Telling my wife 😬

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 have gender dysphoria". The rest of the conversation is honestly a blur to me. I remember talking about how I have always been this way, How I dressed at night growing up. How I stole the clothes I had in my youth and now I mostly repurpose her clothes as she throws them away. I remember her asking when I dressed, and if she could see my stash. (That was too much in the moment, but I showed her the next day). I also remember how relieved I was and how accepting she was. I wasn't sure she was fully understanding what I needed her to. So I told her that If I was a teen today, or rather if society then was more like it is now when I was a teen, I would have transitioned. This didn't seem to phase her. Her biggest concern was that I lied to her. Euphoria hit me so hard! I had never been as happy as I was that next week! I then started telling family and select friends via text. My coming out text was a modified and personalized mash up of 2 songs that had been giving me strength and read as follows:

All my life I've been running from a pain in me. It's a feeling I don't understand. And its holding me down. It's like a constant rain. And now I'm under water. All I am is getting harder  every day. It's a heavy weight to carry around.  But today, I'm done being afraid. I dont need to let the damage consume me. There are  loving faces around me and a rainbow in the sky. There is a flag that wants to honor me. And I want to waive it high! There is a life with no exhaustion from being who I'm not. But I'm not quite there yet. I hope there are open arms awaiting me and no hatred in this space. I know there will be conversations that will take a little care and grace, with a weight and history that I'll have to bear. And that's ok. This is something My wife knows, and we are currently keeping from the kids and I'm still deciding who to tell. So please respect this privacy for me  and my confidence in  you...... I have (and have always had) gender dysphoria. I am happy to discuss this in person, text, or ignore it entirely depending on your individual comfort levels. 

When I came out, I didnt know how far I wanted to go. Though I have always had this desire, I also grew up male and decompartmentalized things. So I thought I could  feel "normal" in my skin and feel happy to present publicly as a male with his nails did and some eye makeup... and perhaps some less girly womens shoes. After all bad ass male rockstars pull this look off! So with a lot of thought before I came out, I decided to identify as gender fluid. 

 My wifes concerns started building as reality started to set in for her.  I started wearing light eyeshadow and mascara (my eyelashes are amazing by the way). And got a tattoo I designed to represent my gender dysphoria. That was when I think it got really real for my wife. She is heterosexual. And now her husband is doing things that are very "feminine". We agreed that I still  dress feminine in secret, but she dosent want to know about it. But will there be a time when that is not enough? Will her husband need to transition? Or start wearing female clothing publicly? The eye makeup was off putting enough to her.

Disclaimer time. My wife is AMAZING! She has, and continues to handle this with so much grace and love! I think this situation is harder for her than it is for me. I have been dealing with this my whole life and handling it. And now that I am semi public with it, people are mostly supportive to me. All the while I lied to her and she married me without a full disclosure of who I am. And now Im doing things she dosent find attractive.  As a person attracted to females, I can try to think how I would react if she wanted to stop shaving her legs and pits and cut her hair short in a traditional guy style. Im not saying there is anything wrong with those decisions. But I am not attracted to them and I would have a hard time with that. So, My wife is a super star and if you ever read anything here that would lead you to believe otherwise, you are misinterpreting my meaning, or I am not expressing myself well.

Over the next months the Euphoria continued, but discouragement reared its ugly head as well. It was an emotional roller coaster where I was super happy, or super sad. I thought I was bipolar. The sorrow came from seeing how much this is hurting my best friend and love of my life. I still go through phases where I wish I could put everything back in the bottle. I can just grow my long hair back out and dont do my makeup or anything else that would be new since coming out. But then I sink into a depression. You would think it would be easy to go back to the status quo. But knowing the absolute joy and contentment that something so simple as makeup brought me, and then stopping.... I realized just how sad I have been. And now I know there is another level of happiness I can be experiencing (that is even better than marijuana), it is hard not to. So it is too late to put it back in the bottle because I know what I would be missing.... 

Enter my suicidal ideation... yeah! Though I can feel comfortable in my own skin, the dysphoria is always at least a little itch in the back of my head. There are also times where I just want to be a woman. Nothing I can do will scratch that itch. I consider bottom surgery, or HRT, or both. then I think of how old I am. And by the time the changes kick in Ill  be almost 50. So it feels like it is too late for me. If there is a God, they hate me. Why would they make me so broken and incomplete? Never fully man, never fully woman. Things would just be so much better for everyone If I were dead. My wife could move on and get an eternal marriage with a manly priesthood holder who believes the same things as her. My kids would just remember me as normal male dad and not get made fun of or traumatized because of me. If there is an after life Id finally have peace because this chemical imbalance or whatever would be gone and Id be one gender!  The faith I grew up in teaches that when you die you will not be LGBTQI+ (whatever letter applies to you). And if there is not an after life, then I wouldn't need to worry about anything. So in my low points, I have what is known as passive suicidal ideation. This means that I dont want to be alive, but wont kill myself. I did have one really hard week where I developed an active plan, but didnt have it in me to end everything. I was lucky and able to realize this was a super temporary feeling and even though in the moment it felt like this would never end I realized it would. And though it may get harder before it gets better, life will get better....

But mostly Im good. My wife and I talked about me "boiling her slowly", and applying more neutral eyeshadow without the mascara so she can adjust to the "temperature". I have told my 2 oldest kids and they have been accepting. My wife has told me that she dosent know if she can support me as my wife. But she can support me as my friend. That is super fair and loving of her! I dont know what I will need to be fully content because Ive never given myself room to explore it. And my wife sees and recognizes that. Will our marriage last? If it does not I will be devastated. But I know she and I will always be friends! And I want all the best for her. Even if that means someone else is making her happier than I can.  At the moment I still believe my current plan of doing what I have already started and adding eye makeup and shoes should be fine. But at the time of typing this I am growing my long hair out again and doing nothing feminine that I haven't already warmed my wife up to. Trying to bottle it up again. But I feel my resolve fading.... I recognize this may be a futile cycle. But it seems to be my new cycle in my journey with gender dysphoria.