Melody, reading your posting has carried me back to my own divorce from my first wife, the mother of three of my four children. Even though I was the one who initiated the divorce, was intellectually resigned to it, it was OK with my mother and my religion, and I accepted when friends divorced, my divorce was the hardest thing I've gone through. We'd been married five months short of twenty-five years, but she made it plain to me and our kids that she could no longer respect me. My gender issues were a large part of that. And even though I thought I could live with anybody, the constant verbal battering was more than I could take.
My experience tells me, you need to allow yourself to grieve. It is as though someone very close to you died. And trust that there is a new life on the other side.
In my case, the children all came around and we have very close relationships--and they are close to my ex-wife, too. When my eldest came north from Virginia to marry her childhood sweetheart, she stayed with me the week before the wedding, because her mother "had no time for her." As a result, my ex-wife tried unsuccessfully to have me arrested as I walked my daughter down the aisle. With the exception of a couple of instances like that, our relations have been cordial. She even came to me once when relations with her new husband were strained, and she needed a shoulder to cry on. She told me, that at that point, she came to understand what I had endured from her. My daughters are strong and intelligent; my son is sensitive; and I have three grandchildren who are treasures.
This Spring I will celebrate a twenty-third anniversary with a woman who has always tried to cope with my gender issues (as I, too, have tried to cope and understand them). Our daughter just turned twenty-one.
My hope for you is that you find solace, happiness in your new life, and enduring friendships, whether new or old. I wish I could give you a long, warm hug (better down there, for temperatures here are below zero), but, for now, please accept the virtual kind.
May God bless you with peace,
S
