Paradigm Shift: Wife to __?__

[Ann Louise]

I continue to work my way through some very surprising, totally unforeseen psychological consequences to my recent start of real life experience, "serving my time," as it might be regarded, in preparation for GRS next year. Yesterday another insight arrived unannounced, poof!:

Implicitly, I no longer regard my "wife" as my wife. She's my partner, my spouse, my super-best friend, or whatever. Just not the culturally-accepted cis-gendered partner called wife. And this mental shift is part of a promise that I'm seemingly impelled to make in my heart, to myself, now that I've been freed from imprisonment.

Well duh, you might be thinking, of course you can't do the male and female thing, you're transitioning! Yes, I know. But it's more than that. I'm talking about in my heart, outward to the world through my newly-freed spirit.

I intend to stay with her for as long as she'll have me, but only provided that she's truly happy living with a woman for the remainder of her life. I don't want to hold an emotional prisoner, held hostage in exchange for continued emotional and financial stability. I want, need, and deserve more, too.

This partnership has to be a newly-wrought promise, a genuine choice on both our parts, made again. And I will not settle for less.

All the best to you,

)0(

Ann

[Kaitlyn Michele]

I wish you guys the best.. I hope that things work out..

I had the opposite experience as you in my own transition. My wife left me (prior to transition), and at first we were quite distant, but events conspired to keep us close and she learned that I worth keep around, and as we co parent our kids,
I still think of her as my wife!! I really never stopped thinking of it that way!!

It's interesting sometimes how differently life events impact each of us.

[kimdl93]

Partner sounds good to me!

[KellyJameson]

One of the insights that helped me understand the transsexual experience as it pertains to me is the realization that I have never related to a woman as a "man"

This understanding as so often seems to be the case before all the pieces fall into place and the truth finally is understood was always there in full view by how I felt different when around other "men" in how they talked about women when no women were around.

I'm not talking about the misogynistic thinking and behavior that any decent person would be offended by but that very specific relational energy that takes place between heterosexual men and women that comes out of being biological opposites.

Men and women have a chemical energy that resonates in a very specific way that makes them different from each other even when the woman has a masculine energy and the man has a feminine energy.

Feminine men still exude a maleness about them and masculine women still exude a femaleness because the energy was there from the very beginning of life.

I have noticed on forums that it is almost impossible for a man pretend to be a woman or a woman to pretend to be a man for any length of time because their true energy always gives them away.

It is really easy to spot a man pretending to be a woman and they talk in ways that are similar to crossdressers in that artificially sweet way men do when they "act" how they think women "feel".

I have never met a woman whose emotional energy is anything like a crossdressers energy except when that crossdresser turns out to be transsexual.

It does not bother me but I always smile because always it is a give away of a man interpreting a woman and than "acting like her"

No man can act his way into womanhood.

When you completely ignore the body you get to the heart of the matter very quickly.

To be a transsexual is more a matter of letting go of any pretense and than waiting to see what is left.

It is a movement away from "acting out' to that state of complete indifference to others in the expression of the genuine self.

The more a person acts like a woman the less they will know if they are one

This is where you will find the truth of what you are.

[ReineD]

I think I understand. You no longer see yourself in a heterosexual relationship, and you want assurance from your wife that she is willing to shift her mindset as well? You do not want her to see you as "my husband who transitioned", but rather to embrace you as "my female romantic partner".

Question: Do you still feel as romantically passionate (as we can feel after many years together) toward her?

[celeste26]

Kelly the difference is between being and doing one can "do" all the various things that women do and still they are not "being" women and that is made more difficult when people insist on making transitions quickly.

[melissaK]

In January I told my wife I had to transition. What ensued over the following months was heart wrenching. The old relationship was pretty damn good, but . . . I wasn't really being all me, all the time. There was always something held back. This time around I am being me . . . and she has had the opportunity to decide if she loves and wants to stay with the more complete me.

Transition hasn't been a traditional MTF-GRS one for me. I identify as lesbian, and I have found a kinda 1/2 way place in gender outlaw land, gender fluid land, that is working for me more than not. So it's way different than full SRS. To the rest of the cis-world, I still pass as male, it just looks like I've had a big mid life crisis that has affected my grooming and wardrobe. But between my wife and I, the changes are huge. We treat each other differently, we talk to each other differently, and we each understand the changed dynamic between us. And with the love we felt in the old relationship not lost, but perhaps thought of as re-purposed, we have made a new relationship.

I guess my point is, I agree. After you decide to transition, after you decide to change, thereafter it does have to be a new relationship - the "newly wrought promise" you talk about.

But, as couples age, as life changes us by accumulated experiences, as our circumstances change, I think relationship adjustments have to be made by by everyone anyway. So, in some ways, the impossibility of making a new relationship is diminished by the inevitability of change in our lives anyway.

Ann Louise I wish you and yours the best.

[Ann Louise]

Question: Do you still feel as romantically passionate (as we can feel after many years together) toward her?

I imagine that I share in common with at least a few others here in the fact that we never really were all that physically passionate to begin with. I attribute this lack of passion on my part, and my apparent insensitivity to it over the years, to my tepid commitment to being masculine in the first place.

I made the contractual and emotional commitments of our marriage through a now discarded shell that represented a composite of all the things that I thought I "should" be for others, including her. But as I uncover and discover who I am, I'm finding true happiness for the first time in my life, and I have dreams of a life wherein this initial happiness is just for starters. The best is yet to come.

I will continue to faithfully honor the contractual and emotional commitments of our marriage for as long as it endures, but only through our mutual agreement, and it is not acceptable to me to force it to endure just to retain a measure of emotional and financial stability.

What I'm trying to express here is that these commitments, and the terms of our future life together, are being spread out in full under a clear, bright light before both of us, and they are being honestly evaluated for their continued applicability in light of our changed circumstances.

The "paradigm shift" I speak of is not that this evaluation will occur. This is, after all, pretty common around here for many of us, no? The shift in my thinking is that whereas I would have feared this examination of my marriage in the past, I now find myself welcoming it.

Ann

[Kelly DeWinter]

Anne;

I hear a lot of "I" in your posts and a lot of emotional legalese in you posts susch as :

"I made the contractual and emotional commitments of our marriage through a now discarded shell"
"I will continue to faithfully honor the contractual and emotional commitments of our marriage for as long as it endures, but only through our mutual agreement"
"it is not acceptable to me to force it to endure just to retain a measure of emotional and financial stability"

So basically you have dumped this on your wife and have a taken it or leave it attitude ?

We get it that you are moving on, redefining who you are , but i don't buy what you are selling and making it sound like you are being 'noble' towards you spouse, everything you post is about a marriage in distress and someone waiting to be free of a marriage and a life.

I especially find the phrase " I don't want to hold an emotional prisoner, held hostage in exchange for continued emotional and financial stability. I want, need, and deserve more" disturbing for your wife.

Don;t get me wrong , I see your anticipated happiness, but try not to forget that what is future happiness for you is future unhappiness for your wife..

[Kathryn Martin]

Kelly this is spot on. In fact reading the response to Reine's comment my immediate thought is this is a trap that Anne's wife is being led into. Contractual and emotional commitments of our marriage? I love your expression emotional legalese. There is nothing honorable in holding a spouse hostage in a relationship whose fundamental paradigm has been destroyed by Anne, by every married mtf transsexual unless both partners create a new paradigm of togetherness.

My sense is the examination under the bright light is the search for an out.

[Kimberly Kael]

Marriages mean very different things to different people. I have no problem with that, so long as both parties go in with their eyes open for reasons that make sense and will continue to for the foreseeable future. Personally? I'm something of a hopeless romantic at heart. Transition hasn't changed how I feel about my wife, and I proudly refer to her as such. Sure, given the current state of our society it's also something of a political statement that occasionally leads to awkward moments, but I don't mind combining my expression of affection with a form of outreach.

The more complicated question initially is how she would refer to me. While she was very quick to adopt female pronouns and has been a huge supporter, she wasn't convinced I'd ever feel like her wife. That seems to have changed with time as she now does so quite regularly.

[Ann Louise]

Gosh Kelly, pretty sharply-worded post. I could appreciate your points, perhaps, but somehow I don't perceive that you intended to help me, or anyone else on "this side" of the forum, even though you did use the proverbial "we" in your response. Perhaps your self-aggrandizement serves you well among the cross-dressers, but it falls flat with transwoman me. A Big Fail.

Hun, I was a cross-dresser, in secret, for 45 years, and through four marriages, three of them failed. I did not engage in my cross-dressing as a cute, cuddly pastime (I read your posts, and your description of yourself), but rather as one of the many lonely, severely depressed elements of a decades-long nightmare that led to intense gender psychotherapy, and ultimately to my ongoing transition.

I truly want to extend some compassionate understanding to your critique of my post, and have attempted to before responding, but I couldn't get there, really. I respond best to compassion extended to me, in return, not uninformed, rude judgments. Big fail again, dear.

Instead I took away:

I am:
1. selfish,
2. litigious and coldly calculating,
3. inconsiderate, and
4. thoughtless.

But dear, in reality, I am proud to confidently state that I am:

1. not selfish: I spent 40 years in four marriages, three of them failed (please see above), with underlying latent gender dysphoria playing me like a marionette on invisible strings, doing everything I could to be an angel of mercy and the Pillars of Hercules for wives, relatives, strangers, heavens, even dogs and cats, everyone except me, who I always made sure was last in the queue for anything,
2. weary of litigation: I have had the most skillful, hostile legalese devised by man and woman shoved down my throat by ex-wives, divorce attorneys, hostile creditors, and child support enforcement staff, for many of the years of my life, and pardon my jadedness, but I know what's up with failed marriages, and I dearly want this one to succeed,
3. love my wife (and how dare you): who has willingly given up her role as the traditional wife in a male/female, husband/wife relationship, and has stuck with me through counseling, HRT, and will be there holding my hand in upcoming FFS in eight weeks. She is an angel, and you are a rude, mouthy man. And
4. thoughtful (at least I try): I didnt' OP this post for a cranky cross-dresser to spout off on my morality and ethics, but thank you very much. I posted this OP for other transsexuals like me, not cross-dressers like you.

I posted my thoughts to provide moral support and aid for those, who like me, live day-in and day-out making our way through our own personal mine fields, and who live in the self-imposed hell of insecurity and doubt because they have always thought of all the others in their lives, and always put themselves last, even when their lives are on the line and they are being pushed to suicide by wives who demand that they give up their dream of transition and continue to live as the man in their lives (but perhaps cross-dressing in the basement at two in the morning).

You can take off your girly panties after you have your fun playing dress-up Kelly. I wear plain old cotton underwear, and shop at Goodwill and Value Village, and live my life as a newborn elderly transwoman, still trying to survive a plight that has led me to contemplate suicide several times. I did not follow through only because I continue to think of others first, including my wife. How dare you.

Thank you for very little Kelly, in fact, thanks for nothing. Stick to makeup, hair and nails.

Very Sincerely,

Ann


Kelly this is spot on.

Thanks for piling on Kathryn. And it's "Ann," not "Anne."

[Kathryn Martin]

Ann, I apologize for misspelling your name. I would invite you to re-read your post and your comments. My reading of what you have written is quite different from yours. Now since it is your post and comment you know what you intended to say but you have not conveyed to me what you may try to say, even in your response to Kelly.

What is obvious though is that you experience yourself as the victim of your own "good" deeds. When you say "not selfish: I spent 40 years in four marriages, three of them failed (please see above), with underlying latent gender dysphoria playing me like a marionette on invisible strings, doing everything I could to be an angel of mercy and the Pillars of Hercules for wives, relatives, strangers, heavens, even dogs and cats, everyone except me, who I always made sure was last in the queue for anything," it is hard to find a different interpretation.

[Kelly DeWinter]

Ann;

I do apologize if you took my reply as a TS vs CD thing, if you have really read my posts you will find I am incredibly supportive of anyone who transitions , I admire theirs and your resolve and fortitude . I take issue at posts that place the spouse in a seeming position of 'take it or leave it'. Really re-read your OP and see if it's not hard to get that out of it ? Any new GG who comes to this site looking to read about their TS/CD spouse to get an idea of what they might expect, would probably speed dial their lawyer.

As far as
"I am:

1. selfish, ( I intend to stay with her for as long as she'll have me, but only provided that she's truly happy living with a woman for the remainder of her life. ). What if she is not happy ? What if she changed her mind as often happens in these situations

2. litigious and coldly calculating, (I don't want to hold an emotional prisoner, held hostage in exchange for continued emotional and financial stability. I want, need, and deserve more. ) - What would you do ? Set her free ?

3. inconsiderate, (I no longer regard my "wife" as my wife. She's my partner, my spouse, my super-best friend, or whatever.) What does she consider herself to you ? What I she wants to be considered your wife ?

4. thoughtless. I'm not sure where that came from, anyone who can write a post about something dear to their heart I could never consider thoughtless.

I won't reply to your personal attacks, since your OP is not about me but about what you posted. One thing about posting online is you do get replies. Not all you agree with, so I won't indulge in personal attacks. Ive posted threads where i've been taken to task by other members and upon reflection i've thought ,"Yeah there's some truth to what they are saying".

( I do recognize that many TS start out as CD and absolutely know that no one including myself ever know where it may ultimately end).

Was it sharply worded ? yeah, I guess it was, and again it was NOT worded as a personal attack. So I won't respond to yours It's just your OP sounded pretty fairly flippant toward your wife " I no longer regard my "wife" as my wife", you make it sound like you are doing her a favor.

Maby posting a bit about how she is taking things will give readers a little of how your wife views this.

Again my apologies for how you took it, but not about what i posted.

[mary something]

Ann;

Any new GG who comes to this site looking to read about their TS/CD spouse to get an idea of what they might expect, would probably speed dial their lawyer.


presupposing what anyone else might think or do can be a dangerous thing, mostly to ourselves. There was a time when I would have agreed with you and Kathryn, years ago. I was married to a woman who played the victim card, who thought I was being selfish because I couldn't not be me. I carried that guilt around with me and internalized it into a viewpoint that would have wholeheartedly agreed with your sentiments and message.

Thank God I was wrong.

Kelly while your words may be true for many women out there, they certainly don't represent all of them and isn't it a little presumptuous to tell Ann that you're sorry for hurting her feelings but know that you're right anyway?

Ann is going through a period of her life where she is having to process a lot of change quickly, give her a break. I hope she can redefine her relationship as she redefines herself in a way that promotes her being able to pursue her happiness as well as her wife.

This is a support forum...

[PretzelGirl]

Mary, sometimes support means giving a friend a wake-up call. If all we was say "good luck" or "nice insight" to every OP, this board would get thin real quick. We do have to realize that sometimes a post may carry negative tones and it is worthwhile to break it down and see how much may be just giving the wrong message in the post itself or that the person may need to take another look at what they are doing. Sometimes that is the best support.

Ann, I wish you the best. A loving partnership doesn't have to be defined by each person's gender, it doesn't have to be defined by sex, it only has to be defined by the two people wanting to be happy in life. I hope you both find what you want with each other.

[Ann Louise]

Everyone, please forgive me for my curt replies. I try to live my life with love and compassion for everyone, and I let you and myself down. I guess this proves that it doesn't take testosterone to be a b!%ch, since I have none anymore. I appreciate the thoughtful criticism of my thinking, and will do the best I can to learn from it. And to the CD side of the aisle, please forgive me. I cross-dressed for a very long time, right up to the start my transition, and had the opportunity to meet many wonderful and loving CD'ers. You're part of our transgender world just as much as anyone else.

All the best to you, and Blessed Be,

)0( Ann )0(

[mary something]

I agree Sue that sunshine being blown helps no one. However isn't that a false dichotomy to assume that one can either be communicating a worthless sentiment or one can be "real" in the way that some of the posters in this thread did?

Did that seem effective to you in helping Ann in this situation?

simply put a relationship is when two people grow together through life's changes and continue to see each other perfectly even though they are both imperfect. I thought MelissaK commented on this more eloquently than I could.

So much of our journey is about learning how to be honest with ourselves after a lifetime of lies. This isn't a linear process nor is it something that is done quickly. However once we get to the point that we just don't care that strongly anymore about what anyone else thinks then we start to live authentically. Then we can examine ourselves and how we got to wherever we are now. There are so many traps to fall into during this process that it can make someone's head dizzy from it all.

Ann, I once felt the way you expressed yourself, that I had lived my life selflessly but you know what? It was my choice. I don't say this to criticize you but simply because that realization was immensely powerful to me. It was the sunlight that I needed to see with the proper perspective. Everything we do is our choice, we own our lives.

Be patient with yourself and with your wife. Use this forum for support and remember it's always better to pour your heart out here when it is too full to carry anymore than to say anything you might regret later.

[I Am Paula]

Another good thread.
My wife has cancer, which has severely limited her mobility, and, while not immediately life threatening, she will certainly go before me. She needs help with everything from bathing to getting to her many appointments.
Even without gender issues on my part, by now I would be her full time caregiver. She has known about my transgenderism since we got married, and tho' never thrilled, always put up with it. When I decided I needed to transition she was, of course, caught between a rock and a hard place. She needs a caregiver, I need (want) the emotional companionship, and a symbiotic relationship was born.
We have built a new relationship built on those needs. I am absolutely certain that given these circumstances, and she were well, she would have left me. Based on traditional definitions, it is no marriage at all. We sleep in separate rooms, and no sex (I gave that up years ago when I could no longer handle that the male role emotionally). Somehow, deep down it works for both of us.
My wife still refers to me as husband in public (she will not use feminine pronouns) by habit, and the fact that this was all forced on her, and it leaves me leaves me little room to complain. I call her my wife, because the lesbian connection does not bother me.
So what are we? A same sex couple? no, doesn't really fit. Best friends? Closer. Two middle aged people, forced by circumstance, to be very close room mates?
I don't know, but we both hold onto it, a make the best of it.

[MatildaJ.]

only provided that she's truly happy living with a woman for the remainder of her life...This partnership has to be a newly-wrought promise, a genuine choice on both our parts, made again. And I will not settle for less.

I like what you have to say about a "newly-wrought promise, a genuine choice," but I wonder if you've thought through how to maximize the chances that you will choose each other anew. In long relationships, often we start taking each other for granted. With new partners, we think about them all through the day, send them messages, and go out for fun adventures on the town, to get to know each other and to cement our connection.

If my husband were transitioning, it would be important to me that we start dating fresh, as two people who don't really know each other intimately. If you're telling me that I've been shut out from the real you until now, well, then we should get to know each other. We should go out on dates, real dates, where we get ready separately and get that affirmation of seeing the other person look at us with appreciation. I'm not saying that's the only way to build a fresh connection, but I'm saying that some thought should be put into it, or else you'll risk falling back into familiar patterns of shading the truth and hiding the real person inside you.

[Carlene]

A difficult and emotional thread, this is.

I think we (all of us) as individuals are hurting on some level. Certainly, we have lived lives heavily influenced by hurt. We felt/feel like we don't fit anywhere, we aren't worthy, we suffer from depression, we fight anyone over anything, or we fight no one even when important.

To all of this we add hurt to ourselves and others when we come out. The people in our lives (usually) aren't ready for this nor has their learned value system allowed for acceptance of this behaviour. None-the-less here we are, desparate to move forward in an effort to salvage our sanity, all the time not knowing how to stop hurting others without destroying ourselves.

Each of us will experience this journey differently, but with some degree of certainty, hurt will be a common denominator............and as such, it forces us to say/write things that appear to be cold, selfish, immature, and so on. There are no clear answers. The best we can hope for is to be here for each other, reach out when asked, be silent at times, and remember that most of us are rooted in less than fertile soil.

I am truly thankful that this forum is here and for the support you have all given.

Carlene......:daydreaming:

[Barbara Ella]

One shift in many that have already passed, and in so many more that are waiting. Our minds may sometimes become accustomed to change, because it is our nature to seek the change that makes things more right. What exactly that "right" is will be the eternal question transexuals must face and come to their own terms. It is so very difficult in a forum such as this, using only a short space of written words to communicate the full extent of emotions that one is going through, and often our answers are too narrowly focused on our own interpretation of what is being discussed.

I do believe that all married transexuals will face something like this as our life changes right before our wife's eyes. Our perceptions of life and the surroundings changes with each different thought we let ourself entertain and integrate into our "self." I know I am an enjenue here, but i do believe that even the seasoned girl, one who has known they were meant to be a woman from an early age, will feel that thoughts about wife-husband dynamic changing as they finally begin their transition, so they are also first timers, and all the preparation in the world cannot remove the changing nature of just being.

My wife recently asked me, crying, "How can you be my husband, how do I fit into this?" I had no answer for her at the time other than to talk about who we were as an individual person thrown into a relationship many (43) years ago. We all come to an agreement, unspoken or otherwise, that hopefully works. It either works for the two, or it is forced to work for the one. the options scare me.

Barbara

[Ann Louise]

...If my husband were transitioning, it would be important to me that we start dating fresh, as two people who don't really know each other intimately. If you're telling me that I've been shut out from the real you until now, well, then we should get to know each other...

Oh yes, Jess, she and the remainder of the world were shut out from me for nearly my entire life, and we indeed are dating now, too. Dinners, concerts and the ballet, trips to the beach. I've made it clear to her (with a feminine wink of my eye) that I am courting her all over again. The fact that we're both women now really makes this interesting in a whole new way, too.

This may work out, and it may not, but the resolution will be by informed, mutual consent. We do love each other, and always will.

Ann

[MatildaJ.]

Wonderful to hear, Ann!