Hi, an introduction to me.. Sara, and my story with my wonderful husband Jimmy
When I first realized that my
beautiful, loving, wonderful wife was transgendered; I was daunted by the
journey we were about to take, but I also knew that I loved her with all of my
heart, and was as committed to our marriage as the day that we exchanged our
vows. Now that we are further along this journey, I have learned so much about
the depth of our love, the strength of our commitment, who we are as a couple,
who we are individually, and that a healthy relationship takes a lot of work. We
are working on ourselves, and on our relationship every day. Jimmy’s transition;
from female presenting, to male is not something that I will ever be able to
understand all of the intricacies of, or how hard it must be. I am proud of him
every day, and I am in constant awe of the man he is becoming. I have seen him
go from an insecure, hair triggered, defensive, often sad, woman; to a
confident, radiant, self possessed, sure of himself, kind and loving man. Every
day he wakes up as himself, he becomes stronger, and happier, and I am so glad
that I get to be there to support him, and help in whatever ways I can as goes
through this transition.
That being said, I am going
through a transition of my own. I am going from being an out lesbian, to a
straight presenting person. As well as dealing with what it means to go from
having a wife, to a husband, and all of the issues that that brings up for me. I
did not come out as a lesbian until I was 24, and once I did I met, and fell in
love with my now husband within two months. Next, came coming out publicly as a
lesbian, to my family, friends, and work. Then came the normal aches and pains
of a new relationship, and all of the fun and joy that comes with merging two
lives; (in hindsight many of those problems were related to the fact that Jimmy
was unconsciously fighting his gender, and quite literally trying to fit a
square peg into a round hole.) Jimmy asked me to marry him a little over two
years after we met. We exchanged vows, and signed our domestic partnership
papers eight months later in a ceremony at the coffee shop where we first met.
Only Jimmy the notary, and I were present, plus a few unsuspecting patrons of
the coffee shop, and after the paperwork was signed, and the notary was gone, we
exchanged our vows and rings, and we walked out of that coffee shop exactly
thirty two months after we had first met, hand in hand, married partners for
life.
When I was a child, I was never
one of those girls who thought about getting married, for some reason I just
assumed that I would never be married, or have kids. So getting married was a
huge adjustment for me, one that I was thrilled about, but saying that I was
married, calling her m wife, even wearing a ring was just something that was a
big deal to me. It was a wonderful time. Shortly after getting married though, I
started to notice some changes in my wife. Changes might not be the exact right
word though, it was more like I was noticing things that were more pronounced
that before. She was never comfortable receiving compliments, but I started
noticing that instead of just dismissing them, she seemed to be aggravated and
frustrated when I called her something as simple as beautiful. She started
dressing in an even more masculine way, and stopped using gender specific
adjectives and pronouns all together. Also I noticed that her temper was getting
worse, that she seemed to be getting angrier more often, more severely, and her
bad moods were lasting longer and were more severe. I noticed all of this, but I
didn’t have any clue as to what it meant. Then one day we sat down to watch tv,
and turned on one of my favorite shows “Our America” by Lisa Ling, and the
episode happened to be about transgendered people. We watched it, and I can’t
say that anything clicked in that moment, but my mind was definitely processing
something. About a week later, we were making love, and Jimmy, who was always
very inhibited in the bedroom, wanted to try a new position, a very hetero
position. When he was in that position, I felt him become uninhibited, and I
started watching him. And all of a sudden, I literally knew in my heart that he
was transgendered, that my wife, was not a she, that she was in fact a he. I
didn’t say anything then, or for the next two weeks. But I was thinking about
it, and thinking about what I should do, or say, or when. I knew that I was
still committed, and that we could deal with whatever would come, but I didn’t
know how to put the topic on the table. Finally one night, we were talking, and
her guard seemed to be down, and she seemed to be open, so I took a deep breath,
and asked “sweetie, how do you feel about your gender identity?” Well, she
freaked out!
“What do you mean? It is what it is!! Why would you even
ask that?! I cant talk about this!”
After she calmed down a little
bit, and I told her all that I had noticed, and told her that I loved her no
matter what, we went to sleep in an uneasy silence. We really kind of dropped
the subject, but I noticed that she had watched the episode of Our America
again, and that she was spending time online researching things, and was over
all very quiet. Then about two weeks after the initial conversation, while we
were making the bed one Saturday morning, she said, almost as an aside; “so I
was thinking, I don’t think I want to carry a child.”
My mouth almost hit the floor.
When we were still dating, we had numerous fights, and intense conversations
about who was going to carry a child first, and she was adamant that she wanted
to. So this was a GIANT shift. I sat down on the bed, and said “ok, keep
talking, tell me more.” So she started talking, and it turned out that the
reason she had been so adamant was that she thought that if she could carry a
child, then she would finally feel secure in her gender. That she was in fact
struggling with her gender, and thought she might be trans. Wow. It was one
thing to think I knew the truth, and it was an entire other thing, to have my
crazy hunch confirmed. The next few weeks, practically every moment we were
together we talked about whether or not she was transgendered, why it made
sense, what to do about it, who to talk to, and so forth. We found support
groups for him to go to, called a counselor, and he did tons of research online.
We also reached out to some friends that we knew, who were a ftm couple, and
traded emails, and eventually went up to see them, and get their advice and
perspectives. Jimmy started taking steps. Within just a couple of months, he was
wearing a binder, dressing as a man, was attending a support group, started
taking testosterone, was talking about top surgery, STPs, packers, and had
chosen his new name.
It was an exciting but intense time for me. So much was
changing in my life, but I couldn’t talk about it yet. I felt like I was
closeted again, and I was feeling very isolated, and alone. Jimmy was going
through so much, and I didn’t want to burden him with what I was feeling, that
seemed so inconsequential compared to struggling with changing genders. But the
deeper that we got into the transition, I started having some real issues, and
was starting to struggle to keep it together.
Unfortunately, like so many people, I have a trauma history
related to men; and as my wife was transitioning to my husband, that trauma was
starting to come up more and more. I wasn’t talking to Jimmy about it, I didn’t
feel I could talk to anyone about it, and even though I was looking, I couldn’t
find any support groups for the wives of transgendered men, either in real life,
or online. I finally sought out a therapist, and started talking to Jimmy, to my
family, and my friends. But I still didn’t have someone who was walking this
road to talk to. Jimmy actually found this blog first, and showed it to me when
I got home one night. It felt so amazing to read a blog by someone who had a
similar story to me. So Heather and I started talking, and she asked if I would
contribute to this blog as well, just to add another perspective from someone
who is a little further down the road. My hope is that other this blog can be a
community for those who are with someone who are in the process of
transitioning, or have already transitioned and can give some words of wisdom to
those of us who are not as far along. Thank you so much for reading, and please
feel free to post any questions, comments, etc you have. I hope to hear from you
soon, and that you are having a good day.
Always,
-Sara
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