Acceptance vs. Resignation

[Barbara Ella]

I have found myself posting positive comments about my wife's feelings about me being a crossdresser, transgender, transexual recently. As we agreed, I wore a blouse, jeans, and flats for a couple of days, and attended my first TG support group last week (which was so comforting).

She had a rough time with these developments, so the clothes are on hold, but likely will not be able to stay away from my meeting. As i said, she said that she knows I am a woman, and was meant to be one from birth, but something went wrong. I feel, now, after listening to her discuss her feelings, expectations, etc. That there really isn't a level of acceptance regarding me. Unfortunately, I come away with the distinct impression that she has merely resigned herself to the situation.

I know this can not be good. Feeling that one has no choice, or say anymore can only nurture resentments and other ill feelings. I know more discussions are in order, but just how to proceed without putting her in the position where she feels she is being backed into a corner in terms of options is difficult. I know, none of this is easy, very frightening in fact.

I feel that things should be at full stop for awhile, I am just not sure that having just started moving I can do that.

Top that off with our Annual Pride Fest coming up this weekend that i really want to attend for the first time! Tears all around.

Thanks for listening.

Barbara

[kimdl93]

Barbara, resignation is a step towards acceptance. Remember Elizabeth Kubler-Ross's 5 stages of grieving. Your wife has taken a number of those steps. You can say, well, she's simply resigned to the reality, but isn't that in fact better than anger or denial? Given time and patience, perhaps a little encouragement from you, and she may come to embrace more this reality with more than resignation. What's the alternative?

[MatildaJ.]

If your wife told you that she was actually a guy, and had been hiding her true self from you the whole time you had known her, wouldn't you feel less than immediately thrilled? Whether you use the words resigned or accepting, the fact is that she acknowledges that you are a woman. So you are both on the same page now, and you agree about the facts. She is not in denial.

But none of that means that she necessarily wants to stay in a romantic relationship with you. Maybe she's not sure about that. Can you wear clothes that both men & women wear, and try to act like your real self with her? Clothes don't make the person. If you've been shutting her out from getting to know the real you, then open yourself up and let her in. That's the only way to find out if she's interested in the real you, as opposed to the persona you presented for so many years.

[LeaP]

"Full stop"? Maybe, maybe not. I thought I slowed things a lot and tried to minimize impact and change. That applies to both therapy and transition. I wasn't being deliberate just for show, either. I wanted to take as much time as needed to figure out what was real and not, to clear up problems (e.g., depression) obscuring the truth, and to experiment to see what helped and what did not, what affirmed my feelings and what did not.

My wife's perspective is that it has been incredibly fast. I think this is only partially due to the fact that we experience this for years while our SOs are only exposed to it late. Another reason is that hope keeps resetting the clock. Thus the same shock hits again and again. Loss and mourning are extended ... but it feels constantly new.

The best advice I received was to press on as I need, but to do it as kindly and gently as possible. You are not going to spare your wife by dragging things out. You do need to hear her, comfort her, be there for her as much as you can, and bear her anger and grief. I think that is quite literally the best you can do.

[Sandra]

You are not going to spare your wife by dragging things out.

Totally agree with this comment, and your wife may start to think that things have changed and you're not going ahead with transitioning. Keep her in the loop, talk to her about each and every step. Have you asked her about this? you might just be surprised and have gotten the wrong end of the stick seeing sommat that maybe isn't there.

[stefan37]

No matter how slow we perceive we are progressing it will always be too quickly for our mates. I have done all that I can possibly do to make it easier on my wife. I have given her all the love and support I can possibly give. I need to move on and so does she. Unlike crossdressing those us with the need to transition cannot compromise. We are not able to make concessions, and to make those concessions and compromises means to compromise our mission. There is no getting around it. Let's face it those with spouses that are completely accepting and supportive are extremely rare. My wife is struggling and we live in the same house for now, but that will come to an end soon enough. Wish it could be different, but reality is much different. I have found as my has disconnected my attitude has shifted and I am moving at a much faster pace than my wife would certainly like. My legal name change has caused a huge shift in her thinking. Wish it could be different and if I could have continued crossdressing and being a part time girl , I have no doubt I would live out my life with her. Transition and the introduction of hormones, different voice and presentation has changed all that. I have been as honest as I could, as I progress I inform her before I do unless she informs she has no interest. I was upfront about transition as soon as I decided it was something I needed to do.I told her I was starting hormones months before my first endo appt. I informed her about name change, but she wanted no part. She is struggling with my external presentation, especially at work, not much I can do about her feelings she has to adjust on her own. I have gone as slow as I can to spare her and she realizes it. She even feels a bit guilty ,she believes she should be supportive and she can't. I tell her it is ok her feelings are just as valid as mine. I wish she could could be more supportive and accepting,but integrally she can't. Sheis tolerating my transition as best she can and for me that is enough.

[Rogina B]

As "the guy she married,evaporates" feelings really come out. Some feel that they made a mistake in marrying you[us..]They feel trapped because financially they often are.They realize that they loved the person that they married,but you didn't and have no problem "killing them off"..There are many other thoughts,but this is not the same as a closet case getting caught in panties..We want to "kill off the male" and create the female[not a good way to put that,I know.] So,you have to expect your SO's feelings of loss,as there is no preventing that. By moving on confidently,perhaps your wife will begin to accept that this is what you want for yourself.She may never embrace it,but you are doing it for you,and getting yourself in balance is a good thing. My opinion based on my married life.

[Julie Gaum]

Barbara, it has been a long journey for you up to the present. Would suggest, after reading some thoughtful posts here, that perhaps you should hold off "throwing in the towel". As was said a few times: Resignation just might evolve over time to acceptance. Give time a try but without slowing down the progress towards your goal --- to stop in mid-flight will not solve anything --- just prolong your grief and cause greater depression --- not good for either of you.
As always, your friend,
Julie

[Debglam]

"Full stop"? Maybe, maybe not. I thought I slowed things a lot and tried to minimize impact and change. . .

Great post Lea! Great! (The entire post. I get in trouble for quoting too much.)

Deb

[MatildaJ.]

They realize that they loved the person that they married,but you didn't and have no problem "killing them off".

Yes. Very well put.

[Dawn cd]

Re Kubler-Ross's stages of grieving, normally one goes through these stages slowly. It takes time to grieve. But life doesn't always give us time. A stroke or heart attack can take a loved one away quickly--in which case the grieving process is speeded up. Grief, like a gas, expands or contracts to fill the space allotted to it.

[Catie2013]

Hope you don't mind me replying here. I am a nurse (for background info). I have dealt with many grief related issues over the years. The stages of grief are very real. You should be aware that everyone grieves differently and does not naturally follow the stages in order. It can go back and forwards many times through the various stages until full acceptance is reached.
As a gg, you should know that women's emotions are always like this, and especially when our hormones are all over the place. For those of you taking hormones, you will find out what I mean. There are days when anger floods my body so quickly and completely, I feel I could kill the next person whom enters the room or says anything to me. The strange part is, you have the ability to recognize it, but still yell at someone anyways.
I wish you well with your transitions. I know that it won't be an easy journey for you, or your SO's, but we all deserve to live happy fulfilled lives, therefore you need to be authentic in yours.

[DeidraDee63]

Hi Girlfriend, I'm so sorry to read of your current issue. I do not think "full stop" is wise, for your own health and well being. I am in same position as you, my wife supports me and like the effects the hormones have on me but some days does not want to hear about it. I have decided for myself that I will slow it a bit and in the meantime just let mother nature and the hormones do their thing. It is a tough balancing act but you can and will succeed, I have faith in you. remember if you need to vent I am here for you. Hugs.

[KellyJameson]

For a person born contrary to their body, transitioning is a self protective act that comes out of the suffering of living identiless experienced as the awareness of living falsely or worse without any sense of self so living hollowly from not even having pretend identity which is as close as you can get to insanity without tipping into insanity.

Your wife is also protecting her identity just as you are trying desperately to become yours.

The changes you are making attack your wife's identity as a woman in the personal sense of her experiencing herself as a woman as her "self worth" "self esteem" "self knowledge" and also as her position in the community as a woman which is also tied to self worth, self esteem and self knowledge.

Your wife is not only experiencing the loss of you as an individual but the loss of herself through you as the relationship so the relationship is part of her identity much like how someone loses their identity when they are forcibly removed from their home as their country.

On some level your wife is fighting to keep the very thing you are fighting to acquire, her identity

The harder you fight for your identity the harder she will fight for hers and either the stress will build to the point where she will split off from you to protect herself or she will bend her identity as the relationship she has with herself as her feelings of self worth through the experience of being a woman that affects her confidence and sense of value including her position in the community and extended family.

Each of you are fighting for and protecting identity but from opposite perspectives.

[LeaP]

Kelly - very well articulated. I find this helpful.

[ReineD]

The changes you are making attack your wife's identity as a woman in the personal sense of her experiencing herself as a woman as her "self worth" "self esteem" "self knowledge" and also as her position in the community as a woman which is also tied to self worth, self esteem and self knowledge.

Your wife is not only experiencing the loss of you as an individual but the loss of herself through you as the relationship so the relationship is part of her identity much like how someone loses their identity when they are forcibly removed from their home as their country.

On some level your wife is fighting to keep the very thing you are fighting to acquire, her identity

Kelly, I'm having a difficult time understanding this. As a woman, I do not feel that my SO's gender threatens, changes, or makes me question who I am. I know who I am. Granted, my SO is not transitioning and as I write I'm doing my best to imagine that she is transitioning. I did at one point question if I wanted to be in a relationship with someone who is gender non-conforming. But how can I feel as if my own identity and self-esteem is lost when a person outside of me ceases to be the person that I thought she was? And so how can I possibly lose myself?

I agree there would be a loss of my role in the relationship (as the female in a male/female relationship), and the relationship would also be lost if I found that I could not live in a lesbian relationship. And if this were the case or even if I could be in a lesbian relationship, I know that I would go through a period of grieving the loss of the man that I had fallen in love with. But I cannot see feeling as if I had lost my self-identity.

As to your last paragraph I quoted, why would Barbara want her wife's identity? Wouldn't Barbara want her own identity?

I'm not trying to be flippant or argumentative. I do want to understand how a wife can lose who she is. I do understand that she loses some of what she had or thought she had.

[KellyJameson]

Hi Reine

I have watched you on the forum since the beginning because you have always fascinated me.

You have to the best of my knowledge always attempted to be very sensitive to the feelings of others so I would never take your questions as an attack or being flippant.

I know this is an assumption on my part but I also think you are a highly unusual woman so your reaction and thinking will often be atypical in regards to crossdressing and or transsexuals.

I must admit that I am still struggling myself with understanding identity and regret that I did not in the past recognize how profoundly important identity is to our mental health

I have spent my childhood, teen years and twenties living identiless as the repression of my gender identity so in this sickness I paradoxically could not understand it. It is only now that I'm on the otherside and for the first time in my life I can say that I actually now have an identity as the experience of my gender that I realize how dangerous it is to live without it or to lose it.

I think we take identity for granted because it is like the air and is so much a part of us that we can not "sense it" until it is gone or because we have been deprived of it or turned our own back on it and in the doing so we suffer.

Because gender identity can be such an abstract concept I approached identity from other angles such as sexual identity or national identity or ethnic identity.

Identity is what we identify "with" as "who and or what we are"

When we experience the death of a beloved parent we can actually experience an identity crisis because we have stopped being someones daughter or son so in this loss through their death we have lost a part of ourselves.

Many years ago I lost part of my identity when my only child died which was particularly devastating because I was already living in a fractured state from living contrary to my gender so I was very susceptible to any type of psychological shock.

Losing your identity is a stripping away of your sanity and you go into dissociation.

It is very difficult to explain the psychological experience of dissociation to those who have never experienced it.

Your brain compartmentalizes itself to protect pieces of itself but it means not living with an understanding of self because there is more than one person living inside your head and they have a sense of each other but they do not know each other. It is not distinct different personalities but the same personality divided and often against itself.

You live apart from higher emotion like empathy, compassion and love because without identity you are experiencing existential terror so there is no room or understanding for or of these emotions.

Losing your identity or never formulating your identity traumatizes the mind.

Without identity you cannot become self actualized. A self actualized person shows specific behavioral traits.

Self-actualized people tend to accept themselves and others as they are. They tend to lack inhibition and are able to enjoy themselves and their lives free of guilt. Other people are treated the same regardless of background, current status, or other socio-economic and cultural factors.

Another major characteristic of self-actualized people is a sense of realism. Rather than being fearful of things that are different or unknown, the self-actualized individual is able to view things logically and rationally.

Self-actualized individuals are often motivated by a strong sense of personal ethics and responsibility. They enjoy applying their problem-solving skills to real-world situations and like helping other people improve their own lives.

The self-actualized individual does not conform to other people's ideas of happiness or contentment. This original perspective allows the individual to live in the moment and appreciate the beauty of each experience

You lose this and more when you lose your identity because you have lost the sense of self.

Barbras wife has built her world (identity) piece by piece so it is more than just the material wealth or financial threat.

Change threatens our identity. Sometimes this is good because after the trauma caused by the change the person finds themselves stronger because they have discovered and developed aspects of themselves they did not know exsisted.

I can say that all the pain of my life has actually been very beneficial to me but only because I am better for it but this is often not the case and I certainly cannot take credit because it was almost completely decided by the randomness of fate.

Barbra's wife is fighting change because change threatens her. She does not want her life broken up into pieces.

Some people are more vulnerable than others to change.

Not knowing the experience of identity that GD "causes and is" makes you very weak on one hand but also very strong on the other.

When you are mentally ill there is not much more that can hurt you, if you can avoid destroying yourself because of the mental illness and living without identity is a form of mental illness in my opinion.

I think those with identity sense this and fight because they do not want to slip into "craziness"

Hope this helps Reine and thanks for being you. Your SO is very fortunate to have such a compassionate partner.

You clearly have a very strong sense of yourself and that is possibly one of the reasons you are able to take risks in your relationship, but this is very rare.

Your identity is so solid that it is not easily threatened and that is one of the attributes of a self actualized person.

[ReineD]

When we experience the death of a beloved parent we can actually experience an identity crisis because we have stopped being someones daughter or son so in this loss through their death we have lost a part of ourselves.

This makes sense. Barbara's wife would be losing her identity as (the person whom she thought was Mr.) Barbara's wife. I completely agree.

Many years ago I lost part of my identity when my only child died

I'm literally in tears. I cannot think of any worse experience for a human being and I am so, so very sorry.

I completely understand in what sense you mean identity now. Not necessarily the personal gender identity, but losing one of the many other identities that we have. This pales in comparison to what you experienced but when I divorced, within a year all three of my sons left as well. I felt a complete loss of identity, since the major part of my identity had been for the past 23 years, that of a mother most of all. I had no one left to mother and my youngest son was gone 8 years before I was mentally prepared to whisk him off to adulthood. I was utterly devastated and I am still not over it. I don't think I ever will be.

Thank you so much for your response.

Edit - ... I also get what you meant by Barbara wanting her wife's identity. Barbara wants a similar visible identity to her wife's which is that of being a woman (I know that Barbara has a female gender identity), while Barbara's wife is trying to hang on to the identity of being a hetero partner in her relationship.

[Barbara Ella]

I cannot begin to tell you all just how wonderful your thoughtful insights have been to me in helping me think through this all. No, I cannot stop, that would not be fair to me, and believe it or not, to my wife, who is knowledgeable of my changes, and understanding of my future. It is a bit unbelievable how far she (and I) have come in such a very short time (from starting crossdressing two years ago, to this realization of my true feminine nature only about 10 months ago). Uncertainty and fear are to be expected as we both are still sorting it all out.

I am becoming more aware, and trying to comprehend her position. She says that I am getting what I want, and has a hard time grasping that this is the last thing I "want" for our remaining time together (remember I am 67 now), but I know I cannot ignore my nature.

I understand the grieving for a loss, a big loss after 43 years of marriage, and that the stages must all be passed through and acknowledged, we have both lost something precious. Her biggest fear as she continues to integrate the fact that I am a woman into her life is that as she says, "I do not know what my role is anymore, and I need to figure that out." To me this is her "identity" that has formed over the past 43 years, and has now been challenged. And challenged by someone who on the surface appears to get satisfaction/relief from the changes. She is just beginning to understand the terrible state that GD puts you in, and the suffering that is there, and this has gone a long way in relieving her feelings of abandonment as my situation evolves.

No one should ever stop a transition. It can be slowed to allow a partner to catch up, and I need to help her catch up. Both of us now need to recognize the dynamic of our relationship, and search out sources of information and support for the wives of transexuals. Be both need to learn how others have worked their roles together, good or bad. I feel she is willing to learn, but uncertain how she will accept the roles that are available. I may gain acceptance, but her ability to fit into one, or any, of the roles may not end so well. But we are both working together.

Thanks ever so much for helping me think through this.

Barbara

[Allsteamedup]

Your situation is mirrored in one of the UK groups I belong to.

These are women whose SOs have decided to dress 24/7 or transition.

This alters drastically the plans made for retirement. The marriage will disappear on transition and a good many women will not consider re-orientating to lesbian. Many have split their homes in half to lead separate lives. Some have successfully found new partners.

The interesting part of this thread is the consideration of identity. This is more crucial than a lifestyle or anything material. As several friends of mine have found, even being out socially with aTS does not allow you to lead the same kind of life as before. Single sex couples frequent different venues and have a different lifestyle than heterosexual couples. Maybe in our sixties we will be the last generation like this, as more fluidity in relationships becomes acceptable. For the average sixty-plus being in a single sex relationship can be very lonely.

For the TS this is not a consideration. Many want to hang on to their partner because they have shared history and family. For the ex-wife making plans and having a social life is more difficult. She is not going to share her female, nor feminine roles and may find it difficult to share a house with another woman!

Think about these relatively simple issues and their outcomes rather than being bitter because it seems, in the short term, that YOU are not getting what you want.