I've been at this for years and years and I've spent plenty of time on forums like these and in some of the older chat rooms.
One of the constants I see is the negative aspects of coming out to our SO's. Separations, divorces, fights and tantrums, ridicule and disdain. I see this so much that it seems like it is an automatic response to coming out to our SO's.
Yet, that is not my experience at all. I admit, I have a hard time wrapping my head around it.
My first serious gf and I were talking, on our first date. She was a real wild child and she decided to let me know what I was getting my self into. After her talk, she asked me if there was anything she needed to know about me. Well, I started with the old "Well, I went to the exotic and erotic ball in San Francisco as a maid". Her response? "Oh, so your not a virgin "back there", very cool". That wasn't true but since she was so accepting I just went with it. We dated for quite a while and went out together as girl friends more than a few times. That one broke up when she fell in love with a band. The whole band. ( shrugs)
My second was the woman I married. She was also a wild child and after coming clean one day when we were getting very serious with our feelings, she also asked me if there was anything she needed to know. I pulled out some pics from parties Danielle and I had go to, and she thought it was pretty cool...except that she instantly hated Danielle! We never really did much outside of the house, but she was very very accepting about it behind closed doors. We also broke up because she cheated, and not because of cross dressing.
The woman who put me back together after my wife left me found out about it almost immediately when she went to put some of her clothes in my closet and saw two different womens sizes. SHE liked it so much that she had move in with her "in the big city" and live full time. She introduced me to the world and with her bff we went everywhere as Michelle. Eventually her bff hired me to be her executive assistant in a very small company that she owned. Nancy though was also a wild child and we broke up many times over her cheating till one time she got pregnant and it stuck.
The BFF and I continued to be best friends till she passed away 10 years ago from cancer.
Carole was the next one and she actually fell in love with Michael. Again...a wild, wild child. She owned an Antique store and I just walked in there one day, after we had known each other a couple of months, in full fem mode; and started shopping. She came to help me and actually wondered around with me for five minutes when all of a sudden she looked at me with big wide eyes and said "Michael!". To which I replied, "No, Michelle". Very quickly she "dumped" Michael and was all in with Michelle. Carole is a story all to herself. We have broken up because of her...cheating isn't quite right...well, anyway; suffice to say that she is a big fan of Michelle.
Tiff was a woman I met when I was out as Michelle and she fell head over heels. She wanted nothing to do with Michael. Her problem was that she was unable to commit and she was CRAZY CRAZY CRAZY.
Other than that I have had a lot, and I mean a lot of GG friends that I have come out to and with one exception they have been supportive and have kept my secret.
The one bad expericence was the one woman I thought sure would be "Ok". She was a very progressive democrat and when I came out to her she was accepting...but you could tell she really didn't like it. I later found out from a couple of mutual friends that she only talked to me because she felt it was her "obligation" as a progressive woman.
All of my very best friends are women.
I've left out a couple but it was always the same.
I have thought about this for a long time and it seems to me that there are a couple of common threads.
The first is that my SO have all been women of very loose, but fun, morals! More than once I've heard a variation of "It's so nice to know you can't judge me because we are the same". I guess with those women they are very much afraid that if thier SO find out about their past "activities" that they will become disgusted and leave them. Where as they think of me as a woman and so being am more forgiving. IF that makes any sense.
The second is that most of the women in my life, be it as a friend or in a relationship, have been rather conservative. Strangely I find the more conservative a woman is the more likely she is to be a friend. Two of my very best friends are actually "officials" in thier respective Churches. Now the men on the other hand are definetely just the opposite. The more conservative the less accepting. I don't know why it works this way, for me, but it does.
The question I ask then is; is it really that common for SO's to leave their CD/Trans SO? Or do we just hear about the bad relationships? And I just really lucky? Or have I subconsciously found a "type" that is accepting of our lifestyles.
This is a question that I have pondered for a long time.