It is Easter Sunday 2012. Our 4 beautiful children have been given their fill of chocolate and jelly beans, the smell of ham is radiating through our apartment and we are both exhausted from a late night of planning this blog coupled with an early morning visit to our church.
As Zoe naps- I am writing this first blog post and reflecting on the various thoughts and emotions that have come to pass over the course of the past year since *M* came out as a transgender.
My name is Mandie and our story begins way back in 1999 when I first met M. We were both in our early 20s and like any young couple we thought we knew it all! We were wild and free and ready to take on the world. After 6 months, we were living together and by 2001 we were married with our first child. Through the subsequent years we had 3 more children, and more ups/downs/in betweens than I can count. In 2010 our last child was born and we were happy to say NEVER again. At the time, I did not know how true that would be since we had said that three times over. I thought I knew everything there was to know about my husband. I was dead wrong. In feb of 2011, after he had a few to many budweisers in his system-He came out. I can't even say I was shocked. To be honest, I thought it was bullshit. I thought he was drunk and really just on some weird trip. Over the course of the next week we talked about it a lot. I even flipped out and called my minister, my 2 best friends and got REALLY angry. REALLLLLY ANGRY. Picking up on the fact I did not want to deal with this *M* dropped the subject. I blew it off as some sort of phase or mid life crisis. Over the next few months, the subject was off the table until I found the hormones and *M* had to come clean. A few days after our 12 yr anniversary he had begun HRT (hormone replacement therapy) and was transitioning from male to female wether I liked it or not. To say I was pissed would not describe anywhere near the emotions I was feeling. Betrayed, hurt, murderous, psychopathic maybe; but pissed that is way to nice of an adjective. I got to experience all of the initial feelings I had felt months ago-except now he had boobs.
After I calmed down a bit, and took a step back I came to accept that my husband is now my wife. 4 months in I can say I no longer want to rip the new body parts off. Instead, I take things day by day. Some days I am completely OK and others I hate everything about the transition. Today I think what I hate is that it has driven a wedge between *M* and I, replacing my husband who I cherished to the ends of the earth with this girl I hardly know. Or so I think anyway. I can look at Zoe and no longer see much of *M* left. His smell is gone, his hair, his body they are all now Zoe..He is becoming a she more and more each day.
The thing that keeps us together is that we had a relationship beyond sex or gender before the coming out. As much as we don't have in common, we have more important things that are in common. We both love sci-fi, We both are deeply spiritual beings, We both are very socially liberal-though Zoe will say she hates politics, she sure watches a lot of CNN and can hold her own in a debate! We love each other, we love our children and our family (the 6 of us, and the cat) is the most important thing in our world. *M* is slowly dying and that hurts more than words can ever express but I know the person I fell in love with is still in there. As any honorable Kling-on would say "the body is merely a shell".
Zoe's family was not especially pleased with the coming out either, in all fairness had I found out from a facebook post I would have been quite upset as well. Zoes mother seems to finally be coming around, at least she isn't saying we are harming our children anymore. A step in the right direction in my book. Zoes sister is also starting to understand which is awesome! Her youngest brother has been supportive from the get go, Her other brother well- if you read this, I love you, I miss you-your like a brother to me, but your being an incredibly big douchebag. Judging Zoe before even having a conversation with her is extremely narrow minded and 1 sided and I really hope someday that you can come to terms with this because in the end family is all any of us have. Her father even paid us a short visit over christmas to deliver presents to the kids. It was akward but time will make things easier. I just hope that some of the family sees Zoe before she is totally transitioned. I am worried that some of them will have heart failure on the spot since most are older with some sort of health problems. That will be an interesting day to say the least!
So our plans for this blog:
We will be posting before and during pics, Zoe and I will be writing posts about our emotions and physical changes, how we are coping and what are perceptions are at each stage of the game. Be aware that while you are free to follow, and comment with your questions and support any negative comments or spam will be promptly deleted.
~Mandie
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