jennCD
03-03-2008, 01:00 AM
...so on Friday night, my wife and I had watched an episode of a 4 hour marathon of "Him to Her" on the Discovery Health channel, which she'd called me at work to ask me if she wanted me to record it. As I wasn't sure if I had already taped those episodes, I told her to go ahead.
We caught the final episode which dealt with a married trans-woman looking to begin transition prior to telling her family, as well as a young trans-man having chest surgery.
It was nice to be able to watch these together but I could sense that my wife was somewhat 'off' by the time it was over and we'd prepared to go to bed. Who knows if it was simply exhaustion, or monthly emotional fluctuations or if it was the content of the program that kinda made her seem distant.. I'd guess it was a little of both.... but hey, by 2:am, I was tired as well.
...so then my wife comes up behind me while I'm at the computer during daily maintenance and she says "9:00 tonight... Channel 65".
Without thinking, I picked up a pen and sticky pad and scribbled it down and looked at her questioningly.
"A show for you.", she said, "Something you'd like,.. similar to what we watched the other night. It's called Taboo".
"Sounds like my kinda show, yep!" I said.
I recorded it but we only caught the last few minutes of the show which covered the SRS of a trans-woman planning on marrying another pre-op TS who was presenting as male for the purposes of the segment. We speculated a bit about how short-lived that marriage would be within the legal context once the partner transitioned as well.
My wife is open about watching this sort of programming with me and that is a great relief. We do talk about transgender topics enough to be at a good comfort level about it (at least conceptually and verbally), and we spoke tonight about the overall issues that have weighed on her since she found out. Her ability to imagine (or more precisely, the inability to NOT imagine) me presenting as jenn, since it is something we both agreed we're not comfortable with now, is a part of her sometimes-strong bouts of depression. Externally, she handles it all very well, but she's admitted that on the inside, she's "not really that ok".
It does sadden me to know that the woman I love, the best friend I'll ever have, may never be happy in the same way that I remember her being when we first began to date, but knowing that her knowledge of my gender identity issues may one day be the main factor in her lack of happiness, well... it does more than just sadden me...
What value would a smile have if it's more often hiding a frown?
We caught the final episode which dealt with a married trans-woman looking to begin transition prior to telling her family, as well as a young trans-man having chest surgery.
It was nice to be able to watch these together but I could sense that my wife was somewhat 'off' by the time it was over and we'd prepared to go to bed. Who knows if it was simply exhaustion, or monthly emotional fluctuations or if it was the content of the program that kinda made her seem distant.. I'd guess it was a little of both.... but hey, by 2:am, I was tired as well.
...so then my wife comes up behind me while I'm at the computer during daily maintenance and she says "9:00 tonight... Channel 65".
Without thinking, I picked up a pen and sticky pad and scribbled it down and looked at her questioningly.
"A show for you.", she said, "Something you'd like,.. similar to what we watched the other night. It's called Taboo".
"Sounds like my kinda show, yep!" I said.
I recorded it but we only caught the last few minutes of the show which covered the SRS of a trans-woman planning on marrying another pre-op TS who was presenting as male for the purposes of the segment. We speculated a bit about how short-lived that marriage would be within the legal context once the partner transitioned as well.
My wife is open about watching this sort of programming with me and that is a great relief. We do talk about transgender topics enough to be at a good comfort level about it (at least conceptually and verbally), and we spoke tonight about the overall issues that have weighed on her since she found out. Her ability to imagine (or more precisely, the inability to NOT imagine) me presenting as jenn, since it is something we both agreed we're not comfortable with now, is a part of her sometimes-strong bouts of depression. Externally, she handles it all very well, but she's admitted that on the inside, she's "not really that ok".
It does sadden me to know that the woman I love, the best friend I'll ever have, may never be happy in the same way that I remember her being when we first began to date, but knowing that her knowledge of my gender identity issues may one day be the main factor in her lack of happiness, well... it does more than just sadden me...
What value would a smile have if it's more often hiding a frown?