Explaining To The SO

[pacificblue]

Let me start by saying that I've already "outed" myself to my wife, she knows I am a female and is wonderfully supportive. She calls me her "wife" and uses female pronouns for me and we share little jokes back and forth but something still bugs me.

I have no way to really tell her of the pain, awkwardness, self-loathing, suicidal thoughts, confusion, anger, depression and all the other emotions that have followed me since early childhood. I cannot think of a good way of explaining what it is like to be trans.

Even now it's hard (near impossible) to put this into words. To tell you the exact details of how I came to this conclusion that I am female is difficult and would be too long to comfortably read.

Simply put: It's not that I feel female, its that I am female and have been trying to feel male ever since birth. Not a day went by without me hating who I saw in the mirror and hating damn everything I did and said. Nothing was right about me, I felt like I was living in this big, ugly, blocky, hollow shell. I fit nowhere in this world and felt like I didn't even want to deal with it anymore. My loving wife and our future together are the only things that prevented me from the worst outcome. Then...

SNAP

Suddenly everything was right, bright and sparkling new. I've struggled for 21 years and then everything made sense to me. I felt wonderful, a freaking goddess reborn. I've thought about this previously but I had to certain that this wasn't a phase or that I was trying to escape the scars of my past through a new identity. I had to be certain that I wasn't just a repressed crossdresser and that I wasn't just fooling myself. I had to be absolutely freaking certain before I dropped a bomb like this. Not only for my wife but for myself as well.

I told her on a night when I was crossdressing. I just couldn't hold it back anymore and the floodgates opened. I cried for hours while she listened to me. She asked me TONS of questions and of course she went through a first night freak-out but now she's leveled out and has accepted me easily.

My only problem is that I have no easy way to make her understand how painful and confusing and devastating being trans is (at least for me). It's not a question of if I am. I know I am but have always been. It was just a matter of accepting myself. I shared with her something amazingly deep, intimate and secretive but I want to make her understand how much it means to me to be so in pain and then be able to not only escape that pain but share something like this with someone you love.

For those who skimmed to the bottom: I'd like a concise and accurate analogy, metaphor or simile for explaining what it is like to be trans.

[Angela Campbell]

To me it has always been like everything in the world was wrong. The world expected me to be something I am not, and no one will listen if I try to tell them. In fact they will punish me if I tell them. Sometimes it is the loneliest feeling there is. Its like being a cat and everyone expects me to bark and bring in the paper.

[AllieSF]

The easiest and most accurate way to tell her that is to print out what you wrote above, give it to her, ask her to read it and then think about it, and then come back to you to talk in more detail about it. Don't forget to ask her to bring a box of tissue paper too. What you have said here could not be said any better, is succinct and very truthful. It doesn't take a lot of words to make a good point and you did that above. Good luck and welcome to this new wonderful and frightening world for you.

[Jorja]

I have no way to really tell her of the pain, awkwardness, self-loathing, suicidal thoughts, confusion, anger, depression and all the other emotions that have followed me since early childhood. I cannot think of a good way of explaining what it is like to be trans.

Even now it's hard (near impossible) to put this into words. To tell you the exact details of how I came to this conclusion that I am female is difficult and would be too long to comfortably read.

Simply put: It's not that I feel female, its that I am female and have been trying to feel male ever since birth. Not a day went by without me hating who I saw in the mirror and hating damn everything I did and said. Nothing was right about me, I felt like I was living in this big, ugly, blocky, hollow shell. I fit nowhere in this world and felt like I didn't even want to deal with it anymore. My loving wife and our future together are the only things that prevented me from the worst outcome.

Just tell her this. It says it all.

[melissaK]

Sweetie, my first thought was the same as Allie and Jorja, use your own heartfelt and impassioned words - which it sounds like you did.


I just couldn't hold it back anymore and the floodgates opened. I cried for hours while she listened to me. She asked me TONS of questions and of course she went through a first night freak-out but now she's leveled out and has accepted me easily.

As for other descriptions, I liked Kathryn Martins line about what we feel so much I put it in my signature block.

I can't think of any metaphor that's perfect, and my metaphor may not make sense to you, but I feel like an actress in a play which never ends. Always on script, never getting to play myself. People love my character, but not "me."

And others do get it. Think about the kids movie Shreck . . . or Beauty and the Beast. They are really about loving people for reasons other than appearances.

And of course, please don't make the entire story about you. Your wife is amazing if she listened, and cared. I mean think about her story - "Holly cow, Katy Perry got bent outta shape because she kissed a girl, well heck, I married a girl!"
She's absorbing a LOT of change herself. She may indeed have to trivialize things a bit just because she's overwhelmed with change.

I think you would do well to give her some time. You've been dealing with this silently, internally for decades, for your whole life. There's no way she can appreciate that all in one fell swoop, and deal with her own life getting turned upside down.

And finally, while being out to her, to ANYONE, is amazingly wonderful, like getting kissed on first date all over again when we are heady with the romantic idea "someone LIKES us," unless you are working on a transition plan, the walls soon close in and you realize your closet may have doubled, but it's still a closet.

So, even if you get the perfect metaphor, and it gets your wife to feel your pain as if she was you, don't expect your wife's understanding to be enough to make it all go away for you, or for her to then think it's her mission to keep you happy through eternal understanding.

But that's just my opinionated two cents. It could all be way wrong. :)

[Lorileah]

For those who skimmed to the bottom: I'd like a concise and accurate analogy, metaphor or simile for explaining what it is like to be trans. Thanks gals.

A long time ago I had a friend (yes hard to believe but I did) and I said to my friend "I know how you feel." He said "You will NEVER know how I feel. Because you cannot know how I feel." What's it like to be trans? Well it is like...what you are everyday. Do want an easy answer? Ask your wife what it is like being a woman. What is the taste of green? What is it like to be who you are? there is no answer that you can explain. You are only setting yourself up for disappointment.

You know there are whole college courses that ask questions that cannot be answered. They even give degrees called a PhD which you get from trying to answer unanswerable questions. That degree and 5$ will get you a small coffee at Starbucks.

[pacificblue]

Thanks everyone for your replies. I have tried explaining to her her several different ways and I'm not ignorant to her feelings or how she's dealing with it (It's not exactly a common thing to tell your wife, after all). She's actually taken to it rather seamlessly and I slip my personal pronouns more often than she slips them for me.

It's just frustrating because to her it probably seemed like I just decided this all in one day. Like "Oh yup. I'm a woman now." It's not all all the case and it makes me feel like a bit like a joke that I would tell her something so important on a whim. She doesn't see it like that but when I step outside myself and have the conversation from her point-of-view that's certainly what it LOOKS like. There's no indication of my lifelong pain because I've become so adept at hiding it.

I wanted the something I could say that simply showed her that no, it wasn't a silly thing I just decided when I woke up yesterday. I wasn't even a decision. It's just a part of who I am and who I have always been. It's caused me pain and trials my whole life because I hated myself and didn't understand myself or my situation. I'm not putting on a disguise, I am removing one. I'm not changing who I am, just accepting myself as I am. When I look in the mirror, I no longer see an ugly male, I see a beautiful woman trying very hard to look male (and failing horribly).

I think I might be overthinking this but it's something so important to me and utterly intrinsic to who I am that I want her to understand just a little bit more who much her acceptance and continued love means to me.

[Angela Campbell]

It is hard, maybe impossible for someone who is not like this to really understand. All I know is what people see when they look at me isn't me.

[melissaK]

PacificBlue Sweetie, I don't want to walk on your thread with my story, but I get your objective, and I think I understand your feelings as I am in a very similar place in my relationship with my wife. After a long 20 years of self editing my thoughts and behaviors around my wife for my wife's benefit, I stopped. I just started being me. I haven't transitioned, I am not out to others, but I am completely out to her.

And she reciprocated by being open with me. She has explained her fears of judgment by others, and her feelings that if I follow through with living full time, she just can't see herself with a woman.

But in all that - she has given me a degree of acceptance I have never ever had before at any time in my entire life, and OMG, it feels wonderful. I have never felt this good. She didn't run away and leave me alone like I have been my whole life! I am mindful that she may not stay, and our long term future remains uncertain, but for now, she has done more for my self esteem than I could imagine.

So, that's what I told her. I said "I didn't think I could love you more, but I do. You have given me something no one else ever has, something I didn't think I would ever experience - acceptance and love for me being me." And there's not much to say after that. But my actions and mannerisms carry out the love I feel for her all the time.

And there's no strings attached. It's as unconditional as I can make it. I will be that way whether she stays with me or not. I have spent some time explaining that I know in my heart that my post transition interests will be in her, in a woman. Since my early 20's I have known my ideal mate was a lesbian woman. And because I know we all have inner ideas of some things, I have said I understand that her ideal mate is probably not a lesbian woman, and I get that. I still love her, and even if it ends up being unrequited love, I will still love her. (But yes, I also know I will be a complete inconsolable crying mess for months if it ends).

And as I read back over your posts, do you think you are trying to make your future happiness her responsibility? That you are telling her if she leaves you can't be happy? That doesn't sound like a good foundation for your life - to have to depend on someone else to make you happy. I don't think you are really intending to say that, but when you want her to understand what her "continued love means to me" it has that ring to it.

That last bit sounds pretty judgmental by me and I'm sorry for that. Its not meant to be that critical. Like I said, I see a lot of my situation in yours, and I am really rooting for you and your wife; if you make it there's still hope for me. :-)

[Kaitlyn Michele]

My only problem is that I have no easy way to make her understand how painful and confusing and devastating being trans is (at least for me). It's not a question of if I am. I know I am but have always been. It was just a matter of accepting myself. I shared with her something amazingly deep, intimate and secretive but I want to make her understand how much it means to me to be so in pain and then be able to not only escape that pain but share something like this with someone you love.

For those who skimmed to the bottom: I'd like a concise and accurate analogy, metaphor or simile for explaining what it is like to be trans. Thanks gals.

Stop obsessing about your pain and confusion...how's that for concise?? :heehee:

+++++++
FWIW I can offer this from my own experience

I realized the depth of my own problem over a many year period...as i realized i was crossdressing because i was a woman, and i started to aim towards transition i got my act together and i started telling people around me..

from my exwife, parents and kids to my friends and work collegeagues.... i easily told 100's of people face to face...

like you , i was very focused on trying to get them to understand, and because i have suffered like you, i know what you are feeling, and also like you, i was compelled to share this feeling...the depths of the feelings were in the forefront of my early transition..it helped because looking ahead , the reality of transition was so overwhelming that i had to constantly look back and see the juggernaut of depression and isolation bearing down on me...

and so as i disclosed, i was very focused on looking back..i told many people about the depths of my feelings, how horrible it was to live as a man, blah blah blah...i was desperate for understanding...

i can report that
1.) its impossible for them to "understand"
2.) i wish i had couched everything in more positive terms
3.) people can't process the depths of our feelings..and they don't want to, and they shouldn't have to...

so what i'm saying is keep it simple.. you get almost nothing tangible out of making people feel sorry for you...get them excited for you...hard to do, but that's what you really want isnt it?

[pacificblue]

Wow. All of you gave really great advice which is why I joined the forum in the first place. You've led me through this problem and I think that I have been far too focused on my negative past rather than my bright, bright future. Telling my wife how miserable I was only makes it seem terrible to be trans, where the problem was that I had a terrible time accepting myself for being trans. I was born a woman, which is no better or worse than her being born a woman, the difference is essentially that I got stuck with a male upbringing and body. Big difference but being open with her and accepted by her has allowed me to move past that pain.

So what I'm left with are my memories of that pain and I'm trying to make her understand those memories which is a bit like trying to explain an inside joke, completely meaningless to anyone who didn't experience it firsthand. All I can give her is time and trust and though she will never understand my pain, she accepts me and that's enough.

[Alice B]

Simply have her read what you have posted here.

[DeeDee1974]

I think what you said in your original post sums it up perfectly. It will always be hard for those who are not trans to comprehend no matter how well we explain it.

When I finally had enough and came out to my ex-wife she didn't speak to me for several days. When she finally did what she said spoke volumes as to how hard it is for anyone to understand what we go through. She said "this would be so much easier if you had told me you were gay, I could at least understand it if you were attracted to men"

That's when it dawned on me that here I was married to this woman who was very comfortable with who she was and that what I was going through was completely foreign to her.

She was very compassionate and is still a great friend and for that I'm thankful.

[pacificblue]

UPDATE:

So, it's been a week since I told her and things have become pretty normalized. I let her read what I wrote here and she's taken her time to think. Some days have been silent and fuming, and some have been emotionally intense and passionate but for the most part she's been normal.

I've told her plainly that I have no plans of outing myself immediately because that's a huge step and no immediate or even concrete plans on making permanent body transitions. My male body is no longer painful to live in just sort of... awkward and inconvenient. I'm a woman, no doubt and a woman is no less a woman just because of her body. It's like wearing a bulky Halloween costume year-round and by putting on my ratty dime-store wig and my itchy birdseed/pantyhose breasts I shed that costume and feel much more comfortable.

Since telling her this she's let me crossdress much more often though not constantly, which is fair and makes sense. I need to allow her time to normalize things. Our relationship has been the same although we've yet to go a single day without talking about my transsexuality. Sometimes good talks, sometimes deep, sometimes silly but really she's had nothing negative to say aside from her first day freak-out. She identifies as Pansexual (same as myself) and says she finds me attractive both in "guy-mode" and "gal-mode".

Emotionally she says that I'm exactly the same person I was but I'm now confident, much more happy and that there's a bounce in my step and a new sparkle in my eyes. She likes not seeing me beat myself into a depressed pulp over my little mistakes and then wallow in misery for weeks.

She also had this to say and I think it speaks volumes: "No matter who you are, you are still the PERSON I love. More than my husband and more than my wife, you are the PERSON I love. I can accept you as you are because I love the way you are and no force on earth can change that. I love you for more than your body, your sexuality or your gender. I love YOU just because you are you."

So I know there's been a lot of broken hearts and broken marriages, I know there's been many dark days for a lot of great people and maybe I just got really lucky and maybe you think I'm naive and too optimistic but I wanted to post an update to show that there is hope for everyone (even if, like me, you feel unlovable) and that love can survive the most difficult trials. :)

[arbon]

UPDATE:

She also had this to say and I think it speaks volumes: "No matter who you are, you are still the PERSON I love. More than my husband and more than my wife, you are the PERSON I love. I can accept you as you are because I love the way you are and no force on earth can change that. I love you for more than your body, your sexuality or your gender. I love YOU just because you are you."



Well that's pretty cool. Not very many people could step beyond just looking at a persons gender and love them regardless.

[morgan51]

She is truly a gem. Most leave and are very bitter some leave and remain friends as mine did. She is a gem as well. I'm thankful for her friendship and consider myself lucky to still have her in my life as a friend. What we ask wives to accept is beyond the pale! Transition for me has been much loss and a little acceptance I cling to the good and hope for better days. With time things are settling down and becoming peaceful if lonely. I'll take peace anytime over arguing and fighting. We are both experiencing some peace and thats a good outcome. Most of my problems today are from my genetic family, parents , siblings. I've been sumarilarily ostracised and shunned by all with the exception of one brother and a couple cousins, I'm very thankful for them! My children have been loving and supporting all.

[melissaK]

Sweetie, thats the best follow up news!! Go find the line forming for people to be cloned after they perfect cloning and save her a place there, ok? :)

Hope all continues so positively for you both. Big hugs. :)

[DeeDee1974]

Sounds like you have a wonderful woman to share your life with. Nice to hear things seem to be moving in a positive direction.

[Kaitlyn Michele]

Just keep doing what you are doing..

YOu can't control how gender dysphoria comes into your life, and you can't control how a SO feels about it...

but you can continue to be a good person, and you can avoid blame and the associated guilt for both of you by doing exactly what you are doing...(Which is being thoughtful, compassionate and honest)

[StephanieC]

Wow...what an incredible outlook: she is in a very small minority who appear to feel this way. I wish more people could transend the external.

You are exceedingly lucky!! Good luck!

-stephani