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July 20, 2017 5:34 pm  #1


Where I am: OOHC's summer realizations, Part One

Inspired by Kel's post asking all of us how we're doing, I've distilled the following from the journal I've been keeping this summer during my six weeks away from home on my own.  For those who don't know me, I'm two and a half years past disclosure, and my husband revealed, after 32 years of marriage, that he had decided he was transgendered.  At first he wanted to transition, but then he decided he would stay in the closet but dress at home. I've been trying to figure out whether I can stay married to him.  

This is chronological, and so there may be some repetition, but as I say somewhere, the process is not linear but recursive.
 
Here goes:

I look at the life we’re in, compromising, both of us, just enough to stay in the marriage, a marriage that is unsatisfying and unsatisfactory to both of us.  Why do I want this?  Why does he?
 
Despite numerous declarations that he needs to communicate better, he hasn't followed through.  I’ve realized that when he does infrequently reveal what he’s thinking it’s frequently revealing of things that make me recoil or cringe.  Most of what he reveals just boils down to “You don’t figure in my decision making.” 
 
All the difficulties I see in the future after we split up—working in the same building, with the same colleagues—things that I once saw as reasons I had to stay—I now see as manageable problems with solutions. 
 
I thought, the other day, that all these dressed-to-the-nines “passable” men acting as women, so proud of themselves for the way they look?  Why shouldn’t they be?  What they are is a male fantasy of woman, and who better to know what that looks and acts like than a man? 
 
The scale is beginning to tip: the financial ease of staying no longer outweighs the emotional costs.
 
The isolation and weight of the closet even here so far away from home where I am supposed to be free of it tells me how much I need to leave the closet behind.
 
Last year I had hope.  Last year I was still committed to the marriage and telling myself he was, too.  This year I am facing reality—and a different hope, for something different, a life of my own.
 
I know that I have had high expectations for this trip, that I would detach from him and all things trans and find myself again and start living for myself.  But what I’ve found is that I feel beat up and exhausted and sad.  I have been in tears at least once a day.  And I have to let this all be ok.  It’s a recursive process, incremental, and since I left home to come here it feels speeded up, like a rapid cycling manic-depressive; one hour I feel strong and look ahead, the next I feel sad, desolate and weak.  So I’m starting to see this time away as a rest cure, an opportunity to heal from the stress and trauma of last year. 
 
 I’ve settled on what I’ll say about the break up to others.  I won’t “out” him, but I also won’t allow the “we grew apart” narrative that ignores the real breaking point: the announcement of his trans-ness.
 
After a week here, I had a night when I cried like a baby and wept like a storm.  I felt that I would be alone in ways I’ve never been alone.  Even though I always spend part of every year on my own, I did so knowing I was anchored, that I had a partner to return to, that I was partnered.  After I wept and stormed, I started thinking of all the ways I can build a life and all the connections with others I have and can make.  Then I wrote a friend, one of the two who knows, and she sent me just the bucking up I needed. 
 
I have started thinking about what kind of life I want for myself, and began researching possible places to live when I retire.  I took practical efforts to combat what seems huge and daunting—the proverbial baby steps that prove I know how to walk.  And to run.
 
I had dreams of people I know in normal and healthy relationships.  That’s a new development in my dream life.
 
I used to worry I’d be shamed as transphobic for leaving; now what I worry about in terms of shame is what my mom and sister will think of me for taking so long to get out of this unhealthy situation.  I'm ashamed of having been so weak and being drawn in.
 
I have stopped accepting his blame.  I refuse to feel guilty for “not accepting him.”  He’s in the closet!  He can’t even accept himself, yet he wants unconditional acceptance from me.  If I’m so bad he could leave—he has that option.
 
I’ve started accepting that I will have to spend some of my savings to get free.  I was so resentful of that, that I would have to bear the cost of leaving when he was breaking the marriage.  But accepting the cost is also empowering; it shows that I am willing to make the sacrifice to better my life, and I’m worth the investment.
 
I’ve seen how small a size my world has shrunk to, and how willing he is for me to shrink myself down.
 
I made a list of lists I could make, and I started filling them in: “I can’t believe I…”; “Once you are no longer in my life, I promise…”; “Here are the things I could never do with you that I’ll do when I’m free...”;  “Reasons why my life will be better without you...”; “I will not miss….”  I did this because my mom once said that when she was considering divorcing my father she made a “pro” and “con” list, and I wanted to give added weight to my own “pro” divorce half of the pro-con list I’ve made for myself.  After I did this, I realized it’s no longer a matter of “Should I stay or should I go?” but “Why on earth would I stay?”
 
I finally understand and accept that he will never change, that I can’t change him, that I can’t fix this, and that the future I’m grieving was always and already a mirage, because it was not based on the reality of who he is and what he wants and what he does.

 

July 20, 2017 5:46 pm  #2


Re: Where I am: OOHC's summer realizations, Part One

I guess I can do Part Two here on this thread, too, so here it is: 

I allowed myself to get angry at how unfair it is that he flies under the radar and uses me for a beard.  I already allowed myself to get angry at what I suffer being in his closet, so this is the other side of that coin.
 
I have started seeing a vision of the life I can live not in the shadow of his transness.  I realized I will be taking responsibility for my own happiness, and that in doing so, I will have the power to work for my own happiness, which is not the case while I live in his closet.  This allowed me to begin to plan for it, and to look forward to it, and not just mourn what I thought I’d be losing.
 
I grieved: that I won’t be a partner, that I won’t move into the future as a partner.  But I also see that I don’t actually have a partner, I just appear to have one.  I have the form and semblance of a marriage and a partner, but without the function of either.  I thought about how this is what transwomen have: the form and semblance of a woman’s body—a faux vagina and hormone-and-surgically created breasts, but all without context or function.  That has helped me heal from the assault on my womanhood. 
 
I came up with a few phrases that help me laugh:  my Marine nephew’s Marine’s Christmas greeting, “ho-fucking-ho,” I transformed into a phrase to express my impatience with my husband’s sadz over not being a woman: “boo-fucking-hoo”; and, from the comments by someone on Chump Lady, “chuck it in the fuck-it bucket.”
 
I took an online retirement “quiz” that helps you find a place to retire that fits your interests, and articulated for myself what I want in a place to live—both in a town and in a house.
 
It took two full weeks for me to stop obsessing.  At the end of those two weeks, I’m no longer bargaining with myself about the necessity of divorce.
 
I power walked at least 5 k every day, by the ocean, with two amazing Amazon women who pushed me.  And on many days, I took an additional walk, just to listen to music or enjoy the beauty of the place where I am.  I emptied my mind and let the waves and clouds and light fill my eyes and the water and wind and inspiring music fill my ears. 
 
I realized that I am grieving—also grieving—the loss of my identity: 30+ years of being a wife, part of an extended family I will most likely lose, expectations of a shared future, memories of a shared past.
 
In the space of time it took to drink my morning coffee I saw myself as useless and unlovable and old and ugly, and then realized I was smart and creative and funny and active—and that the best things in his life were there because of me.  I saved him from being a drug addict, I prodded him to return to college and then graduate school, I made sure he didn’t spend all his inheritance on toys but put money down on a house, and I gave him a son, a son that in one of my husband's petulant moments of bemoaning how he was born too early to take advantage of today’s atmosphere of supporting transition for pre-adolescents (“boo-fucking-hoo!) he wished away!  
 
I worry about my son.  I will continue to worry, after I tell him, because this information is going to be a blow.  But I also refuse now to lie to him, because I want an honest relationship with him.  
 
In making friends here and seeing how accepting and welcoming people are, I realized that my fears of being alone are just that: irrational fears.  I have observed how people integrate themselves into a new community, and I learned from what I saw.
 
I realized how pitifully desperate were my early attempts to accommodate his desire to act like a woman.
 
I feel like I have had a “Kel” moment: “I’m done.”
 
I’m approaching real acceptance.  I’m no longer projecting onto him my own values and ideas about being partnered, so I’m seeing him and his values and actions more clearly.  I’m no longer spending mental effort trying to figure out what happened to him, to try to locate the beginning of the onset of symptoms, the outbreak of trans-fever.  In the end, I’ve realized, all that doesn’t matter.  It was all just a form of denial and bargaining.  In the end it doesn’t matter why he’s this way; what matters is that he is.  After you’re done with all the untangling and the bargaining and the denying and the making excuses, done with the hope, done with the “I have to understand this!”, you realize none of that matters.  When you finally accept things as they are, you know that all that agonizing, all that mental effort, all that time and focus on the other, was unnecessary and doomed to failure, that what it really was, was all just you, talking yourself into accepting reality.  The reality was always what you saw in front of you and refused to accept.  The only option I ever really had was “what am I going to do?”  Sometimes, I’ve decided, we have to just act, and let the emotions catch up.   “Figuring it out” is a delaying tactic that just postpones the inevitable and keeps us from having to do what in our heart of hearts we know we have to do.
 
I drew a boundary: I told my husband that when he left for a trip to his father’s he was not to hide his women’s clothes in my closet or my drawers (our son is housesitting), but that he had to take them to his office. 
 
I have begun to realize how staying closeted warps the personality of the closeted, and that he has no qualms about sacrificing me to keep his secret.
 
I’m shifting from the model of “a couple” to “a woman alone,” and thinking I need to seek out the company of other single women, so I can learn from them how it’s done.  I’m beginning to imagine it, what shapes I will give it, where I will live it, how I will find and make meaning for myself.  Letting go of the false to face the real frees me to act.  It also can fill me with sadness.

As Thelma (from the film "Thelma and Louise") said,  “Something in me’s crossed over, and I can’t go back.”
 
Today I was less preoccupied by the trans crap and the drama of whether to leave, why I should leave, why I have to leave.  I would like for today to become the norm. 
 
I’m almost feeling impatient now, to get back and get it done.  I’m at the point where I just want to get away from it, to walk away from it and begin the slow process of reconfiguring my life.  

Today it’s been one month that I’ve been here.
 

Last edited by OutofHisCloset (July 20, 2017 6:12 pm)

     Thread Starter
 

July 20, 2017 5:51 pm  #3


Re: Where I am: OOHC's summer realizations, Part One

Last installment:

I’ve had one or two days that show me what my future might be, days on which I was calm and my mind untroubled, and I both read and wrote.  Not every day will be like that, but I can get them back and put myself in the way of having more of them.  I’m going to have to go as “no contact” as I can, to keep myself from being drawn in. 
 
I am making incremental small steps in detaching; he, I think, has never really been attached, because he's too self-absorbed . That still has the power to hurt.  His reason for staying is that he has decided he can’t have what he really wants—to live as a woman.  But I am not to be “settled for.”  If I'm going to be in a relationship I want to be someone’s treasure.
 
I have begun to turn the enormity of leaving into small, do-able concrete actions.  Seeing a lawyer when I get home will be a very big step. 
 
At some level I still can’t believe I have to do this—but in all ways I know it’s necessary.  I want to live the rest of my life free from his smothering, dampening effect, out of the closet.  I want to live free from that "tell-tale heart" of women’s clothing in his bottom drawer. 
 
I know the marriage is dead and I’m no longer giving it mouth-to-mouth or the paddles to try to resuscitate or shock it back to life.  No “galvanic power” can bring it back to anything but a monstrous Frankenstein life. 
 
I’m feeding myself—in all ways.  And I’m enjoying cooking for myself and even eating alone. 
 
I have taken a LOT of naps!  I know I’ve been walking a lot every day, but I think I’ve just been worn out, and need to heal and to rest up and gather strength for the next efforts.
 
 

     Thread Starter
 

July 20, 2017 5:59 pm  #4


Re: Where I am: OOHC's summer realizations, Part One

OOHC,
You are a strong and amazing woman, and an eloquent speaker. Look how far you've come! I too was married over 30 years when I had enough, and am 2 .5 years out now.  The life I have now is not what I ever expected, but it's a good life filled with many, many blessings, as will your new life. I sleep easily and soundly at night now, free from an unhealthy and toxic relationship. I wish you continued peace my friend.

 

July 20, 2017 6:05 pm  #5


Re: Where I am: OOHC's summer realizations, Part One

Thank you, Dee.  I couldn't have made the steps I have without hearing the stories of those who've been there and done it and come out with a life worth living that they've made for themselves.   People here are life savers.

     Thread Starter
 

July 20, 2017 8:59 pm  #6


Re: Where I am: OOHC's summer realizations, Part One

OOHC,

"..The scale is beginning to tip: the financial ease of staying no longer outweighs the emotional costs..."


That about sums it up.  There comes a point when money and fears do not matter...anything will be better than the way you are being treated.

Being away from the hurt is worth it.  I miss the person my ex used to be but thank God for getting me away from the person she became.

Walk forward away from the hurt.


 


"For we walk by faith, not by sight .."  2Corinthians 5:7
 

July 21, 2017 5:48 am  #7


Re: Where I am: OOHC's summer realizations, Part One

Thank you for sharing so eloquently the emotions you have experienced in the past month. It mirrors my own experiences in many ways although I was the one who was left, forcing me to confront head on that my marriage had been a mirage.

______________________________________________________________________________________

"You can add yeast to cement but it won't make it rise."









 


Try Gardening. It'll keep you grounded.
 

July 21, 2017 7:13 am  #8


Re: Where I am: OOHC's summer realizations, Part One

Deleted

Last edited by Duped (November 11, 2019 3:18 pm)

 

July 21, 2017 9:44 am  #9


Re: Where I am: OOHC's summer realizations, Part One

Think Fred Sanford, one arm bent, hand splayed to his heart, the other arm extended outward, flailing (I'm comin', Elizabeth!).  That is me right now, reading all your revelations.  You.Are.INCREDIBLE!  Your realizations are profound, poetic and powerful.  I know personally how much pain it can take to get to such a place of acceptance.  It ain't easy.  But once you get to where you are, the confusion is less and the drive kicks in.  I personally think that's easier than the paralyzing, quiet grief and desperation stage that came before it.  I declare you officially out of the woods filled with fog.

It's interesting how getting to your "I'm done" place is super empowering.  It's not deciding that you don't want to care anymore as much as it finally having realizing that any striving you do is just throwing dust in the wind.  It's not really making a decision as much as it's finally accepting the reality and futility of the situation.  That you could go on trying for eternity, and it's not going to work.  That is a mental hump that begins with panic and bargaining as you're climbing up that hill, and then being able to exhale and rest a moment when you crest the top and see the light.  You have a moment to sit still and gather strength before heading back down again.  You don't really WANT to have to do all the work that you see ahead of you, but you now know there's no way around it.  And you're eager to just get on with it so you can get to another place that holds some freedom and peace.

I'm SO very proud of you!  You have made some HUGE realizations on several different fronts:
- neither of you are happy in your marriage, and staying and sacrificing isn't going to improve that
- it doesn't matter how or why or when he became this way.  What matters is that he is this way.
- you can't fix this
- he's willing to let you shrink yourself down so that he can continue to do what he wants
- you should not be shamed for not accepting him if he cannot accept himself
- collateral damage can be worth it
- big distances are still crossed in small steps
- life still holds plenty of wonderful things ahead, even if you're unpartnered
- intentionally making friends is easier than you thought

You've got so many more, too!  I'm so proud of and happy for you!  You may not feel like it, but you are in a really super healthy place now, emotionally.  You've got this.

Go! Go! Go!!!

Kel
 

Last edited by Kel (July 21, 2017 9:44 am)


You are not required to set yourself on fire to keep other people warm.
 

September 24, 2017 1:14 pm  #10


Re: Where I am: OOHC's summer realizations, Part One

Everyone,
   I didn't know whether to make a new thread or not, but none of the existing ones seemed quite right, so as I am the thread starter here, I thought this was probably the best place.  Maybe you can think of it as a fall update.

   On Friday (which actually was the equinox, and so the actual first day of fall), I saw a lawyer.  And this entire weekend I've felt terrific.  Energized, lighter, more optimistic, less beaten down by the weight of living with my husband in his closet.  

   Ever since I made the appointment, about a month ago (I had to wait because this lawyer has a busy caseload), I have felt as if I had made a move on my own behalf, on behalf of my emotional and physical health.  To have made that move enabled me to feel as if I had worth, that I counted, and I was then able to do some things on my own behalf--to resume and recommit to an exercise program that an injury late this summer sidelined, to make an appointment to have a health problem seen to, to order a bed frame so that I didn't have to keep sleeping on a mattress on the floor of the spare bedroom.

   After the meeting with the lawyer, that empowered feeling was intensified.   I even went home and put together the bed frame, and that night I slept on a bed of my own.  I was finally able to tell myself that I didn't deserve to sleep on a mattress on the floor like a homeless person in a flophouse because I had left the marital bed and didn't deserve a real bed.  I finally was able to say, hey, I didn't abandon my husband; he froze me out, rebuffing all my attempts at touch and intimacy.  I left out of self-preservation, because I finally realized it was emotionally damaging to lie longing for comfort next to the man who was making me long for comfort.  

   The time frame after filing will be much shorter than I had thought, which I'm actually glad of.  I'm waiting to file until next month, because I have scheduled a heart procedure, something that's needed taking care of for years, but that I've just lived with, just as I've lived with being squeezed into my husband's closet.  Until then, I'm staying in stealth mode.  

    Finally, I feel as if I'm not just reacting, but acting.  I've taken the power into my own hands.  I'm doing, instead of being done to.  All that time I was bargaining and hoping and in denial, I was aiming for control, for damage control, to fix things, to get the problem under control, but, I have realized, I wasn't in control, and I was focusing on the wrong things.  Now I feel like I am in control of my life, the first time I've felt this in too long.  

   Not until I actually saw the lawyer and felt the resulting surge of energy on my own behalf was I able to see just how beaten down I have been for the past two and a half years.  Having my womanhood assailed and my femininity appropriated, having my husband tell me how much he hated his male body, and feeling as a result that I was such a miserable woman my husband didn't even want to be a man!; living in his closet, closed down and isolated and distant from everyone around me.  My self-esteem was so very low.  

   Seeing the lawyer was for me such a positive act with such far-reaching positive results!  It was just the right step to take after finally telling my mother, in August, what was going on.

   I think my husband sees the difference in me, and doesn't know what to ascribe it to, and it's making him uneasy.  And you know what?  I'm rather enjoying the shoe being on the other foot!

Last edited by OutofHisCloset (September 24, 2017 1:23 pm)

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