and one thing alone.  I want the HRT to be started badly.  I cannot think anything else than that.  She might be having her own apprehensions, but I requested and keep on begging her to understand.  I love them and I can't see them rejecting me for what I am.

Love
Alyssa

Being trans and keeping such a deep personal relationship is very hard. My wife and I have kids together. They keep us attached even when she doesn't feel that she wants to. We bounce back and forth based on how she is feeling about me. Sometimes she wants me, sometimes very much the opposite. She does not really want the real me, the feminine me, the natural me. Despite this she still feels love for me. My feelings really never wavered, until... A while back she told me she didn't want a relationship with me. She was angry a lot. I took me a few weeks to start to come to terms with this change. I slept on my kids bottom bunk. Then she said she wanted me to leave. This broke my heart. Crushed it really. Before a week was done she wanted me back again. It has reversed a time or two since then. My trust in her is now broken in a way that all of the things we went through together in our past never did.

I understand she wants the masculine. She remembers me as a different person. Really the man she wanted that I never was and never could fulfill for her though I tried very hard to. Right now I just want to stay close to my kids. I have a real mother's love for them. Despite her often feeling like I was working all the time, I was there doing my share of child rearing. I was up at night with both of them. I did evening baths, diapers, bottles, potty training. She might feel I was gone a lot but I was there all I could be. I lived out of the diaper bag as much as she did.

Life is complicated.  She finally started therapy for her own issues. I think this has evoked strong emotions in her that have spilled over onto what anger she already felt toward me. Maybe things will improve with time. Right now I feel myself insulating my heart from her. I'm not happy about it but I cannot keep going fully open and vulnerable anymore.

This post works well for any married couple, too, regardless of genders.

I am a genderfluid transman, and my partner is a gender-nonconforming ciswoman.  We began dating before I started questioning my gender, and have gone through all of what the post said during my transition. 

Saying that, I feel like the most important part about being the transitioner in the relationship is honesty, two-way communication, and involving your partner in your transition.  My partner told me straight up when I mentioned hormones that she would only be comfortable with me taking them if we had a session with a therapist together first, so she can get a better understanding of what's happening from an outsider's POV, and I agreed to that.  It postponed my transition, yes, but that was the compromise.

I've also been vocal with her about any sort of surgeries I might want to have, especially when it comes to reassignment.  She needs to be involved in that decision as well, since we have a sex life after all.

It just breaks my heart and makes me angry when I hear about spouses leaving their trans partners for the sole reason of being trans, but following this post can, and more than likely will, prevent that from happening.

Hi, I haven't posted much as I'm just 3 months HRT (tomorrow) and I dunno... just doing the lurking thing and so forth. There are some really, really sweet stories (totally cried over one or two of them) and some horror shows happening here. 

I'm one of the lucky ones as my wife seems to have known better than I did that I desperately needed to transitiong (It was she who asked me four months ago "Why don't you just transition?" I took a day, and said "yes", and here I am!) The thing is,  I had essentially given up on the hope of really being me many years before we ever even found each other. It's funny though because I prayed for someone like her to come along many times ( I feared only ever finding carbon copies of my ex) and she did, sure enough!

She's mostly cis-ish but I detect dudeness in there in at times! (She denies this, and I laugh inwardly anyway, swearing I know her better than she does!  )

We have one child together and two steps for me. Plus I have twin daughters from the old battle axe from before. However,  they are 24 now and out of the house. The steps natural father passed away about five years ago. For me, my family have all really done nothing BUT support and encourage me all along, from the beginning! It's a tad easier for them though as my stepson is FTM and came out to me (yes, me of all people in the world, I just know he sensed something in me) when he was 8 saying to me privately "I feel like two different people inside." (Yes, I f**king cried my eyes out that day). Anyway we are almost reality tv worthy or something, except... no way!

I'm really sorry to hear so many people struggling with this stuff. I have no magic words really, other than some kind of understanding that the OP has some important words about communication for all of us. In fact, despite all I've said my wife and I have had a rough couple weeks just trying to sort relationship stuff that is far beyond just being trans or anything really to do with that. Which is why I opened this thread in the first place. It's hard because I get nervous when I think to myself that transitioning is supposed to be all about me. It feels selfish to me, and I DO want to honor and respect the feelings of the people who, quite honestly, make life safe for me during this time.

However, I do relate to some of the horror stories too. When I was younger I was like many other trans people who are unable to be their true selves. I used drugs to cope, and it became a real problem in my life. My relationship at the time was just like many being described here (so toxic), including the hurtfullness of my long time girlfriend (The battle axe above who is the twins' mother ). I came out as bi to her to test the waters, but ended up doing nothing more as she just proceeded to hurt me repeatedly afterward.

I eventually got clean and was told throughout the process that in order to really get clean I had to let go of all my negative attachments, or at least be prepared to do this if we couldn't beat the obvious and prolonged codependency we both displayed. It took awhile, and got even uglier, but eventually we parted ways and I took a really long time picking up the pieces. It was the right thing to do in all ways, really for both of us. She flat out told me she needed a manly man, and I flat out realized I needed a woman far different than she was capable of being.

Transitioning reminds me of that experience all over again except for me this time I am not with someone so intent on hurting me. I was the "housewife" and second "mother-ish" type before transitioning anyway, and actually moving forward has only really helped me stop fighting those needs and desires, and in turn made my ability to help in our day-to-day lives much better! I was never interested in, nor really good at "manly pursuits" like lawns, repairing stuff, blah, blah, blah... BORING! 

She kinda is, or at least likes being the "tomboy" part time.

Despite all of this we too run into all sorts of communication issues related to past traumas that can stop both of us in our tracks. They can derail either or both of us. Our new mantra has become some variation of "I have to own..." where one or the other of us just owns our mistakes honestly, and makes a real and serious commitment to stop making that same mistake. It takes work, and patience. It also takes some kind of real love for the other, and maybe even that corny sense of being one person together or something, but with those kinds of things going for someone, I think any couple has a chance. It's just that though, a chance. Still it feels like if we can maintain things in a positive way, that even if the relationship crashes and burns, that we can take many positives from it.

Without any or at least some of these things, I would try and be as respectful as possible to my SO, even if I thought she didn't deserve it and would cut that negative attachment out as quickly as possible and/or prudent.

But really that's a sound way to live life no matter what issue you face!

I'm so glad to be a woman, finally! Thank you for letting me lurk and now post!

Hi, MorganLeFey!

Welcome to Susan's.

I am glad that you have supportive relationships.  Thank you for sharing your eperience.

Please feel free to stop by the Introductions forum to tell the members about yourself.  Here is some information that we like to share with new members:

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