Voyage of discovery

People are incredulous that I didn’t know. That there were no signs that led me to some kind of insight. I am an emotionally intelligent person. I’m a relatively observant person. I always knew there was some part of him I did not know. At times I felt lonely in our relationship. My need to talk was always in competition with his need for space. I interpreted this as a side effect of being married to an only child. He had an adventurous childhood, living in many different places compared to my childhood spent in 1 family home. My mother was firmly against hoarding of any kind so I travelled lightly from each adult location. My husband’s mother on the other hand was an avid collector of stuff and keeper of things, and so was he. In the first 12 years of our relationship we moved a lot. On each house move we made together he seemed to be hoarding more stuff, and I remember laughing at him and trying to convince him to cull as we moved. I thought they were boxes of books. I did not know that the books were on top of bags of clothes. I did not know that our cupboards and attic spaces were full of his bags of clothes. I didn’t know. I never looked.

Birthday presents in the years before we had kids tended to veer towards practical clothes or music and books. I do remember being surprised when he started buying me dresses and underwear, approximately 6 or 7 years into the relationship. I did not know that he was buying 1 set for me and 1 set for himself.

Apparently 1 day I asked him if he was wearing mascara. I don’t remember this. Apparently 1 day I found some large underwear in our car in a package. I remember this, I also remember his explanation that it came in the wrong size. I accepted this because I trusted him. I didn’t folllow up to make sure I received that set. Why would I? Of course I didn’t.

It may seem like a ridiculous level of oblivion but simply, I trusted him, and honestly, my husband is a transvestite? Are you kidding me? ???????

I was so far from that being my reality. Really and honestly. I will not judge myself for that.

Once the bags started surfacing and he quickly took up multiple drawers, hanging space and a full cupboard of make-up I felt such deep sadness at this secret world that he had been forcing himself to live. This, on reflection, may have been one of the most shocking parts of this journey. This entirely secret person was suddenly larger than life. This entirely secret person now consumed a vast amount of physical and emotional space.

In your search to make sense of any event in life it can be helpful to draw from the experiences of others you perceive to be in a similar situation. This can be extremely hard to find in this scenario. I have been looking for years and will talk about it in more depth in a different post.

I have recently been following the writings of Kristin Collier; a lady who is a champion for living our lives in a redefined way. I applaud her. She has been writing for a long time, from the time her husband came out as transvestite through his transition to woman. She has published a book and maintains a blog with retrospective and current entries. She chose to allow people into her personal life in order to improve people’s understanding of the day to day ness of this particular journey. She is very brave and very honest and, I believe, very happy with their alternative family life in which she and Seda are redefined as parenting partners with each also enjoying life with a romantic partner. Although we only hear about Kirstens love life and not much about Seda’s.

My husband Betty is another seminal and much lauded tome on the life of the straight spouse. This is deep and complex reading. It challenges the notion of gender in every respect and is a beautiful love story by a relatively selfless person who found her own gender fluidity in her husband’s transition.

But here’s the challenge. What if your husband does not know if he wants to transition? What if your husband is a transvestite but is still unable to comprehend the rationale for this? What if your husband who says he’s still your husband doesn’t look or feel or act like your husband any more?

In a recent counselling session the Therapist told my husband that he is somewhat of an enigma. He doesn’t fit into the stereotype who dress for sexual expression and addictive highs, nor is he on the other spectrum of people who have gender dysmorphia and feel they want to transition to another gender . I don’t think he’s an enigma. I think he is merely afraid of himself and of discovering his true identity. Of course the irony is that I can’t scream this at him. This would be interpreted as forcing the process. And when I do that he retreats back into the cupboard and stops trying. So I have to stop thinking this process can go any faster than it is. It will be. It will be. My decision is to support him, because I’m the only person he has ever really allowed into the depths of his true self, and because if I don’t he will never be that self. And then my children will only ever know half of their dad. And I will have been involved in that decision. And it’s not a good one. For me. For me. For me.

Many stories written by the wives of transgender and transvestites people talk about their perfect lives in the lead up to the coming out. I am not that person. Our lives were flawed and our relationship an ever evolving entity. So maybe things aren’t so different after all .