Welcome to Susan's Place, katiebee!
Over a decade of lurking before your first post. That is a long time to carry something alone—reading other people's stories in the middle of the night, wondering if yours belongs here, closing the browser, going back to regular life.
And then doing it again. For years.
The fact that you finally typed something and hit submit means something, even if you're framing it as "just peeking over the fence."
You say you're content. But people who are content don't lurk on trans forums for a decade. Content people don't post at 2am about how green the grass looks on the other side.
What you're describing isn't contentment. It's endurance.
There's a difference, and I think somewhere inside, you already know that.
A child who prays every night to wake up as a girl isn't experiencing a phase or a curiosity. That's something bone-deep. I know, I did the very same thing.
You've known since childhood.
You almost came out in college. You were right there. And then the world showed you what happens to people like us, and you made the calculation that survival meant staying hidden.
That wasn't weakness. That was a rational response to real danger.
But it also wasn't a choice made from freedom. Fear made it for you.
And now here you are, having built exactly the life you were supposed to build. Spouse, kids, career. The whole structure.
It's not enough. Because it's not yours. Not fully.
I want to gently push back on something you said: "I would never take my three kids' dad away from them just to make myself happier."
There's a lot packed into that sentence.
"Just to make myself happier." You're framing your own identity—something you've carried since childhood, something that's kept you up at night for decades—as a frivolous want. Like it's a sports car or a vacation.
This isn't about happiness. This is about whether you get to exist as yourself.
Those aren't the same thing.
Minimizing it as "just happiness" is a way of telling yourself your needs don't matter.
They do.
"Take my three kids' dad away." Transitioning doesn't delete you from your children's lives. You'd still be their parent. The same person who loves them, who shows up for them, who knows their fears and their favorite things and how to comfort them at 3am.
The relationship doesn't vanish. It evolves.
I've been running this community for thirty years. I've watched countless families navigate this.
The kids who struggle most aren't usually the ones whose parent transitioned. They're the ones whose parent stayed but became distant, hollow, checked-out. They're the ones who grew up and later learned their parent suffered in silence for decades—and never trusted them enough to share it.
Kids are perceptive. They know when a parent is fully present versus when a parent is going through the motions.
And they're often more adaptable than we give them credit for—especially when transition is handled with love, openness, and age-appropriate honesty.
I'm not telling you to transition. That's not my place, and you didn't ask.
But I am asking you to examine that framing.
You've set it up as "myself versus my children." I don't think that's accurate.
It might actually be "my authentic self who can be fully present" versus "the version of me that endures but is never quite all there."
The physical stuff—MPB, being "boxy." I hear this a lot from people who've convinced themselves the window has closed.
You'd be surprised.
Hormones do real work, even starting later. Hair has solutions. Bodies change more than we expect. I've seen people start in their 40s, 50s, 60s, and find peace in their skin.
But more importantly—even if you never looked exactly how you wished, even if you were clocked sometimes, even if it was hard—would living as yourself be worth it anyway?
Not every woman is beautiful by conventional standards. Not every woman passes invisibly through the world.
They're still women. They still get to exist as themselves.
That last line you wrote sits with me: "I just wish I could've had this exact same life, but as a wife/mom."
That's grief, katiebee.
Real grief.
For the life you can see so clearly—the one that runs parallel to this one, where you got to be her. Where the kids call you mom. Where your spouse married the woman you are inside.
That life didn't happen.
Mourning it is legitimate.
But here's what I've learned in thirty years of doing this: the life you're grieving isn't only in the past.
Part of it is still in the future.
You can't go back and be, or have the freedom of a young girl, become a bride, carry a child, raise your own babies as their mom. That's gone or never existed.
But your kids are still young. There could be years ahead—school plays, graduations, weddings, grandchildren—where you're present as yourself.
The whole life isn't lost. Just the early chapters.
I don't know what you'll do with any of this. Maybe you'll keep lurking for another decade. Maybe this post is the first crack in something that eventually opens. Maybe you'll find a way to make peace with things as they are.
I don't know your wife, your specific situation, your risk factors. Only you can weigh all of that.
But I want you to know: the fence you're peeking over? There's a gate in it.
It's not locked.
And it's closer than you think. I think your introduction was first crack in your egg — cracking your egg means admitting that you're trans and not being in denial anymore.
You've been welcome here for the decade you were watching. You're welcome now that you've spoken.
And you'll be welcome whatever you decide.
I'm glad you posted.
— Susan 💜
PS: Over the past weeks, I've been
walking with another spouse on the forum, helping her steady herself while her partner begins transition. What has emerged from those conversations is a pattern that may resonate with you, too.
When someone has been carrying the truth of their sex since childhood, the people who love them often feel the ground shift long before anything actually happens.
Amy has been learning that fear usually isn't about the present moment — it's about imagined futures — and that clarity comes from staying with what is real today, not what might happen years from now.
She's discovering that when a parent or partner begins to live authentically, the relationship doesn't vanish; it deepens, because the person she loves becomes more present, not less.
Some of that may be helpful reading for you. Not because your path mirrors hers — it doesn't — but because the themes overlap: the difference between endurance and wholeness, the fear of disrupting a family, the grief for the life you didn't get to live, and the possibility that the future still holds pieces of that life.
Amy's journey is reminding her that authenticity doesn't take people away from their families. It brings them back to themselves.
If any part of what you wrote is the beginning of your own "cracked egg" moment, some of those conversations might offer perspective as you sort through what this means for you — one honest step at a time.
