The past few weeks have been emotionally draining, but also wonderful. Coming out to my spouse's family that my husband is transgendered was good, bad, but also has lead to other things to move the transition forward.
Most of the family was amazingly supportive and I feel such a tremendous relief that no matter what happens with our marriage, she will have family to be there. I guess there was a part of me that felt a bit of a burden that I was the only one who really knew and could be there for my spouse in the emotions of this secret. I am so grateful for the genuine outpouring of love and feel like this is going to create a really strong bond among all of us.
The negative reactions weren't real surprising. Her mother of course, is quite confused and isn't handling it very well. I didn't expect her to be supportive but frankly, don't really care if she's upset. She has never been emotionally supportive of any of her children and maybe it is a good thing that she has to face what kind of person she has been. It's the same thing with one of the sisters. She too has not been emotionally supportive of anyone but herself and she might have to take a look in the mirror.
Today is another day of telling some people who are really important in our lives. As nervous as I am about telling the people who are really close friends of "his", I am also relieved. We won't have to pretend anymore. I am sad for them that they are going to have to face losing one of the people who have been really important in their lives, but hopeful that they might be able to accept the change.
We still have to tell most of my family. It's not that I haven't been ready to do that, but the timing hasn't worked out quite yet. Each one of these talks is incredibly emotional, whether it's positive or negative. It's exposing your emotions to others and that has been draining for both of us. It's also a lot of work because people do want to continue to talk and we haven't been this social in a very long time.
We have made some important steps and she has been so brave. I'm so proud of her that she is becoming the person she has always felt on the inside. We went to a wig shop together, we went out on the town together and she even went to the last therapy session en femme. I am amazed at the amount of courage she has and am so proud to be married to someone with that kind of inner strength. I'm actually finding the strength within myself too. I have found that to be strong, you also need to be vulnerable. Being closed off and putting up emotional barriers isn't the kind of strength I thought it was.
I had an epiphany last night. The feminine side of this person is the one I actually fell in love with in the first place. When we first met, the personality was more like the one I am seeing right now. It didn't really occur to me that over time things had changed with the personality until I started seeing it again. I could never really put my finger on what was changing, but now I see that it was just a gradual withdrawal from each other. I'm so happy that we have started going back to what we were in the beginning of our relationship. Like the Wizard of Oz said...the answer was in front of us all along.
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