how do you stop the urge to transition?

[jamie_44]

Hi girls, I want to give an update on my situation and I would love to hear some feedback. I have been travelling down the road to transition for about 2 years when something happened to stop me. My beautiful wife of 17 years was going to leave me if I continued. That finally tore me up. I stopped taking the drugs for a month now. I also just put my stuff into our storage. It has not been easy, I still look in the mirror and feel like my legs belong on a girl. I don't know if I will be successful but I am going to try. How does one get rid of the feeling that you should have been a girl? Just like girls that are anarexic look in the mirror and see a fat girl. How do you fix that? I just know that I have to try because if I lost my wife I would be very depressed and would possibly consider suicide. Have any others tried to stop the urge to be a girl and been successful? Everything I read says there is no cure which is not encouraging. Anway I would love to hear from others.

[Calliope]

My feeling is that your wife may slow you down - and make the process hard (is that love or control?) - but, eventually, you're going to have to go where destiny is taking you. Transition may or may not include the support of loved ones but, ultimately, it's a pretty personal experience. Certainly the opposition you face will determine the power of your destiny, so there's a good side to your situation. I will add, these are untutored opinions, my SO is so estranged from me as a person she couldn't really care one way or the other so long as dinner is served and the children are doing well. Good luck, stay in touch.

[Stephenie S]

Hi girls, I want to give an update on my situation and I would love to hear some feedback. I have been travelling down the road to transition for about 2 years when something happened to stop me. My beautiful wife of 17 years was going to leave me if I continued. That finally tore me up. I stopped taking the drugs for a month now. I also just put my stuff into our storage. It has not been easy, I still look in the mirror and feel like my legs belong on a girl. I don't know if I will be successful but I am going to try. How does one get rid of the feeling that you should have been a girl? Just like girls that are anarexic look in the mirror and see a fat girl. How do you fix that? I just know that I have to try because if I lost my wife I would be very depressed and would possibly consider suicide. Have any others tried to stop the urge to be a girl and been successful? Everything I read says there is no cure which is not encouraging. Anway I would love to hear from others.

Dear Jamie,

You are right, as far as we know there is no "cure". This is something that will probably be with you as long as you live. Now if anyone HAS stopped, they are not likely to be posting here, so we may not hear from them. Of course, I don't think this is an illness, so I am not looking for a cure.

I would say that a good gender therapist could help you. It seems to me you have other issues to work through also. For instance the thought of commiting suicide if you lost your wife sounds a bit unhealthy to me. Suicide is rarely the answer to ANY temporary problem. Out in the real world, people get divorced, get sick, get old, and have accidents, quite regularly. Committing suicide is a really extreme reaction to our feelings of loss.

Surely, you must come to some understanding with your wife, but it is likely that she does not want to be married to another woman. Can you blame her? If she anounced to you that she was transitioning and becoming a man would you want to continue your marriage? Would you like to be married to another man?

If your relationship with her is more important to you than your desire to become a woman then your course is clear. You are doing that already, aren't you?

Some people have managed to maintain a mariage relationship with transition, but I fear the numbers are really few. I know I am trying myself to do just that, but I wonder how sucessfull my wife and I will be. Only time, and love, will tell.

Steph

[JenniferMint]

I've heard it said that for M2Fs, being able to take female hormones but remaining in a male social role suffices for them.

[AmberTG]

The only MTF TS woman I personally know (shes 2+ years post op now) lost her wife and one of her daughters still has problems with it. That is just an unfortunate fact of transition for a lot of TS people. I think Stephenie S described it pretty well, it's a very tough choice. By stopping the HRT, you've made a choice, you've given up yourself for your wife. Hopefully, this will work for you. Gender issues never go away, it's part of the person you are. How you choose to deal with them is the only choice you can make. This is just based on my own experience, but not dealing with your gender issues in some way will cause you more problems then you already have. I understand your decision to stop the HRT, but please don't try to go into denial, that will only make things worse for you, and for your wife, who has to live with the results.
I'm not sure what would be worse for my wife, me continueing down transition road as far as I'm willing to go, or going back to that crabby grumpy, hard to get along with old man that I was before.
Ireally do wish you good luck with your decision and your marrage, it's obviously quite important to you.
Amber

[Just Plain Kay]

I've heard it said that for M2Fs, being able to take female hormones but remaining in a male social role suffices for them.

I fall into that category, but I suspect that the intensity of Jamie's need to transistion is far greater than mine.

In my case, the estrogen takes the pressure off. In hers, apparently, it does not.

[Maggie Kay]

I am in a similar position in that I have the desire but know that if I fullfill it my wife most likely won't be able to take it. We have had our most hurtful fights over my TG issues. It affected my health in a major way. I'm OK now but do not want to return to those arguments. So far it is a matter of getting though one day at a time. Just make it one more day. I do what I can to partially satisfy my own needs and then do the rest for her's. It is not a perfect solution but it has been 5 months and we are stable. I'm not really happy with my gender state but neither is she. It is sort of a limbo state where I prefer to partially exist in femme rather than keep pressing on to the TG goal. Perhaps you can find a middle ground that will allow you both to have some stability even if it is only on a day to day basis.

Kay

[MJ]

sorry but i tried so hard .but i lost the battle my wife could not deal with my transistion. and we went our differant ways.. i wish her well .. there is no cure and in the end i just had to let go and go with the flow ...

[ShannonDragon]

Jamie

I am with the support group IXE here in Indy. Not wanting to sound pestimistic but...

1) There is no cure or at least we have never seen anyone 'cured'.

2) All of the full blown TS folk we have known who have transisitioned were either single or ended up divorced. Seems not too many of the wives had signed up to end up in a lesiban relationship.

3) You WILL have to make a decision sometime. Is being a woman more important than your wife??

4) Be prepared for all H--- to break loose if you make the wrong/right decesion.

5) There are no right or wrong answers we actually can give you. All of us are different with different circumstances. We can offer you our support and our own experiences but in the end only you can answer what is right for you.

:(

[michelle19845]

it can be very dangerous because when you accept it yourself,your mind tends to go one way towards the female perspective.if you try to go the other way you are going back and forth and can somecases get "tore up" from jumping around and not being on the same page as yourself.it can eat people up.it don't sound like she understands the whole thing of being ts ,which will not help the situation.she needs to learn more about tsism and see how much it can effect your life and how you are as a person ,mentally,socially,emotionally.i would try to get her more educated on the topic if at all possible and have her realize the iportance of what lies on you being who you are.i'd imagine you have had troubles in male role and that led it to be qualified as "gender dysphoria.not just anyone can say"i wanna be a girl" and get it.i wish you the best of luck whatever choice you make.

[Kimberley]

Hi
You can never leave that feeling behind. It will always be with you although acting on it is another matter.

15 years ago I hit the wall and transition was an obsession. However I did find a counsellor who helped me put my life in order. I was able to establish some priorities such as family, friends and career above my gender needs. It is that reason(s) that I did not transition nor am I about to. I cant say it wont happen; to say so would be a lie, but for today, it isnt going to happen.

How do I live? Not easily. I am on antidepressants and see a pdoc and my GP regularly. I get a lot of support from some of the girls here and hopefully am able to offer the same to them. You see, there are others, a lot more than you think.

Even with things as they are, I have to remain closeted if for no other reason than to keep the peace while fulfilling my own needs on the most basic of levels. Is it enough? No, but I can and do live with it.

:hugs:
Kimberley

[Ms. Donna]

It's not so much the urge to transition as it is the urge to be true to yourself manifesting itself through transition. Can you stop it, the urge to be true to yourself? No, you can't. Once the genie is out of the bottle, there's no putting her back. However, you can control how you choose to address these feelings.

Is there a possibility for you and your wife to reach a compromise? A point where you can be comfortable living as 'you' while your wife can be comfortable that she hasn't lost you? My pdoc - smart woman that she is - looks at this not so much as a transition from man to woman (or woman to man for our transmen here) but as a transition from a place of discomfort with our gender to a place of comfort. That place may not require you to 'transition' in the classic sense.

For me, what is working is presenting as androgynous for the most part. I'm more 'feminine' at work, and then 'dial it back' a bit at home. Granted, it's not the easiest of situations, but it is working for my wife and I - and has been for the past five or six years. Not that this would necessarily work for you, but I put it out there as an example of possible alternatives.

Understand that as understanding as your wife has been, she is keenly aware that she is loosing her husband. She is largely a spectator, watching you little by little slip away until all that is left is Jamie and it is impossible for her to not be effected by that. The only real control she has at the moment is the ability for her to end the relationship on her terms and not wait.

One other possibility here is for you so slow down a bit - to transition slower, allowing her the opportunity grow into what your new relationship might become. I know it might seem like a lot to ask, but if your relationship as a couple is important enough, you owe it to her to give her the space she needs to work through this.

You also need to accept that it is very likely that she simply will not be able to remain with you. If this really seems to be the case, then you need to have a talk and address this as adults. She needs to be straight up with you and you with her. Yea, it will suck big time, but better you part friends than have things deteriorate and you part enemies.

Both Kimberley and I have no immediate plans to transition based largely on our family situations. We both cope in our own ways and it's never 'easy' for us - manageable is a good description. We do what we do because being trans is not all there is to our lives. Our lives work because we make them work.

You can't cure it and you can't make it 'go away' - but you can control how you deal with it. Give careful consideration to what you need to be comfortable - not just to what you want. You may find the elusive middle path through all of this.

Love & Stuff,
Donna

[L.E.J.]

I think that it is impossible to stop transistioning once you start,and if you have desires to do so and you do not take steps to do it then you are just hurting yourself in the long run.

[Angela Burke]

I can't.
And I don't really want to. It's great!

[Solari]

I fall into that category, but I suspect that the intensity of Jamie's need to transistion is far greater than mine.

In my case, the estrogen takes the pressure off. In hers, apparently, it does not.

Pardon me for my ignorance (I am new at this whole TG thing), but how do you prevent the female hormones from altering your physical shape to the point that it becomes impossible (or near so) to hide what's happening? I mean, doesn't estrogen promote breast and nipple growth, changes in body shape, hair and skin? Aren't those changes hard to hide after awhile, especially with breast development?

Yours in writing,

Solari

[Scotty]

Pardon me for my ignorance (I am new at this whole TG thing), but how do you prevent the female hormones from altering your physical shape to the point that it becomes impossible (or near so) to hide what's happening? I mean, doesn't estrogen promote breast and nipple growth, changes in body shape, hair and skin? Aren't those changes hard to hide after awhile, especially with breast development?

Yours in writing,

Solari

That depends on age.

At my age, 41, breasts are probably NOT going to get much larger than B cup, and that's EASY to hide except if you want to go to the beach and go shirtless, but SOME guys can do that if they have hair on their chests and want to let it grow. I do not and cannot hide that.

But on the other hand, the hips, the thighs, breasts, nobody has noticed except my backside and that's hard for someoen that has known you at work say, to say "Oh I notice suddenly you have a girls butt".

It's a slow transition, so people see it every day, and unless they stop and look at a 2y ear old photo of you in TIGHT clothes and see you TIGHT clothes they won't know the diff.

in my case I went from a medium T-shirt that was already getting tight to a large T-shirt that is just a TAD loose and hides it well.

Summertime - white t-shirts - THATS a problem. I've been caught on that one twice so I wear white T-shirts that have something that hides my nipples.
I've been asked about my hips when I wore my tig ht Levi's, I ca n't wear them now because of my hips and backside, (31's), so I move up to a 32 and there's enough material loose enough to hide the hips.

When I was at a AA cupsize I went swimming with some guys, it was chilly enough I kept my hands over my breasts, at full A that won't happen now. A T-shirt can be worn...

It's not hard.

Hiding it from your wife now, ha, that's not gonna happen! She will notice eventually......

[AmberTG]

You can also take a low enough dose of daily hormones that you won't see much physical change but it will change your thought process a bit, take the edge off. Without much testosterone in your system, you stop being testosterone driven, and a low dose of estrogen replaces enough of the testosterone that's no longer there to alter your thought process a bit. Most people say that they are calmer, and more emotional at the same time.

[SilkenPrincess]

Hi girls, I want to give an update on my situation and I would love to hear some feedback. I have been travelling down the road to transition for about 2 years when something happened to stop me. My beautiful wife of 17 years was going to leave me if I continued. That finally tore me up. I stopped taking the drugs for a month now. I also just put my stuff into our storage. It has not been easy, I still look in the mirror and feel like my legs belong on a girl. I don't know if I will be successful but I am going to try. How does one get rid of the feeling that you should have been a girl? Just like girls that are anarexic look in the mirror and see a fat girl. How do you fix that? I just know that I have to try because if I lost my wife I would be very depressed and would possibly consider suicide. Have any others tried to stop the urge to be a girl and been successful? Everything I read says there is no cure which is not encouraging. Anway I would love to hear from others.


Jamie,
Back in 1990, my wife gave me an ultimatum, "Give this up, or me and the kids leave." The kids were still young at the time. For their sake I did give it up. For over 14 years. I did some mental gymnastics to be able to maintain any sense of balance. What I did was every time I had feminine feelings, which was a LOT, I imagined stabbing my fem self to death until the feelings ceased. Pretty drastic. I sometimes went through this ritual 10 times in a day. And it worked. The thoughts stopped eventually. But the feelings never ceased. I reached a point where I ceased to allow myself to think about it, but the feeling was always there, smoldering. I now know that only one thing will quiet the feelings. Death. This is who I am, not what I do. I've had these feelings as far back as I can remember, (I'm 50). They're NOT going to go away. So, the choice is, "Do I be REAL, or do I have 'fill-in-the-blank' in my life?" The way, I believe, to answer this is to first recognize the importance of honesty. If you gave it up and lived as someone you are not and she was happy about it, what would that really say about what she thinks of the REAL you? Is that worth what you'd get? On the other hand, if you kept to your chosen path of self-expression and she left, What would you be left with? A REAL persona? Self-satisfaction maybe? Tough world. Tough choices. Only you can decipher the values you place on each outcome. Incidently, my 14 years? It ended in January of this year. I approached my wife seeking help with the feelings I was still having, intending to continue on my long held purge. Her reaction was, "Well, if I can't have a husband, you may as well start dressing again!" It was obvious I couldn't rely on her for support. So, I'm dressing again. And the marriage is failing. And more and more, I care less and less. What hurts isn't the dissolution of the marriage. What hurts is the terrible sense of being alone, without the emotional support of the only one in this world I really need it from. IF you choose to live drab, be aware that if she has no real emotional support for you in your efforts, you will fail. And she will interpret that failure differently than you will. The two of you need to REALLY talk this one through, without pointing fingers or hiding your feelings. Honesty. It works. Sometimes it can lead to pain, but it's honest pain, not pain from hiding. The pains we inflict on ourselves by holding our true feelings back is some of the worst we can do to ourselves. I truly believe that that is how the incidence of suicide amongst ourselves got so high. It's not the rejection we get when we come out. It's the self-loathing of knowing we are not being forthright with those we say we love.
Take care.
Steph

[Solari]

That depends on age.

At my age, 41, breasts are probably NOT going to get much larger than B cup, and that's EASY to hide except if you want to go to the beach and go shirtless, but SOME guys can do that if they have hair on their chests and want to let it grow. I do not and cannot hide that.

But on the other hand, the hips, the thighs, breasts, nobody has noticed except my backside and that's hard for someoen that has known you at work say, to say "Oh I notice suddenly you have a girls butt".

It's a slow transition, so people see it every day, and unless they stop and look at a 2y ear old photo of you in TIGHT clothes and see you TIGHT clothes they won't know the diff.

in my case I went from a medium T-shirt that was already getting tight to a large T-shirt that is just a TAD loose and hides it well.

Summertime - white t-shirts - THATS a problem. I've been caught on that one twice so I wear white T-shirts that have something that hides my nipples.
I've been asked about my hips when I wore my tig ht Levi's, I ca n't wear them now because of my hips and backside, (31's), so I move up to a 32 and there's enough material loose enough to hide the hips.

When I was at a AA cupsize I went swimming with some guys, it was chilly enough I kept my hands over my breasts, at full A that won't happen now. A T-shirt can be worn...

It's not hard.

Hiding it from your wife now, ha, that's not gonna happen! She will notice eventually......

Scottie:

Thank you for a very enlightening reply.

I myself will probably never do anythin WRT my feelings, since I'm quite comfortable in either a male or female role (I've done a few of those "sex identity tests" which usually come up with an androgynous rating for me ... I don't know whether to be insulted or feel complimented by thsoe results), but I sure hope those who do go forward find happiness in the end.

Yours in writing,

Solari

[Solari]

You can also take a low enough dose of daily hormones that you won't see much physical change but it will change your thought process a bit, take the edge off. Without much testosterone in your system, you stop being testosterone driven, and a low dose of estrogen replaces enough of the testosterone that's no longer there to alter your thought process a bit. Most people say that they are calmer, and more emotional at the same time.

Hmm. I wasn't aware of that until now. I guess you really can learn something new every day of your life, if you put your mind to it.

Heh. About the only time I have wild mood swings anymore is when it comes to humanity's future. There are moments when my fellow humans tick me off so much that I can't see straight. Then there are the times when I see a hint of how much potential we have in ourselves to be so much better than we are now ... and it keeps me balanced overall.

Yours in writing,

Solari