Thank you all. 

Elle, isn't it amazing how clearly we can think when we dream? Just straight up "This is what's actually happening, and here's how I feel about it." I have a hard time knowing my true feelings sometimes, so dreams help me a lot.

Leslie, it's more old friends who she'd fallen out of touch with that she's getting support from, not so much a new LGBTQ community. She says she feels less comfortable around me because of the association of heterosexual coupledom, and (ironically) because she cares about me more than anyone else and is in love with me. 

Why does it bother me that she goes to others? I've always wished she (or he) was less dependent, and now I'm getting my wish . I think it bugs me because it feels like we're drifting away from each other. But I realized that if the goal is for us to keep our deep friendship, we have to really accept the end of our romantic and sexual relationship first. I think she isn't capable of being a good friend right now, and I'm not capable of being a good partner, so we're both unhappy. More and more I'm feeling that we need time and space apart before we can see what's possible.

I told her in counseling that I can see her as a woman or as a romantic and sexual partner, but not both. She seemed to accept it, but then in the next session she burst into tears, and the whole session was spent getting her to calm down. So we're not going to be able to work on the path forward, even, until we get her emotions under control. As for me, I'm emotionally numb right now. I know this is going to hurt a lot down the road, but right now I just can't deal with the emotions, so I guess my body has decided not to experience them. I haven't cried once since she came out to me.

Very frustrated right now. Here's where we're at.

She:
All of this is terror and comfort, certainty and confusion, excitement and intermittent despair, all at once.

Me:
 I know, and I wish I could support you, but you're not giving me a way to do that—except by altering nothing about our relationship and having no feelings about the fact that you repeatedly look to other people for comfort and celebration.

Well, we had the first session. It felt good to be doing something, but at the same time, I kind of felt like it was not going on the right track. It was a lot about communication skills and ground rules, and not really about goals. So at the end of the hour I kind of blurted out that I wanted to focus on what were the implications of the transition for our relationship going forward. I feel some frustration that I have to fight so hard to keep the focus there. Especially because this is as painful for me as it is for L. It's like I'm pleading for someone to cut my arm off so it doesn't get gangrene.
 

AuroraMoon, I'm sorry you're going through this. I think I will likely be going through something similar soon, and I know it's hard to know what you want sometimes. It's not like it's easy to just go. You suffer, too. Then when you've made a commitment to yourself and he undoes it, you're back to square one with even less hope of escape. (I say this because I did leave, about five years ago, only to find myself back in the relationship after less than a year.) 

How are you doing now?

My heart really goes out to you.

Hi. I want to introduce myself to this board. I tried posting on another board and found that I was having a hard time making myself understood.About three weeks ago, my partner of 14 years came out to me as a trans woman. (I am a cis woman.) I am in my fifties and she is in her sixties. (I will say "she" for simplicity, though I've been told it's only she when she is presenting as female.) This came as a total surprise to me and everyone else she's told, even people she's been friends with for 45+ years.

For the first week, she was on a total pink cloud—a term I know from AA that applies to newly sober people. She was dressing as a woman, joining groups, telling all her friends, bought four wigs and a whole bunch of makeup, and really just becoming immersed in it to the extent that I almost didn't recognize her. I don't want to make this too long, or too much about her. Let's just say that I am happy for her, and I feel so much sadness for the pain she's been through. I have told her I will support her, though it remains to be determined what "support" means to each of us. I put on a happy face for the first several days, and then, when I thought the coast was clear, I expressed some of my own feelings of being unmoored by what was happening. Her reaction was total panic that I was going to leave. She said she would forget about it and put it all back in the closet if it meant she would lose me. I said I thought that this was unfair, that it was emotional blackmail, and that I could not be in charge of her happiness. She said I was misinterpreting her, and that what she was saying was she put me before herself. I said she could not make me happy by making herself unhappy. And, just to clarify, this is a pattern that's been part of our relationship for many years. When we've had dischord in the past, she's said there would be no point in living if I wasn't with her. (This despite the fact that she has a son from her previous relationship.)  

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