Regrets

[Nikki A.]

There was a post "Younger" about if you had all the information back then that you do now. How would your life have changed or been different. In this case you would have not know your future and you might blaze a whole new tail.
Let's turn it around though, you are where you are now. If you could go back in time, what would you have done differently or are you happy with the way your life turned out.
I'll start. If I had the resources that are available now, I may have transitioned or at least took a different path, since I wouldn't know what my life would have been. Looking back I think I'm pretty well pleased with my life as a whole. Maybe I should have chosen a different career, but over all I love my family and I had a decent life. I don't think I could have done any better. Now as I look ahead, my kids are on their own, I am a widower so again I am at a crossroads on how I want to spend the rest of my life. Hopefully at the end of the road I can say I made the right decision.

[Queen Bridget]

My only one is that I would have been more open about it.

I recently outed myself to a few people and they were totally supportive and told me to embrace it. It made me feel stupid for hiding it and worring for so long.

[MonicaPVD]

I think that's a common sentiment for us gurls of a certain age. However, it's not limited to this aspect. Every second you spend thinking about what could have been is one second less to make the most of right now. I have often wondered what if I had transitioned when I was 19 and dying to do so. But guess what, the world was very different and I would have likely ended up in a very tough survival situation. That was then. This is now. I'm more concerned with now.

[BLUE ORCHID]

Hi Nikki :hugs:, The one regret that I have is waiting 72years to get my ears pierced. >Orchid ..o:daydreaming:o..

[Shayla]

I don't really think in terms of regret when it comes to CD-ing. When it comes to both my own understanding/self-acceptance and my intimate relationships, I did the best I could with the information I had at the time. I do however, envy those now in their teens and twenties, just the knowledge and understanding that exists among that age group would have made my life/relationships somewhat better.

[Sami Brown]

I haven't been crossdressing that long, about 5 years. 4 1/2 of those years have been in a small rural town. If I had to do it over again, I would have gone to a city. I feel that I would have come much further in gaining confidence by being out and about.

Fortunately, we are making that move in September. I am really looking forward to it.

As far as earlier experimentation is concerned, where I really didn't know I was a crossdresser, but there were hints into it, I'm not sure whether I would have pursued it earlier in my life. I wouldn't have had a good family situation if I had started earlier. I am curious about how it would have gone, but don't really have any regrets about not being an active crossdresser back then.

So the only thing I would have definitely changed is moving out of this small town earlier. It's not to say that one can't be successful as a crossdresser while in a small town, it just isn't for me.

Sami

[Tracii G]

No regrets really and I have accomplished everything in life I set out to do.
Set goals reached them,made plenty of mistakes along the way too.
Life dishes out bumps in the road and you have to just do the best you can with what you have at that time.
I do wish I had known there was a different path or shall we say the female within me path and that I had taken it.
Then again would life had been better?
I could have married a pro golfer that wears clothes that don't match and hangs out at the 19th hole too long when he should be home with me.LOLOL.
Basically people that fret over what could have been seem to never be happy with all that they have now or at least don't appreciate what they have.

[Gillian Gigs]

Hindsight is always 20-20 vision. To me one of the differences is that today's society is more accepting than it was when I was in my 20's. I think that if I was in my 20's today things would have been different for me. Now, one of the things that I do my best not to do is regret what has already happened. I can't change the past, so get over it and move on, making the best of it.

[SaraLin]

IF I knew then what I know now, I think about the only thing i realistically *could* have changed would be that I probably could have opened up to my sister - and maybe my mother - about my 'issues.' I think that they might have been able to understand, at least a little, and provided some emotional support when I needed it most.

When I think of the times I grew up in (50's, 60s), and the home life I had (poor and a father who left us), I don't believe I really had a whole lot of options to follow any life paths that differed much from the one I took. Of course, I'll never know.

The life path I *DID* end up taking has had both its good and bad times. In regards to my dressing, or gender issues in general, it has probably been more bad than good. Still - I feel like I probably ended up in almost the right place in my life. About the only real complaint I still have is that my SO is less accepting than I'd like - and not budging. Maybe that's a good thing though. She keeps me anchored and I don't get lost while adrift in the pink fog.

[sometimes_miss]

They say that hindsight is 20/20 vision. The only definite thing that I would have changed, is not to have become friends with the older boy who sexually abused me for many years. In hindsight, the up side was having a friend, and not getting beaten up all the time; maybe I could have figured out another way, but I was only a little kid, so, maybe not. I don't know whether something else might have influenced me to crossdress, but for me, that was the major incident in my life.

[Tracy Irving]

Looking back, I may choose to do some things differently but I don't regret the decisions I made.

[GracieRose]

No one gets everything that they want so you do the best with what you have to work with.
40 to 50 years ago, the world was far less accepting of us than now. Had the resources available today been in place then, I might have considered transitioning, but I'm not sure I would have been tough enough to survive rejection/ disapproval/ bullying that I believe was more prevalent in the 1970s.
I feel that I did good with what I had to work with. I have had a decent life thus far. Perfect? No way. However, there are many, many others that have had to deal with much more difficult issues than this.
No use worrying about what could'a should'a been. I've done that too often already, and figured out that worrying about past decisions is unproductive and doesn't make it better.

[Alice Torn]

I have been single all my life, and do have many regrets. A times, i wish i had died at birth, because i have had a severely troubled and lonesome life. Some mental and emotional illness, and anti social parents, and kept away from girls, like my dad was. My dad wanted girls , and not boys. i was the last born, and he tried to get an uncle to adapt me. I think this is a key reason i became a crossdresser, and a bit fem, even though i have like guy things too. I have always been a loner, but tried for years to fit in, and not be a loner. The crossdressing made me even more of an isolated loner, sadly. I have not been able to fit in much anywhere all my life, and often consider ending it, but i have cats, and donot want them homeless. I also believe in Higher Power, and crossdressing goes against the book. So, i regret that i have been so screwed up all my life, from a very toxic family. Hopefully, all is not lost. At 64, i am on SS, not working, have no close friends in my region. Everyday is a challenge. I feel like i am from another planet sometimes, or cursed from birth.

[Rachelakld]

Hell-of-a-life, wouldn't change a nickel of it (but next weeks Lotto numbers would be nice).

[Becky Blue]

If I had shaved all over before I met my wife to be, she would have never known I had body hair and would have either been put off by that and we would never have had the second date... or she would have liked me smooth...

[Teresa]

Nikki,
That was the answer I gave to that thread , unless I had severe GD then the whole dressing issue might have dominated my life too much . It is my fear sometimes when I read younger members threads, they don't attempt to put the dressing issue on the backburner. For a young person life is too precious to not go out there and live it to the full. I would probably have more regrets not living the life I did and achieving what I did . Most of us look back in hindsight and see the mistakes but that's life , sometime it's a series of accidents and mistakes , often you hear about people falling into a career by accident and totally enjoy it. It happened with me in my photography , I would have missed out so much on the people I met , the places I worked , the excitement maybe not so much the stress but that was partly down to Teresa wanting to surface .

[Charlotte7]

...If you could go back in time, what would you have done differently or are you happy with the way your life turned out.

I don't think that these two questions are mutually exclusive. Yes, I am happy with the way that my life turned out, but I'm also reasonably sure that, had I been young now, in the world as it is, with very changed attitudes, increased awareness and growing acceptance, then my life would have turned out very differently. Do I regret this? No, I don't regret it, I was a child of my time. I have no regrets at the way things turned out.

[Connie D50]

This is a hard one if I could go back I would like to back three times. One that I let my fem side out much much more and see where that ends up. (transition) Seconded remove all fem jeans in me and see how much my life chances. Third tell wife before we married not sure she would still marry me if not. I would (like a lot of us) look for a women who would embrace my feelings. it sounds like I have regrets how ever I love my family and have a great life.

[Beverley Sims]

Given the chance and with what I know now, I would have continued the hormones when I was twenty.

[Danielle722]

Talk about making someone think! Im not sure if i would change much either.maybe just would of really embraced this side of me a little more a little sooner instead of trying to hide it ir control it.but theres no time like now to see where it goes.

[dana digs sweaters]

Regrets? Nope.
Would have sought out a crossdressing group at an earlier age tho :)

[Desiree2bababe]

Well, while my seemingly accepting bride to be did not pan out to be so accepting once she realized just how much of a woman I could be, had we not gotten married I would not have the two wonderful children we produced. Sure, I'd probably been happier with some one else but life is what it is and we make the best of it. I'm sure you made the right decision, now just enjoy your freedom.

[Stephanie47]

Satisfied with how things went for the first seventy years. Oh, there were bumps and bruises along the way. Strictly on the cross dressing issues life would have been a lot simpler if there were resources available to a teenager back in the 1960's. A lot of societal misconceptions still exist. There may be more acceptance or at least tolerance. For me it was a big issue in the 1960's and 1970's to try to figure myself out....conflicting feelings along with societal misconceptions.

Otherwise, I would have bought a bigger house to knock around in during my retirement years.

[Jane G]

I thought hard about transformation, when I was in my 20s. I took hormones for a time. Many years on I have a loving wife, great kids, a successful career, in a still male dominated sector and very few regrets. I still dream of the woman I could have been, but the male version is content.

[kimdl93]

I don't really care to entertain what-ifs. Do I have regrets? Wish that I had few do-overs? More than I care to recall.

[IleneD]

Maybe this is one of the true paradoxes of my life.
No regrets. Even with my latent gender issues and having left that piece of my life unresolved; even with the decades of self-loathing, guilt and denial......NO REGRETS.
I have received a much, much better deal in Life than I could have imagined; certainly more blessings than I probably deserve. The doors, opportunities and experiences that opened before me were amazing. I have a family, children and grandchildren as the result that gives me a joy I might never have known had I followed a different path

I look back at decision points in my life. I often wonder had I taken that other turn or gone another way (maybe followed those natural or feminine instincts), how Life may have turned out. I know for certain, however, that the choice I made paid dividends. It made for a Life that was productive, interesting and loving.

I will give an example that springs to mind and was a key fork in my CD Road. I had graduated college. Went to live and work in a strange city where I didn't know a soul. As I got into the grind of a new job (and doing well), I had almost no social life. I was "attempting to walk the straight and narrow path" at this point of life. I had the intent to be a good, all-American normal red blooded "guy". But I had no success in meeting people or establishing relationships. I began to despair and thought that this "being normal" crap wasn't going to work out at all. One day prior to my seasonal vacation I spied a green dress on a dept store rack. Quite by accident, but it caught me at one of those weak moments. I began to give serious thoughts about buying that dress and expanding my feminine experiences. Go back and take that "gay" path, I was telling myself. I determined that when I returned to town from vacation I was going to buy that dress, learn to wear it and think about dating men.
It was on that vacation trip that I met my wife. Completely out of the blue, came a girl. We fell in 'love at first sight" and stayed that way for 41 yrs (still going). But she came into my life at that pivotal moment when me - a depressed, lonely, dorky young man - was about to elect an entirely different life path and lifestyle altogether. I won't say she "saved" me from any fate. The positive results that came from it speak for themselves

Yes.... I torment over my transgenderim, CD and even the results it could have on my marriage (we're doing good). But life is good. Never been a better time to be alive.

NIKKI.... my heart goes out to you for being a widower. I know the sting of loneliness. It's probably the one crippling 'disease' I have. I do hope you find companionship again. And listen, I don't know your orientations, where or if you're on the TG spectrum, etc. , but don't give up on the prospect of taking a male living companion and living the rest of your life as a woman. You will make the right choices, Nikki. At this point in Life, you know yourself so much better.