I don't know about you, but for me the first few weeks of the year have always been the pits. Back in my school days they were the endless term of freezing cold and mud, nothing to look forward to except exams. I'm not a fan of exams, having been the victim of a school culture that placed an unhealthy amount of emphasis on them.
So this year I've succumbed to a three-week cold at the same time as a bit of a setback in the personal stakes, my wife has had a major wobble. Despite spending most of her social life in the company of a couple of her friends from the transgender community and telling me I should transition, she announced she couldn't take it if I transitioned and would leave me. Not entirely unreasonable for someone in her position, but one that's floored me somewhat given the messages she'd been giving out previously. I won't do anything that'll cause her to leave me.
So that's that screwed then. Life's shit, innit.
What now? Just keep going, worry about the GIC when I see them in September. I don't think I'll be doing a "change in the GIC bog" transition, so I'll probably be discharged. #TransDocFail indeed, ours must be the only condition in which they give you the boot if you refuse to divorce.
Funny, it's opened a door into somewhere I rather hoped I'd left behind. I'm thankful for our UK gun laws, if I was American I might have turned my constitutionally protected comfort blanket upon myself by now. It's funny where your idle thoughts take you at moments like this.
Still, at least I can keep plodding along, knowing I may not have left the starting gate but at least I ain't got it wrong yet. Someone else of my acquaintance whose lightning fast transition has been perfect to the point of protesting too much turns out to be falling apart. Part of me feels a shot of vindictiveness, for this is someone who has at times been very nasty towards people she considers to be less Real Women than her, but everyone deals with this mess their own way and even if hers was at times a bit nasty she deserves sympathy.
So there you go. A friend in this sphere's blog is titled "Don't be like me". I can empathise with that.
Dear Jenny,
ReplyDeleteWinter 2013 has been a tough one here too. Your post sounds very much as if I could have written it, including the bit about the 2nd amendment.
I too have a friend who has has an annoyingly fast and perfect transition. It is hard not to feel envious.
I am very sorry to hear about your current situation, the impasse is heartbreaking.
As we seem to have much in common I am going out on a limb and offer advice. I apologize in advance if I offend either you or you wife. The status quo cannot hold, love however true will not overcome biological programming. Regret will turn to sadness, depression and dislike.
September is still a long way off.
Big hugs,
April
I tend to agree. It isn't possible to deny your nature, however much you wish to stay with someone you love. I couldn't do it. But perhaps you will find a way!
ReplyDeleteLucy
Well I am saddened to learn of this but I have to say I am in agreement with April and Lucy but not everyone is the same in these issues and you may yet fins a solution. Do not despair. Having said that I might have been in the position whereby I held back my own feelings for the love of my partner and indeed I did for many years. It was the breakdown of our relationship and marriage that drew the final straw and consequently I had to transition. There was nothing to hold me back.
ReplyDeleteShirley Anne x
Not a post I ever expected to read after your slow climb to the edge of transition...
ReplyDeleteThis has to be the worst Valentines day present ever.
I spent decades thinking that I just had to live out a false life, sacrifice myself for everyone else's feelings and suffer the hell of that false life in constant misery and depression. Plans for a tidy suicide were my constant companions and if I had been able to simply pick up a gun would surely have used it at some point to stop the noise in my head. As it turned out I was stupid and wrong, I am a better person to be with as I am now and nobody was really shocked or offended by my change, rather the opposite.
being told that you have to live depressed and unfulfilled is a cruel and unloving response to your condition, that way madness lies. To have come so far and stepped back is infinitely worse than never having seen the light...
Having reached a point where it was transition or die I cannot even start to really express how this post makes me feel seeing that your heart will break which ever way you jump...
Dear Jenny,
ReplyDeleteYou and me both in the same predicament. There is no escape from putting our loved ones first. It is the way we are and we have to suffer the consequences. This GD is the absolute pits.
Things can change before september, on one side or another.
ReplyDeleteA cruel thing to suffer with, though.
And some hard weighings to make too.
1,001 hugs
Sophia
Whether we like it or not our futures are controlled by the actions of others and our own inner emotions and feelings for those others.
ReplyDeleteAlthough I did not thinks so at the time, the best thing that happened to me was when my wife kicked me out of the family home to get on with transitioning on my own. Had she not done so, I have no idea where I would be now.
Only you know what is right in your situation but if you stay together I just hope that it is worth it.
I say this in the full understanding that everyone's situation is different, and I'm not intimately involved in relationship! But this is what I would have said of my partner (then of 3.5 years, now of 10.5 years) had he had the same attitude.
ReplyDeleteI hope she changes her mind very soon, or at least before September. You've been extremely self-sacrificing in your desire to not be selfish, and I hope that she is able to extend similar consideration and care to you. Fundamentally, you'd be the same person you are now (only happier) and I'm sorry, but if a mere change of gender presentation is enough to her to warrant separating, that's fucked up.
Frankly, had a partner of mine given me an ultimatum that they'd leave me if I transitioned I would consider myself better rid of them. I don't think that's how healthy relationships work.
... and that's probably my friendship with you guys blown! (Maybe honesty is not always the best policy!)
P.S. I agree that it's completely shitty that the system doesn't support non-transitioning trans people!
Deletesorry, just read this. Ouch. I am guessing (hoping, expecting) that things will change in this situation and that you will both move forward. I hope it's sooner rather than later, because the sooner you move through the shitty stuff the sooner you get a go at the broad sunlit uplands. Which are there somewhere ahead. Trust in that.
ReplyDeleteMorning all, and thanks for your comments. I guess I'd better make it clear that it was delivered in sadness rather than as some kind of ultimatum, she's tried damn hard too. So I don't think there'd be any storming out, chucking out or arguing over who gets which end of the metaphorical family dog. And who knows, it may not even come to that and we may make something of it. But I still can't push her, it ain't her fault. So it's something of a setback.
ReplyDeleteFeel our way forward I guess.
Well, it sounds like a miserable time for both of you and I hope you're able to work through it soon. I hope it's a momentary wobble for her and things pick up.
DeleteI feel for you both, I think it sounds as though your wife has been very honest with you, she sounds like a strong and supportive lady. Clearly the situation is painfull for both of you, I just hope and pray that this is something you can work through together and find a solution that makes you both happy. Of course failing that a solution that makes you both miserable would be worse than one that only makes one of you happy.
ReplyDeleteWhen we get married we agree to better or worse, maybe this is the worse, and it will get better.
Shocked to read, but I am not surprised. Different words said here but same sentiment - hurts like hell. Still I live in hope as the words do change and wobbles here come and go - I hope for you too.
ReplyDeleteAs for the early exit, I have the means but that can surely never be the answer. One life gone but far more lives shattered.
There's no denying that your wife has been quite supportive up to now (certainly relative to my own), but it sounds like she has been hiding the full effect of all this on her. In our home, communication was the first fatality when I started making noises about gender issues. And like you, I have done my damnedest to avoid my painful truths.
ReplyDeleteWhile you haven't made any commitments that aren't reversible, to say you haven't left the starting gate is incorrect. Perhaps your closeness to the tipping point was her last straw. Whatever the case, do keep fighting for her affections, even as you do what you must to stay sane. I am testament that it ain't over till everyone leaves, and we continue to dance clumsily around it five years on.
A week or so down the line and all seems harmonious, but there's still an elephant in the room. Thanks again for all your words of support.
ReplyDelete