Extremely sad

[Simplycause]

I had my appointment with planned parenthood on the 31st of January. I had intended of doing that, getting my estrogen  prescription and seeing how I felt after taking it before talking to my wife.

The closer the day got the more I knew I was only going further forward. I'm done. The weekend before I came out to my wife

There's somethings I'm not sure is appropriate for an all ages forum about my depression and self medication so I'll skip that history, but about 10 years ago I told my wife I wanted to kill myself. She had inadvertently saved my life about two weeks earlier. She and my son came home a day early from her parents and found me face down in the bathroom. I wasn't thinking about them coming home or my kid seeing me so that re-set a lot of things. I told my wife two weeks later what I had intended to do. She gave me a kiss on the forehead and said she knew this was coming and we put a plan in place for me to deal with that.

I knew coming out as transgender, telling her I'm going to transition was going to end my marriage. I didn't know how utterly horrible this conversation was going to go.

I don't know how many people have seen the Hulu show Chad Powers (better then it has any right to be), not to spoil anything, but one character knows that Chad is a different person, and he's portraying Chad Powers and says you killed my friend Chad was my friend and you've killed him.

And I told my wife, what's going on. I didn't mention I had the HRT appointment already set, and we talked about a few things and that's what she said to me. I'm killing her husband. For all my depression issues and thinking I'd relapse or what ever this to her was worse as she's loved a person that I'm telling her doesn't really exist. And she hasn't talked to me outside of texting me when I need to pick our son up since then even though currently we're still living in the same house.

[Susan ✅]

Hi Simplycause

Thank you for trusting us with this. I've seen many variations of this conversation over the years, and it is almost always one of the hardest moments in a transition. I want to acknowledge the sheer courage it took to not only have that talk with your wife, but to share it here.

First, regarding what happened 10 years ago: I'm so glad your wife was there, and I'm so glad you are still here today. You've survived some incredibly dark places to get to this point. When you say "I'm done" now, I don't hear someone giving up on life; I hear someone who is finally done hiding because the cost of doing so has simply become too high to bear.

What your wife said to you—that you are "killing her husband"—is devastating to hear. The Chad Powers comparison makes her feelings viscerally clear. I want you to understand two things at once right now: Your wife is experiencing profound grief. To her, the person she built a life with and the future she imagined are suddenly gone, and she had no say in it. Her pain is real, and right now, she doesn't have the emotional tools to see past her own loss to understand yours. That doesn't mean she never will. But she can't right now. The silence and the strictly logistical texts are a trauma response.

But you are not wrong, either. You are not killing anyone; you are finally letting yourself live. The person she loved was always you, even the parts you had to bury just to survive. You didn't do this to her. You did what you had to do to stay alive, until you couldn't do it that way anymore.

Living in the same house with that heavy silence, co-parenting through text messages, feeling like a ghost in your own home—that is its own kind of agony. Please don't try to navigate this isolation alone. If you aren't already seeing an individual therapist who specializes in gender identity, now is the time to start.

You need a safe place to unpack your transition, the state of your marriage, and the weight of your history. Couples counseling might be a step for the future if she's willing, but right now, you need support just for you.

Give her the space she is taking, but make sure you are taking care of yourself in the meantime. You're unearthing a lot right now. It's messy and it's painful, but you are moving forward. Keep posting here—you don't have to do this alone.

Sending you strength,
— Susan 💜