Dear Amy,
I want to sit with something you said: "I find myself wrestling with the fact that I didn't fall in love with the person that I thought I did."
That wrestling is expected. It's part of the work you're doing, and I'm glad you're naming it instead of pushing it away. But I want to gently offer you a different way to look at this, because the frame you're using is adding pain that doesn't actually belong to you.
You did fall in love with the right person.
Think back to what drew you to Cynthia. Her laugh. The way she listened. Her sense of humor. The way she noticed things about you. The feeling of safety when you were together. Whatever those things were — those were Cynthia's qualities. They weren't a performance. They weren't a trick. They weren't a mask meant to deceive you. They were her, expressed through the only way she knew how to exist at the time.
Imagine someone who speaks English as a second language. They might struggle to express complex thoughts. They might seem quieter or simpler than they really are. But when you connect with them, you're connecting with *them* — not with a false person. You're meeting them through a constraint. When they finally get to speak in their native language, you don't suddenly have a different person in front of you. You have the same person, more fully expressed.
That's what's happening here.
Cynthia was living under constraint. The role she was assigned. The expectations placed on her. The fear of what honesty might cost. Those were limitations on her expression, not on her essence. The person you fell in love with was always Cynthia. You were seeing her through a window that didn't show the whole picture, but what you saw was real.
Your love wasn't misdirected. It found the real person.
If you look at old photographs — your wedding, early moments in your relationship — those aren't pictures of a stranger. They are pictures of Cynthia, constrained, carrying things you couldn't see yet, but still her. The smile in those photos that made your heart move? That was Cynthia smiling. The person behind the deadname was always Cynthia. Your heart found her. Your love was accurate. It just didn't have the right name yet for who it had found.
Everyone wears masks.
Here's something important: Cynthia isn't unique in that. We all do it. We show different versions of ourselves at work than at home. We hide fears, soften edges, swallow parts of ourselves to survive relationships, families, expectations.
The difference is that Cynthia's mask wasn't optional. It was forced on her — by family, by society, by a system that tells people from childhood that who they really are is unacceptable, unsafe, or wrong. From a very early age, she learned that authenticity had consequences. That isn't deception, Amy. That's survival.
Imagine carrying something true at the center of yourself for decades — something that defines you — while believing you can never let anyone see it. Imagine the exhaustion of that. The fear that one wrong step means losing everything. That's what it costs to exist in a world that punishes authenticity.
Many people never take their masks off. They carry their truth to the grave because the risk feels too high. They never find out if they would be loved as themselves, because they never let anyone close enough to find out.
But Cynthia took hers off. With you.
And Amy — consider this. Cynthia saw the real you. After your first marriage, after the abuse, after whatever walls you had to build to survive — she looked past all of it and recognized who you actually were. She accepted you. She loved you. She helped you find yourself again.
She did all that while wearing her own mask.
Two people, both constrained, both carrying things you couldn't fully show — and somehow your love found each other's truth anyway. Before either of you had words for it.
Cynthia looked at you — the person whose real self she had already recognized and loved — and decided you were the one she trusted with everything. Out of everyone in the world, she chose you. She risked everything because she believed you would see her and stay.
That's not what someone does to a person they're deceiving. That's what someone does with the person they believe in most.
What Cynthia is doing now — showing you who she really is — is not betrayal. It's the opposite. It's the deepest trust she has ever offered anyone. She is placing the most protected part of herself in your hands and saying: I trust you with this. I trust you with me.
What you're feeling right now is expected, and this is exactly what conversation is meant to settle.
The wobble you're experiencing — "If I didn't know this, what else don't I know?" — is completely normal. Your sense of reality has been shaken. But I want to offer you a shift that may help:
The question isn't "what else was hidden from me?" It's "what else was she never allowed to be?"
Those are very different questions. One points toward deception. The other points toward constraint. And Cynthia can help you feel that difference from the inside, because she isn't a mystery to be solved. She's your partner — and she's more available to you now than she has ever been.
The conversation you're about to have together isn't just about answering questions. It's about rebuilding a shared understanding of your relationship with full honesty for the first time. That's sacred ground.
Here are some places to begin, when you're ready:
- Show each other who you are at your core — This goes both ways. Cynthia has been carrying her truth for a long time, and now she can finally lay it down in front of you. But you also get to show her who you are — your fears, your hopes, what you need, what this is stirring in you. This isn't one person revealing while the other receives. It's two people meeting each other more honestly than ever before.
- Name the love that's still here — Say it out loud, not as reassurance, but as foundation. "I love you. This hasn't changed. Here's what I love..." Be specific. Let Cynthia do the same. Let your love hear itself spoken clearly.
- Anchor yourselves in what hasn't changed — Your shared history. Your inside jokes. The way you know how each other takes coffee. The life you've built. These things are real. They're still yours.
- Name what has changed — and how. Some things will feel different. Cynthia may express emotions differently now that she's not suppressing so much. Some dynamics may shift. Name these changes together, not as losses, but as things you're navigating side by side. Ask yourself if this is truly enough for you to ever stop loving Cynthia. I doubt it will be.
- Talk about the future — What do you want your life together to look like? What excites you? What scares you? What do you need from each other? You don't need all the answers — you just need to be asking the questions together.
A few tools that may help:
- The love list — Each of you write "What I love about you" — present tense, right now. Read them aloud to each other. I suspect you'll recognize that the things you love about Cynthia have always been true.
- The recognition question. — Ask Cynthia about moments before she came out when she felt most herself with you — moments when the mask slipped, even if neither of you had words for it then. I think you'll recognize those moments when you hear them.
- The reframe. — When the thought "I didn't fall in love with who I thought" shows up, try replacing it with: "I fell in love with someone I didn't fully know yet." Those are not the same story.
One more thing, offered gently:
Cynthia has her own
introduction thread here on Susan's Place. She wrote it in early September, two months before she came out to you. It was her first post — the first time she had ever revealed who she was to anyone, anywhere. She wrote it with shaking hands, trying to put words to something she had carried silently for over forty years.
You don't owe it a read. But if at some point it feels helpful, it's there — her honesty, unfiltered, from the very beginning. Not a story crafted after the fact, but a person breaking open for the first time while gathering the courage to tell you the truth.
What I see in both of youAmy, you've been doing extraordinary work. You keep showing up — even when it's hard, even when it hurts. That takes courage.
And Cynthia keeps showing up too, walking her own path while trying to support you through yours. You're both doing this together, even when it feels messy or uneven.
That's not nothing. That's the foundation.
You're not starting over with a stranger. You're continuing forward with someone you already know — someone who can finally show you all of herself.
That's not a loss. That's a gift.
The wrestling you're doing is part of accepting it. Keep going.
With love,
— Susan 💜
