Ben or Jen?

Here it goes again. The thoughts swirling in my brain slowly driving me insane. Tormented daily, defeated again, and just when I thought I had reached the bottom. It seems like I m falling forever. blurring and stirring and confusing the thoughts in my head so I cant trust myself anymore. Ive got to breathe and cant keep going under like this... I recognize how shitty this is for my wife and what I have done to her because of my cowardice and choice to lie up till this point. It is not fair for her. And we brought 4 kids into this world who are depending on me to be consistent and solid for them. When I came out to my wife I thought it would be ok if I just started wearing light makeup and women's shoes on the more neutral side of things. And perhaps sleeping in a bra again. And Id have someone in my corner who fully understands me. I didnt think it would disrupt things. After all Im already doing so many other things I introduced over the last 2 years.  Well, even the lightest eye...

At first my wife did not want the kids to know till she had time to process things more. She did however almost tell our eldest a few times and agreed I could tell her after a couple weeks. My eldest is the incredible Ally at school I mentioned in an earlier post. She seemed un phased by it and just asked my pronouns and thanked me for telling her.  My next kid  noticed the tattoo and asked if it was a nonbinary tattoo. I told them It wasn't and changed the subject. Then I excused myself and  told my wife the new development. She did not seem happy, but agreed it was probably time for the next kid to know. So that evening I brought up the tattoo again and told them it is for  gender dysphoria and I am gender fluid. they also thanked me and asked my pronouns. My wife has been handling this with grace and love and anger and sorrow and all the things. She is having a hard time and cries a lot. My youngest  noticed this and keeps asking her what is wrong. Yesterday ...

I promise this is the last installment catching you up on things. So as with the posts preceding this one, you may want to start at the first post and work up to this one. But you do you boo.  Also, trigger warning here. This post speaks about suicidal ideation. So practice self care and decide if reading this post is right for you. If you are experiencing suicidal thoughts please CALL 988   or seek help. I have links to the left. December 26, 2022 ...  in the evening.... I corner my wife and tell her I want to talk in the bedroom. She says ok and I take her by the hand and lead her in. Close the door, sit her on the bench that we keep at the foot of our bed while the Christmas tree is up, and I sit next to her. She looks at me and I search my mind for the right words.... It feels like forever passes... She is still looking at me, waiting for me to speak....Am I doing the right thing? What will she think of me? Is it too late to just not tell her?  I blurt out, "I ha...

This may be a good stand alone post, but if you haven't read the other 2, you may want to start at the first post and work up to here...  Over the years, there were several reasons for my wife to suspect something was up. There was a time about 5 years ago that I was sleeping in a bra for a while. I told my wife this was because I was sleeping through my alarm. But if I put my phone in the cup, I would feel it and have no problems waking up! 😆 To be fair, I am a heavy sleeper. Sadly sleeping in the bra was short lived because the phone got really hot, and there was no way of charging over night in the bra. So there went my totally logical and manly reason to sleep in a bra.  About 2 years ago, I told her that I wasn't getting "good support" in men's underwear and switched up to women's.  About 1 year ago, we thought that our daughter may be a member of the LGBTQIA+ community (because she is a really good ally). So I painted my nails in rainbow to show that we...

 If you haven't read the first post, probably start there... Now we find ourselves in the year 2001. I was 18 and have gone through a purge cycle about a year ago. This is probably the longest time I have gone without collecting and wearing again. In my faith tradition at the time, 19 year old males go on a 2 year "mission" where they dedicate their lives to the church and spread its message. You may have seen some in your area. They typically go door to door, or preach on street corners. They wear white suits and ties with black name tags and give out free bibles and books of mormon. But that is not all they do. They live a strictly scheduled life full of scripture study and service to the community they are sent to. Before they can start their mission they need to prove they are worthy to represent the church. So I was 100% on board to show God I had what it takes to serve him in this capacity. I knew that missions change lives. And If I served faithfully, God would mak...

So lets start at the beginning, for as it was once sung, "that's a very good place to start". In my earliest childhood memories I always wanted to be a girl. I didn't really like to play with Barbie, or dolls or anything, but felt like life would be better if I was a girl. I did enjoy playing house, and always wanted to be the female rolls but was embarrassed about that, so I got stuck playing the dad normally.  When I was a kid in the 80's, girls had such soft and frilly socks. I remember loving to wear them, but had none of my own. So this lead to me stealing them whenever I got the chance. I knew stealing was wrong, and I knew it was embracing to be in girl socks, so I hid this to the best of my ability. I remember one time around the age of 4 finding some thick "fluffy socks" and stuffing them into my pants and "casually" walking through the living room past my grandma and mom to get somewhere private to try them on. I remember that they st...