People need to be very careful about the question "will you transition?" You can really only give an honest answer about what you'll do now. The future is often very difficult to know with any precision. I can't tell you how many here have told me "I'LL NEVER TRANSITION!" Yet, a number of them are now.Originally Posted by Isha
I wish you'd offered some advice on what to do when things are bad from the outset - and they stay bad. That was my experience. I tried counseling, a lot of communication, all sorts of compromises. There was, unfortunately, just one little thing I couldn't compromise on. Didn't matter anyway - this was all bad enough. Anyway, my marriage ended the day I came out, for all intents and purposes.
Like I said - be really careful with forward looking statements.
With that said, I'd like to offer a few tips for preparations to consider in the eventuality that things go horribly, horribly wrong. Because sometimes they do. I've noticed the trend that people who have that experience, an extremely unaccepting spouse, tend not to stay around here for long. Anyway, how to prepare for disaster:
1. Have a plan about where you'll go in the short term. Hopefully, it's just the couch, but you should think about a place to crash elsewhere.
2. Have a bag packed with at least a few clothes, essentials in them.
3. Have a plan about where you might live long term, if you divorce over this. At least have some idea about where you'll go and what you'll do. A realistic plan. A plan that doesn't start with "if everything goes well..."
4. Have a really serious plan about what happens to you both financially if things go south. You need to figure this out while you are still relatively calm, and be ready to execute it if things go wrong. Because some partners will think nothing of destroying either you, or the both of you, financially when they are really upset. (I am not saying take all the money. I am saying protect both of your interests as best you can.)
5. Have a counselor who understands this stuff dialed in and ready to go. (Not your own personal counselor, if you have one.) I think this is important, and will hopefully help you turn a really, really bad reaction around over time.
6. Be prepared to be calm, and to try to communicate as best you can (all of Isha's other advice), if things go south. Be kind to your SO, even if they aren't terribly nice to you. They may not be because they may have a fairly extreme negative emotional response to the reveal.
7. Be prepared for damage control. She may out you to others. Sometimes lots of others. You need to have some idea how you'll handle this, should it happen. (By the way, this is a very, very bad sign, in my opinion, should it happen. Because the option of quietly joining you in the closet as the SO of a CD is no longer on the table, and if she's irrational enough not to realize that outing you is very rarely going to do anything but make things harder on her, then the relationship is probably doomed.)
8. Understand that some here on the forum will blame you for the end of the relationship. This will really hurt when you reach out for support. Not everyone will - in fact most here will be quite supportive. But some will blame you.
9. You need to be emotionally prepared - not expecting, just prepared - for things to go badly, both initially, and possibly over the long term, even including the end of the relationship. Look - no one is going to be totally prepared for all of that, trust me, it isn't possible. But don't be blindsided by the possibility either. If the worst happens, you have to finally come to terms with the notion that some things just aren't meant to be. It doesn't make either one of you bad people. Sometimes things just go horribly wrong in this life. Do your best to be ready for this, so you both can get on with your lives as intact as possible.
If this goes bad, you aren't really going to know for sure for a number of days, at the least. You are likely to be quite emotional yourself. You may be hurt, angry, feel horribly wronged - and those things may be actually true because she may say some awful things to you. Don't let your emotions overwhelm you. This is why it is important to have a plan. Because once you enter the downward spiraling roller coaster of a doomed trans relationship, you are likely to not think extremely clearly yourself.
Again, I want to emphasize that anything you plan in advance needs to be done with fairness and love, and it needs to protect the both of you. You love this woman, presumably, or you'd just split with her and presumably avoid this whole mess. You may well not feel fairness and love right after this blows up, if that is indeed what happens. But your plan needs to respond in that way - with fairness and love, because trust me, you are very likely to feel quite guilty should your relationship end.
Hopefully everyone on the forum has an ultimately accepting spouse, and none of these suggestions are ever necessary. Again, I only suggest that folks here prepare themselves for the worst, and then hopefully they only experience the best.
