Battle between the head and the heart.

[Emma Beth]

Lately I've been in that dark place again and it got me to thinking because I will ask myself some of the really hard questions a lot when I'm in that place.

I have realized that with all the stress that is unrelated to my GD that I have a bit of a battle going on.

On the one side, I know intellectually that I have to be prepared to lose a lot or shed that which will not work in my life. The biggest thing is my marriage. Things have not been going well with my wife and I don't think it's related with my wife. She seems to be driving me to choose between her or my family that I hadn't had contact with, until about two to three years ago, for a ten to twelve year period.

On the other side, my heart wants to cling and fight for what I've had for almost 17 years. A possibly failing one sided marriage.

I have come to realize that my stress comes from this little internal war on top of trying to deal with my GD.

Now I have people that I can talk to, to help me through all this and I do have the complete support of my family no matter what happens.

I was wondering how many others have had this kind of battle and how you dealt with it.

[Eringirl]

Oh my. Welcome to my world!! I have the same battles. My therapist knows I need to transition. My head knows I should transition. My heart knows but not 100%. There is a part of me that still agonizes about the end of my marriage and the loss of my wife. But I know that I am going to have to loose someone in the process. Unless there is a dramatic change from my wife's position, I am either going to transition and loose my wife, or stay and loose Erin. My brain knows this is not an option. Erin is here to stay, I am who I am, but in my heart, I still feel the anguish of hurting my wife of 30 years and loosing her. My mantra in tough situations has always been to ask myself "it this a life threatening situation?". If not, then don't sweat it, you will work it out and survive. If it is a life threatening situation, get the hell out!! Save yourself. I fear that if I stay without Erin, it is a life threatening situation.

Therapy has been and continues to be a big help. Talking about it helps. Do I want to be miserable for the remainder of my life, or be happy, really happy, for the first time, and for all the years I have left? Loosing your partner is hard and sad and difficult. But, for me, would not be life threatening. Life would go on. In fact, it would probably be better for my wife as well as she would be around someone who is so unhappy every day.

So I totally get where you are at. Just my thoughts.

Be well,

Erin

Happiness is living your life out loud, being who you really are.

[kimdl93]

Have you and your wife tried to resolve the family dispute? It doesn't seem fair that you should be isolated from your family (unless of course its the Manson family) - one might reasonably ask if she would tolerate being isolated from hers. Even if she would, it still is a formula for dissolution. A competent therapist might (might) be able to help resolve that issue and eliminate an element of strife in your marriage.

[Michelle789]

I've dealt with the same battle. It's more the battle of the head, heart, and gut. My head usually lies to me, my heart often tells the truth but can sometimes lie to me, but my gut always tells me the truth. My head would try to find as many excuses out of transitioning. No matter what my gut instinct said, and no matter how much I identify with other trans people, my head is looking for excuses. Some of these excuses are
1. I'm really just a crossdresser
2. I'm a failure as a man
3. My father caused this to happen to me
4. This is the result of untreated Asperger's
5. My life would really just be easier trying to be a man and CD in the closet
6. Why can't I just live a double life and keep them separate, with work being male, and social being split between male and female?
7. This is just some great big fantasy

I can probably add more things to this list, but these are all lies my head tells me, and are influenced by what others have told me in the past.

My heart tells me that I feel like I am a woman on the inside. My heart also feels an emotional attachment to people and things from my past, things that I might be scared to lose.

My gut tells me that I am a woman.

We're taught from a very young age to ignore our gut instinct, or intuition. We're taught to listen to our heads first, and even to ignore what our hearts say. Sometimes a feeling can be so overpowering that we can lose sight of everything else...this frequently happens with love and especially if there's co-dependency involved. But we're really taught to forgo what our heart and gut says to listen to our heads. Our heads that are programmed with lies. The lies that we're taught by society, by our families, friends, relatives, co-workers, neighbors, the media, and everyone else we encounter. Our heads are naturally programmed to feed into these lies, so we perpetuate the lie even more than we have to.

We fear losing everything from our past. We fear detachment and change from the familiar. Even if the familiar was bad for us, we often hold onto it because we fear the unknown. This is why people often stay in abusive relationships, because it's known circumstances. Being single, and not dealing with the abuse, although is a better option, seems foreign and scary for us.

The same thing goes for transition. Being a man is bad for us, because we're not man. In fact, I don't like saying "being a man", in reality the male persona was just a facade, an act that I created to fit into hetero-normative society. Trying to keep up the male persona was toxic for me, and it nearly cost me my own life, not to mention that it caused me a lot of distress in my life. Living as a woman is much better for me, and I not only feel more comfortable in my own skin, but I am starting to care much more about every aspect of my life, things that I neglected when pretending to be a man.

1. Personal hygiene
2. My clothes and appearance
3. Career
4. Relationships
5. Friendships
6. Socializing
7. Being of service

I could add more to this list.

But leaving behind everything I know is really scary. It is scary to have to go through so many changes at once. Social, physical, hormonal, not to mention being in my first relationship. Navigating the work world as a woman for the first time, when the comfortable and familiar was as a man, yet it was a lie. Being a woman is truthful, but has a lot of unknowns.

Navigating the social world as a woman for the first time, and making friendships with women as a woman. It is very different than what I knew as a man making friends with men. And sometimes I fear, and I may be completely wrong, that I don't know how to have friendships with women as a woman, or that it is harder to make friends with a woman as a woman than it is a man as a man. Women interact differently than men on many levels, and it takes time getting used to it. Not to mention that men generally accept you as a friend, but might tease you and put you down to your face, but their still your friend. Women might complement you to your face, but secretly they hate you. Some women might just be blunt and tell you to your face, but just because they say something mean to your face doesn't make it true.

Unknowns in fashion. Learning makeup for the first time. Loss of male privileges. I never had a lot of male privilege - but one that I definitely had that I lost was being able to walk at night by myself without fear of anything happening. Now I am very careful if I do need to go out at night, and I keep it at a minimum and only go out when I need to, especially if I'm alone. It's a bit different if I'm with Cody, or in a group, but alone I am more cautious and avoid any unnecessary outings or steps.

On some days, I still feel frightened to go out alone, in fear of getting clocked, although I am a lot more comfortable going out now than I was 6 months or a year ago. Oh, and how about getting used to getting male attention.

Then there's coming out to my family, and dealing with the rejection and the lectures on how I'm ruining my life. And finally, the hormonal changes. I am going through female puberty, but at the same time my body is trying to decide whether it's male or female.

But I still feel way happier and more comfortable in my own skin than I ever did as a man. And everybody around me notices that I seem WAY more relaxed and comfortable in my own skin now, even if I appear sad, having a bad day, or am in a crappy mood or just had a lot of stressful things happen. This speaks volumes. That even under the most stressful of circumstances I feel and appear more relaxed and comfortable in my own skin as a woman, than I did under the least stressful of circumstances as a man. Right? That really says a lot. I feel it totally. Yet, my head sometimes still causes me to fight myself, and question whether or not I'm going down the right path. The path that my father called a path to self-destruction. The path that is actually rebuilding my soul and my life as a human being. A life that although I still remain friends with many of the same people I was friends with before I started my transition, my life look drastically different today than it did a year ago today.

[paola_gemi]

Elizabeth Jamie: I know it is a struggle to deal with emotions that belong to you and mix them with the family problems, they look a lot bigger.
I clearly can identify with you in that regard, however, I think that you really have to sit down and think about how you act and try to resolve your problems between your family and tour partner.
All of that has nothing to do with your CD of course. But I have a similar situation in my family and that is why I can understand looking from the outside.

Let me explain. My father had a problem with my older brother because allegedly he disrespected his wife. But when the wife told my brother, my brother didn't confront him, he just took his stuff out the house and that's it (my father was visiting) my father try to talk to him and explain the possible misunderstanding, but he didn't wan to hear.
My brother was looking for some support from the rest of the family, my three sisters and my self. But non of us could agree with him because he didn't want to hear the other side of the story, and he only based his decision on his wife's argument.
So my brother ended relations with everyone, even other members of the family like punts and uncles, whom had nothing to do with it.
During the incident, my sisters weren't there, I wasn't there, my own brother wasn't there, and we only asked him to listen to the other side.

I don't know if my father was telling the truth or not, but he should be innocent until proven guilty, right? well according to my brother no, it has been about 10 years and he is still in the same position.
We all think that his wife has a lot to do with the separation, because is one of those cases that your partner doesn't want anything to do with your family and she doesn't want you there either.

There is a fine line between giving your wife her right place and respect, and doing what she wants, even if is wrong.
I don't know what your feud is about, but, things should be separate, and the only person able to do that is you.
family will always be your family and your blood. Blood is thicker that water they say, and I think you should stand up for yourself and say.

Look! You don't like my family, you don't get along with them, but that's OK, it would be nice if you got along, but you don't have to see them or deal with them.
But they are my family and I love them. I respect you, I will keep giving you your rightful spot as my wife, but you can not make me stop relations with my family, my blood.
So whenever I see them I will pick a special time to do so, and you don;t have to come, I will not comment about them or anything.
But you have no right to forbid me to have relations with them.

If she doesn't understand a basic family bond, she is not respecting you. How would she feel if it was the other way around?
The way I see it with my brother, is that he has a controlling wife, and he does what she wants.
He has no balls to deal with her and so do you.
So grab some courage, think it over and talk to her. Because if my partner would asked me not to have relations with any member of my family, she would be wrong.
And I would not allow it

I am sure that once you resolve your family issues, you will come back to your CD issues, and feel happy about it.
Don't let any problems that are not related to your inner feelings interfere.

I don't know if this is the case in your situation, but that is how I understood it on your posting.


Good luck,

Paola.

[Kate T]

I think you need to work out if you really trust your wife.

Going back through your posts you told your ?estranged? family members before telling your wife about your gender dysphoria. You seem to be setting up a backup plan to move out of your home and back with your family if you don't get what you want from your wife. I tell you what, if I was your wife I'd be pretty cranky at this stage and wondering how much you really love and trusted me.

Do you love and trust your wife more than anyone else in the world? If so then you need to start acting like you do. If not then perhaps you need to start a conversation with her about whether you have a happy future together. No judgement either way, just don't try and string her along because it would be less painful for you. Answer that question and I think you will know what to do next.