Compromises to save a mariage

[stefan37]

I highly doubt not shaving your legs will allow her time to accept you. Waffling back and forth will only cause more grief and confusion. It is honorable you are giving up what you say is a major part of you to compromise, however I think you will find it difficult and cause you much pain and discomfort. As Jorja said do not make promises you can not keep. I cannot emphasize that advice enough. If my wife were to give me ultimatums when and how often I could shave or what I could shave, One of us would be on the way out. You can sugarcoat it all you want but control like that is no way to live in a marriage, unless that is the arrangement you desire.

[kimdl93]

The hypotheticals aren't particularly helpful. You live in the world you're in, with the intrinsic needs that you have. I hope that the counseling will help both of you learn to work with the realities of your life, and without placing needlessly hurtful restrictions on your lives.

[Julie Gaum]

Lynn, I want to try to boil down the issues: 1. Most members see your situation is hopeless in the long run but as Dawn commented you agreed to four months so do that so at least you have done your part. 2. If you both see a FULLY QUALIFIED therapist there is a slim possibility that the result will be that your wife will understand that you don't have options - you are what you will always be. More likely
that it will be wasted money but you agreed to it so do it. 3. Financial: you did say that you're broke and we are not aware whether your spouse works but with 3 very young kids, probably not. So in the few months remaining you must try to figure out how to handle a split as the children must be supported. I would guess your spouse is "cutting off her nose to spite her face" when the bread winner leaves the nest
so, without knowing the details, she is obviously going down the wrong path for her future welfare for indeed she is driving you away.
4. Love - a hard word to understand. The posting members have serious doubts that it's mutual no matter what both your pasts revealed. We can't sit at a PC and tell you what is in your heart but carefully consider her recent dominating actions before decision making time at end of August, for as noted above numerous times her actions have been very one-sided and that doesn't spell LOVE. 5. "Staying for kids' sake" has been proved a false reason 99% of the time. Children at an amazingly young age can feel and react to tension and verbal fights - they are worse off, for the experience will taint their life-times. and finally 6. Renegotiate what in September? A compromise that you BOTH can live with? Unless the chosen therapist is a miracle worker - which is possible - there is no compromise on the horizon.
All I can add is "God Bless"
Julie

[Ann Louise]

I see you're 34 years old, and haven't mentioned any children. I also see you're a musician, and to me that implies that you regularly come in contact with lots of people, probably progressive people your age and younger. It's a big world, and, IMHO, Why Be So Needy? Marriage is a legal contract, not a one-sided psychological suicide pact. What kind of life would you have with such a person? Head out young girl! Go west (or east, or south, or north), but girl-up and Go. Ann L

(BTW, I just completed 18.5 years of child support payments on two kids, so I've literally put my money where my mouth is)

[TeresaCD]

Hi Lynn. I'm sure you can do this, for a time, because she is that important to you.
And hopefully, in time, you will both be able to find a more workable long term solution.
It's good to do everything you can to make things work, 'because you said you would'

[mary something]

shouldn't you mention that your wife found out that you told a woman that you would "absolutely" find time to cybersex her later? Honey I would have offered her that facebook password before she had the chance to tell you no adult supervision. You need to think about why you want her to treat you like a child, what are you getting out of it? Does being punished make you feel less guilty? It's gonna destroy any respect your wife and children have for you if this becomes a cyclical thing. What is causing you to act out occasionally? Is it intense gd that you aren't managing? Honey you need to make sure you know what you want and what you need because I'm afraid it's about to get "real" very soon if you don't get a handle on this. If you're trying to transition then remember you need all the credibility you can muster right now, unless you're deliberately setting yourself up to fail (that is what trying to show her that your miserable to change her mind is in my opinion, and it's not a good plan honey it's just gonna convince her that you are miserable, nothing more or less). When a miserable person tries to convince me of something I don't listen to them, who does?

The good news is that if you're wanting to transition the fact that you guys have 3 kids that are 5 years old or younger means that there is a very good chance that another woman around the house could be very useful. You are in an excellent situation to show your wife how nice it could be to have.... a wife.

[I Am Paula]

I'm sorry, I've never been so abrupt, even rude, on the internet, and rarely in person. Run...run.... run... get away from this relationship (?) as fast as possible. She is completely controlling, and your 'compromise' is completely lopsided in her favor. Unless your 'thing' is submission, and humiliation, she's got you by the short and curlies, and is poking you with a fork simultaniously. Get that apartment, don't tell her where it is, and get on with your right to the pursute of happiness.

[jillleanne]

There are two ways in which we live; happy and unhappy. We must individually decide which road to take and live with the repercussions. Adaptation forms an intregal part of every decision. We can accept and appreciate others' feeling, but we cannot truly share in them. Conversely, they cannot truly share ours. We are individuals living individual lives that share only portions of ourselves with others. The parts we do not share are the key to our individual happiness. Life is taken far too serious on planet Earth. Yours, like mine, will only last a very short time. Take advantage of it while you can. There are no second tries at getting it right.

[JohnH]

At the very least your wife should let you shave daily with no moustache or sideburns. That is standard procedure for at least 50 percent of men. And you can see there are cis-gendered males with shaved legs.

John

[melissaK]

Jeepers Lynn Sweetie. It'll take you a month of Sundays to get through all this advice and opinion. And some of it seems spot on.

Lynn, my is CHILL and DO THE COUNSELLING.

[RADER]

Lynn:
My wife had a few boundaries with me, but nothing like you have.
My wife was OK with my dressing, however, I did not leave the closet.
I am wondering what is next for you??????
Do you need written permission to go to the Bath Room?
Rader

[PaulaQ]

Here it is...from now and through the end of August, no leg or arm pit shaving. I get one night every two weeks to shave my face and wear makeup, get as girly as I can with monkey legs, whatever...I can wear pantyhose...ugghh......I have to get therapy, which is fine. I was planning that anyway cuz I need it (I'm crazy) and we are going to marriage counseling. Oh and shes making me have sideburns and a silly mustache for the times between shaving. :-/ Also I am no longer allowed to communicate with people on the internet without supervision.

Lynn, your wife's attempts to control the situation by controlling your body will not change one thing, and will not give her control over this. This is something you are both powerless to stop, in all likelihood, I am sorry to tell you. A mustache will not make you suddenly decide "holy f***, I f***ing LOVE being a DUDE!"

There are any number of terrible things that happen to people in this life. It is natural to go "What can I do to stop this?" Sometimes though, the answer is simply "nothing."

I think about other peoples problems and I even took care of some people in the hospital who have legs and feet amputated from being morbidly obese and diabetic and I think about what issues they deal with. When I compare them to mine it just seems silly. ... I'm not disabled in any way shape or form except for the notion that my body isn't female, its male. Oh my friggin God why is this such an issue to me?

I'll give you my perspective as a handicapped person. I was born with an affliction that affects 1 in 100,000 people. I was lucky, in that it only affects my legs. (Usually the arms go too.) I've endured terrible physical pain throughout my life because of this condition. I grew up in an orthopedic ward of a children's hospital. I was surrounded by just unimaginable suffering - this was the era of thalidomide babies. Gave me nightmares for years. And you know what? That stuff is no big deal to me compared to what I'm going through with my gender identity right now.

Do not trivialize what you are going through. This shit is bad.

[ReineD]

Hi. You clearly do love her but the question you need to ask yourself is does she love you?

If she did she wouldn't be doing this to you. She'd be supporting you and doing what she can to make you happy. Putting conditions on your life is not how you go about making someone happy.

But, Lynn's wife did not sign up to be in a relationship with someone who is a woman. Can she be blamed for this? If, however, Lynn were to eventually determine that she does not want to alter her body or she is not working towards altering her body, and she is indeed satisfied with expressing her feminine self while also maintaining her male self, then Lynn's wife might be more willing to learn how to work with this? I know that the concept of gender duality is difficult to master since none of us physically see bigendered individuals around us (we either see just men or women) but for many people, coming to terms with this is just the answer rather than telling a wife they are "transsexual". What does "transsexual" mean, really, other than wanting - or more than wanting ... going ahead with electrolysis, hormones, FFS, & SRS?

Can Lynn's wife be blamed for not wanting to be in a relationship with another woman? Not every GG can come to terms with this. If, however, Lynn is prepared to take concrete steps towards transition beginning with telling her parents, her friends, people at work, and living full time as a woman first (RLE), then what does "transsexual" mean, really?

I agree with Kathryn Martin. It's not about what you say, but what you do or fully intend to do and following through with it.

Edit

Good Lord ... I haven't read Lynn's other posts, but I see references in this thread about facebook, other women, cyber sex, etc. Lynn, I hope that you and your wife are doing more than talking summarily about this and I hope that you also will take some time to think deeply about what you want to do. But first you do need to have concrete RLE experience to put it all in perspective. The need to express femininity can become so powerful to someone who is constrained, as to blur the lines between identifying transwoman vs. bigender.

[Kaitlyn Michele]

Reine i think i'd push back on "What does "transsexual" mean, really, other than wanting - or more than wanting ... going ahead with electrolysis, hormones, FFS, & SRS?"
What it means is that if you want to live a life that is true to your nature, that feels authentic to you , you have do just that... a gender fluid person can do this in many ways, a ts person cannot..

Generally speaking you can't EVER get affirmation of who you are unless you become who you are...for many of us this becomes a life threatening situation.. this is an immutable conflict in a marraige... that's why gender queer people can often recommend trying to compromise ...it works fine for them and its just an ongoing negotiation for femme/homme time... ts people can try this too, but it will become less and less satisfactory for you over time...

also, generally speaking, ts husbands underestimate the impact they have on the marriage, even though they are trying to stick it out.. in life it is very difficult to put yourself in the other persons mind..i don't think we can easily internalize just how difficult this can be on your wife, including her feelings of loss, betrayal and confusion...she can never know again with certainty where she stands no matter how much you want her too, and no matter how much you believe you will live up to your promises...in the worst situations, we make promises and over time and can't keep them, sometimes YEARS later...in effect, betraying her again...talk is cheap...promises to not dress/express/pluck/wear/notshave are cheaper

[melissaK]

An elaboration on Kaitlyn's comments . . . indeed saving a marriage is neigh impossible for anyone who didn't start the marriage with full disclosure of B, T or Q inclinations. Changing these sex roles and sexual presentation roles shakes anyone's foundational views of sex, gender, and morals. And even if you view the person's changes in views as enlightening and positive, it makes them a different person in many ways. And so the marriage is tasked with two people growing and evolving in a profound way - together. Any mismatch on theses views will lead to a profound incompatibility. Keeping the relationship is a partnership effort.

And to steal the thread away from Lynn for a minute, I want to use my life to illustrate this. I know my semantics are weak on this, but I knew my marriage as it was, was over. All I could do is work for a new relationship. It's not all about my wife having to learn about me, it's also about me having to learn about her.

She parked herself comfortably in the role of middle class mom, and for her to step away from that, requires she have her own inner strength and courage. Watching her search for it I see she has to deal with her own insecurities that she never dealt with because she used being a busy over scheduled mom as a distraction, much like I used being a workaholic over scheduled dad to avoid dealing with my TS issues. We were both living this over scheduled life, for the much the same reasons. So we talk, as openly and as non-judgmentally as we can. We try to take care of each other in the process.

I'm not optimistic about us, but we haven't quit yet, and anything is possible . . .

[ReineD]

What it means is that if you want to live a life that is true to your nature, that feels authentic to you , you have do just that... a gender fluid person can do this in many ways, a ts person cannot..

That was my point, really. Being true to one's nature means going ahead with it to one's best ability, and not just "saying" one is TS.

A lot of people in this forum think that if they need to express their feminine selves and if they don't CD just for the fun of it or just for fetish, then it "must" mean they are TS. We all know there are many, many different points along the line, between fetish crossdresser and level V or level VI TS according to the Benjamin scale. And these points are the end result for many people (like my SO who is dualgender - or bigender if you prefer), and not on the way to "becoming" TS.

I did go back and read some of Lynn's past posts and just a few weeks ago she made a reference to her wife giving her grief about "her cding". It's true that we cannot hold someone foerever to past statements, but really, doesn't it seem as if often people join here initially wanting acceptance from their spouses for the unfettered expression of their feminine selves, yet within a short period of time after joining, they determine they are TS when they discover that they are under major constraints at home? And then they post in this section a lot and with great conviction only to disappear after a while when it comes down to actually making the decision to take concrete steps towards transition, more than taking hormones to get a bit of boobage?

Just saying that Lynn needs to ask herself some important questions about how far she is really prepared to go, and not make the decision that she is TS and telling this to her wife until she has been out and about in the mainstream A LOT for at least a year and has gotten over the excitement of it all. Lynn is young and can pass easily, so this should not be a problem.

I go back to my original point. If Lynn's wife is hearing "I'm TS" then this does mean full transition including the disappearance of any male physical characteristic. At any rate, it is a lot more than just shaving or not shaving legs, wearing or not wearing clothes, and wearing or not wearing a beard. And to go back to an earlier question I asked here, if Lynn and her wife are close and Lynn is really a woman, wouldn't Lynn's wife already have a clue, like Sandra did (sorry Sandra for bringing you in, but you and Nigella are the perfect example ).

I say this specifically for you Lynn, to help you with obtaining more freedom to dress: two things need to happen. Your wife needs to come to terms with the notion of alternate gender first, and she will not go along with it if within a very short period of time after joining this forum she hears from you that you want to transition (what does this mean, really ... surely it means a lot more than dressing, shaving, and getting breasts). You need to slow down a little with your definitions until you have been out and about in real life a lot and for at least a year. And THEN you can both see where you're at.

And to use Sandra and Nigella's example again, Nigella and Sandra dealt with this for years together before getting where they're at now.

I'm not saying that you are or aren't TS. I'm saying that given your past recent posts and your outlook on the whole thing, you may need to compare your definition of "TS" to Kate's, Kathryn's, Misty's, Rianna's and others who have fully or have completed substantial steps to being on their way to fully transitioning. With a legal name change.

[Lynnmorgan451]

I just wanted to pipe in and say that I'm still reading all of your responses. I really appreciate everyone's input and will give responses and updates soon. I can't tell you how much I appreciate everyone's time and advice.
Xxoo

[elizabethamy]

We all know there are many, many different points along the line, between fetish crossdresser and level V or level VI TS according to the Benjamin scale.

Totally true, O wise one (Reine sort of hates it when we call her that...)...but in the end, unless you are part of some special subculture and/or are very young, in this modern world you can play for the boy team or the girl team, no matter what point you occupy along that line. How to pick a team and not look back, if you're not sure you're clearly on either end of that line? I know many don't believe in the "line" or continuum but I do, and I think the reason it's not often visible is that everyone picks a team, or in fact, plays on the team to which they were born (genetically).

The suffering over that choice is at least half the reason for the thousands of threads and posts in the TS forum and elsewhere on this site. I think once people "pick" a team, or decide to acknowledge that they would be better off on the transitioned team, then it makes perfect sense to no longer believe in the line (continuum). And that's okay. So many times a day I long for the certainty that my friends on here feel -- and to keep my friends and family and job intact. (And for a lottery win and a pony and a unicorn, too.)

No one can tell you who you are, Lynn. It's the people who love you the most who won't want you to take a terrible risk. Just try to understand, and be at peace with yourself...

elizabethamy

[LeaP]

You have it backwards, EA. It is the realization that brings one to consider transition, not the other way around.

[ReineD]

Lea, what you say is true for some people. But, some of the others have a different definition of TS than you do. They believe perhaps that transition means doing everything except legally transitioning to full time and getting SRS. Or, they start out that way but then they decide it isn't for them when the possibility of losing everything to end up living less than an ideal woman's life hits them hard.

Someone said something that I think is very wise in the CD section a while back. S/he said that we can consider several types of transition. There is the traditional transition we speak of here in the TS section, which is the full physical including FFS & SRS together with legal name change (Type V or VI TS). But, there is also a transition for people who don't want to go that far so that they can still be who they are meant to be, which is somewhere in the middle if they cannot see themselves divorcing their wives, losing their jobs, and having their penises removed. This is what my SO did. And in the process she has determined that she is not a guy nor is she a full time female. And she is OK with it.

Neither of these examples are male, obviously. But there is a difference between living a permanently full-time transitioned female life, and one that is part time or partial and not fully female. Both are valid and both are true but the mistake is when both want to call themselves the same thing. This causes a great deal of confusion (and disagreement), not only in this section among the different factions, but with loved ones who for the most part, believe that the word "transition" means basically getting rid of a penis and living full time as a woman even at work.

Is this what Lynn wants, and has she determined this after having spent a considerable amount of time as herself out and about doing regular things, several times per week for at least a year until all the newness has worn off?

Edit - If someone comes in here and says they have been out and about for years in the mainstream and they know they want to live full time, they are prepared to transition at work, they want the whole shabang including the legal name change and they've told all their friends and family, and they are prepared to live with the consequences of possibly losing some relationships, I will not be suggesting to them the same thing that I suggest to Lynn, who was all excited last month over just going to Walmart dressed.

Doesn't anyone else see it this way or am I just weird?

[Badtranny]

Doesn't anyone else see it this way or am I just weird?

No. Your instincts are right on as usual. Lynn is just the latest in a string of people who insist they are TS but haven't done anything about it. Somewhere along the way, the actual transition has become devalued to the point that some believe that it isn't even necessary for a TS. Apparently you can be a closeted cross-dresser with a pantie fetish and still demand to be recognized as a transsexual woman. Who knew?

That's why I started referring to girls like me as 'TransitionerS' a while back.

[ReineD]

That's why I started referring to girls like me as 'TransitionerS' a while back.

Good one, Misty! Put some color in it and it will be more obvious. TransitionerS

The trouble is, how to convince someone that just taking hormones with no intention of doing anything else is not transitioning?

[Rogina B]

The trouble is, how to convince someone that just taking hormones with no intention of doing anything else is not transitioning?

It is all fun and games till the boobies start to sprout!

[Kaitlyn Michele]

Not every TS woman transitions...most gender confused people that don't transition are not TS ...

almost every time there is a discussion about the gender continuim it gets all mixed up and backwards....lots of people are bi gendered...its a real thing, but it makes no more sense to a ts person than it does to a cisgendered person...neither of us are bi-gendered... its outside of our experience...and we know this because we lived it...everyone else knows this because by our actions we go to superhuman lengths to achieve our best available authentic lives...and because its obvious to everyone how difficult transition is some people "Try on" every possible gender role before actually transitioning..they finally transition when they hit the wall

we might speculate that for some people they are really really close to the wall... if the continium is a given...is 97.3% woman enough to transition?? 90?? 80?? 99.9?? who the heck knows....and we never will and that's why i say (and i'm often critiqued for it) that the gender continuim has no value to the transsexual community...and i'd argue it can hurt us because many people claim transsexuality and don't transition...we that transition say we MUST ...

lynn may be ts or not...in day to day life she can do much more to learn about who she is...it really complicates things in a relationship tho...

Its very difficult to discover who you are when your partner already thinks they know who you are..

[Angela Campbell]

I can understand how someone can say they are TS but are not going to transition. It is fear. Fear to do what they want to do (or need to do but they refuse to admit it). You can spend years denying, finding excuses of why you cannot and convince yourself why the reasons are valid. Pulling the trigger is hard and the courage is hard to find. Making a decision that changes not only your life but all around you, and cannot be undone should be a hard decision to make. It makes them no less TS but it can make it hard to know if you are really TS. If you are you know it. You may deny it but you know it in the deepest part of your soul.

Transitioning is an action taken by a very brave transexual. A transexual is what you are not what you do.