Its hard for me to think of myself before I was with Jimmy.
Of course I have tons of memories, but I feel like I must have been a different
person back then. I had a knack for
being in relationships that were not healthy.
I remember settling for men that treated me as little more than a
distraction. The last relationship I was in before I came out as a lesbian is
pretty typical of the relationships I had been in. I met Trevor on a website, and we met for the
first time in a coffee shop. We seemed
to have things in common, we both liked to cook, we were both home bodies, and
we were able to talk. That was enough
for me to keep seeing him. It didn’t matter
that he had no interest in my passions, that he made no effort to make me feel
special, and that most of the time it was like pulling teeth to get him to talk
to me. I remember when it was almost my
birthday, and the only thing that I asked for was to go out to a semi-nice
restaurant, and get kind of dressed up; he argued with me for days about the
definition of a semi-nice restaurant, and why he didn’t want to wear anything
other than his old jeans. I remember so many nights when I would go over to his
house, all dressed up, only to end up watching him play World of War Craft in
the dark. Even though he knew it was important to me, he refused to spend the
night at my house, and when we were around his friends or family, he would
leave me alone to hang out with them. I
never felt loved, or important to him.
He never said he loved me, called me beautiful, or talked about a future
with me. As easy as it would be to just
call him a douche bag, and blame him, the truth is that for over six months I
chose to be in the relationship. I
accepted how he treated me, and didn’t require more from him. Basically, it
took two to make the situation, and it took far too long for me to end it. In other relationships I accepted, and
allowed far worse. Nobody should ever
accept anything other than being treated with absolute respect, love, and
adoration. But back then, I didn’t know what that looked or felt like, let
alone that I deserved it.
When I met Jimmy, from the moment he laid eyes on me, he
treated me like a lady. He complimented
me, and started talking about taking me on super romantic dates, and treated me
like I was special. I remember when we
went on our first real date, we went to a museum, and he held doors open for
me, was interested in the things I was, and was basically a complete
gentleman. The only thing was, that he
was a woman. I loved the way I felt when
I was with him. I responded to him instinctively, the way I had seen new
couples respond to each other on TV. This was something very new for me. In every relationship I had been in before,
romance felt forced, I responded the way I thought I should, not because it was
how I felt. I thought that this was just confirmation of my newly stated
sexuality. But even then, I felt that something was a little off. Even on our
first date, I struggled with reconciling my conflicting instincts with my ideas
of how to treat a woman. My instincts
were having me respond to Jimmy like a man, but my manners told me to treat him
like I, as a woman, would want to be treated.
I would literally race him to a door, to open it for him, even though it
felt completely forced and weird. I
insisted on paying for half of our dates, and would try to give him compliments
on his beauty. It didn’t feel right, but
I just thought that was because this was my first relationship with a woman,
and it would take some getting used to.
In hind sight though, and after talking with Jimmy, he felt comfortable enough
with me to act on instinct, and his instincts are male.
One of the questions I get asked the most, is, “is it
different being with him now that he is a man?”
The answer is more complicated than you would think; and the answer has
more to do with me, than with him. See
pre transition, I had so many expectations based on the presumption that he was
a woman. I would assume that he would understand what I meant when I said I was
hormonal, or why cleaning was important to me before I would go on a trip, or
why decorating the house for different seasons was important. I expected him to understand my emotions with
minimal, if any explanations. I expected that he would understand where I was
coming from, and I expected that I would automatically know where he was coming
from. I expected that we would have that commonality, like I had with my female
friends. When he didn’t respond the way that I thought that he should be, I
would get frustrated, and confused. I
constantly felt like I didn’t know what to expect, I constantly felt like he
was catching me off guard, and that I never knew what was coming next. For
someone like me, who likes the illusion of control, and who craves routine and
continuity; this feeling of never knowing what was coming, created a lot of
stress for me.
Jimmy’s behavior since transitioning has not markedly
changed. However, since coming out as
transgendered, my understanding of him, and his behavior has changed. I now have a better understanding of where he
is coming from, and therefore what to expect.
I now understand that he doesn’t speak the same language I do, and
therefore do not expect him to understand everything without explanation. I now understand that he is a man, and
therefore has a lot of the same issues, bravado, and ideas as most bio
men. So the simple answer to the
question, is yes, it is different being with him now that he is a man, but only
because now I understand that who I am married to is a man, and not any type of
woman, not even a butch lesbian.
On a related note, one of the hardest questions I have to
answer, both for myself, and for those around me who ask, including Jimmy, is
about how I now define my sexuality. And
the honest answer, for now, is that I do not know. I know that although I dated bio men for many
years, I know that I was never physically attracted to them. I know that when
Jimmy was presenting as a woman, being with a woman made sense to me in a way
that being with a man never did. But I also know, that if Jimmy even jokingly
put on a pear of pumps, or joked about putting on lingerie pre transition, it
was not something that was even remotely attractive to me. In fact it was a huge turn off. I also know that while I can recognize beauty
in women, and men all around me; I can count on two or three fingers the amount
of people I have even been remotely sexually attracted to. I know that I am
attracted to Jimmy, and for now, that is all that matters. Sexuality is not
always clear cut, and it seems in my case that is definitely the case. For some women, whose wives or husbands
transition, their sexuality is not flexible enough to allow for the change in
expressed genders. In my case, I am very
lucky, because my love for Jimmy was stronger than any expressed gender, and I
get to go through this transition with him. I get to see him be happy, and I
get to be there for him as he becomes the man he was always meant to be.
Thank you so much for reading, and I hope you will ask any questions you may have, or give me any comments that you would like. I hope everyone has had a great weekend.
Always,
Sara
