Having set out to make 2023 my year to start transition and been doing a few small things towards that for over three weeks now, the big un-done task is talking to my wife about it. During this time, I have been through a few cycles of "am I doing the right thing?" but (as I wrote yesterday) I have (for now) figured it all out and rationalised to myself why full transition is what is needed for me to truly be able to be the person I feel I am and need to be.
The logical immediate next step would therefore be to charge out of the closet full-speed and tell my wife and family this is who I am and what I am doing. Today, I had plenty of time alone with her and so the ideal opportunity.
Of course I didn't actually do that.
I just thought about it, worried about it, felt uncertain, didn't say anything, and then the opportunity had passed.
Why do I keep doing this?
Partly, it is scary because coming out is a one-way ticket. Once she knows, she can't unknow. If I am wrong or backtrack for whatever reason and try to go back to being as I am now, I never will be able to, because she (and whomever else I tell) will always ad forever know that I thought I was trans. Irreversible things are more frightening than things that can be undone.
In theory, one's spouse ought to be one's closest relationship. The person who has vowed to stand by you "for better or worse". Yet, when it comes to this, she feels like the last person in the world that I can talk to and be open with. I know social media and other trans women that I have communicated with online, that this is a common issue.
Certainly there are things that I can talk to her about, but I think all relationships are built on actual or assumed knowledge of the other person, which accumulates over time and forms our beliefs of who that person is and expectations of how they will behave and react to events and what we do. We learn from the inputs we receive from our partners that doing 'x' will be well received, but doing 'y' will lead to an argument, so to maintain the relationship, we conform to what is expected of us and the beliefs become self-reinforcing.
The problem with my situation is that my wife's foundational beliefs about who I am and what our relationship is, are founded on the idea that I am a man and her husband. Therefore, to tell her I am a woman and intend to transition is to destroy this core underlying foundation. And as I said earlier, in an irreversible way.
Not only that, my gender, or at least her expectation of it, is fundamental to our relationship. She wouldn't be in any kid of relationship with me had she always known me as a woman. Coming out to pretty much anyone else doesn't matter, as gender isn't critical to any other relationship.
Therefore, to change this fundamental belief is going to be such a huge issue for her, how can the revelation be anything other than the hardest thing to tell her?
Comments
Post a Comment