My wife and I spent parts of last week looking for a new wig for Tina. That togetherness pretty much sums up our relationship: together.
We found Tina together, and were completely surprised that she existed. Tina is a mutual adventure; a joint husband/wife project. Why did my wife go down this road? Initially the curiosity we both had led us to investigate who this Tina person is/was. After all, we had been married 33 years at that point. We immediately started conversations about how we grew up, and just expanded from there.
What came out of it: We know each other so much better. She knows I started looking into myself right in front of her, exposing every potentially embarrassing or vulnerable thought. She helped understand that I already had both gender behaviors inside from the start, so it made sense to her to separate and identity them the best we could. Along the way she taught Tina the trappings and emotionality of growing up as a girl.
Tina is her girlfriend, not her husband. She knows how much more I understand about her because of Tina. When she'd like a night with her girlfriend to talk and watch chick flicks, she asks if Tina would like to visit. We constantly talk about makeup, clothes, shoes, etc. We diet together, get facials, shop, and she tells me Tina is so sweet. I'm a classic "fix it" male when it comes to problem issues. The Tina part now understands that there are times my wife wants to talk about a problem and I know enough to invoke Tina at those times so we can just talk (even if I don't transform).
Didn't mean for this to be so long, but, as you can see, Tina has had quite an effect and is very much a part of who we are.
