Because of things in my life, I always talked about the trans stuff here, but not other things that went on with my life. Maybe that should change. There certainly has been things to learn here.
My time has come. Last night I sat down with my wife and gave her what had been running through my mind. It is time for me to move on from our marriage. Long before I started figuring out who I was, she had fallen deeply into addiction. It will be twenty years next month since she started and we have been married for 26 years. At the time I started figuring things out for me, about 3 years later, I didn't realize this was happening as she hid it well. But as things went along, I figured it out. At first I fell deep into co-dependence. After a while I started to figure out what was healthier for me and her and did better. The problem is, it has been a cycle of using, detoxing, treatment, relapsing, using..... I have seen the inside of a hospital far more than I ever want to see (except for a few days in July for a certain surgery). It is interwoven with depression and suicide attempts, which is pretty scary. In a strange way, it has given me tools to understand those in our community with deep depression issues. It also probably given me the coping tools to deal with my transition.
At first, I thought that I had the rare marriage that survived transition, only to fall to another issue. But the more I thought about it, the more it may be transition related. Before transition, I was okay with being home, taking care of her, and being the one that did everything. I think it was built into a lack of self respect in some ways, certainly not discounting that I loved her and wanted her to get clean. But I accepted my being treated that way and giving one more chance each time. After transition, my personality blossomed. Through volunteering, I met a lot of people and was going to many events that I thoroughly enjoyed. I thrived at work. I was real! So it seems that a new found self respect probably plays into my now picking this point to say this behavior and treatment is not fair to me and not a marriage.
I didn't pick the best time, although it picks the time for us. She has a family member that is terminal with breast cancer and congestive heart failure. We have a grown child homeless because of drugs and the fact that everyone decided to no longer help as he needed his rock bottom to wake up. One family member just had carotid arteries blocked 90% and 60% and got stents put in. Another having knee surgery. Another just diagnosed with lung cancer in both lungs and lymph nodes and I am really afraid on this one. The last month before the Pride Festival, everything is nuts at the Pride Center getting ready, so it piles on a bit. And at work, I am being moved to a new, and probably tougher assignment. It is probably not great timing, but life isn't about good timing.
Part of why I am posting this is that things that look like they are going good, sometimes aren't. And our desire to handle them do depend on where we are in life. If we become real, sometimes we learn we owe ourselves more. We should look at what we have in life and determine if that is really what we want or deserve.
I do still love my wife and wish her the best. I believe she still will love me and even at the end of our discussion, she talked about being excited for my surgery. I hope we continue to be great friends and I will be there for her for anything non-addiction related. The rest, she needs to depend on friends and her sponsor. I'm done. As much as it hurts, it is also a new path of being me.
