This is SO hard. I have been reading these posts for months now, but the idea of posting one myself made it all too real. I will ask for forgiveness at the beginning because this might be a long post. There is just so much I have pinned up inside, I feel like I’m going to burst. I am in pain but at the same time I feel hollow, empty, a shell of my former self. Last August, shortly after my 20-year anniversary, Doctors told us they thought my husband had cancer.  While waiting for tests and results (which we are still dealing with and are keeping a secret from family and friends) we started talking ‘what if’. Somewhere along the way it turned into where we would be if we hadn’t gotten together. I was left speechless when he said he thought he’d be living as a woman. He came home and really opened up to me. Things I could never even dream of hearing. We had the most in-depth discussions we have ever had. For days this went on. In so many ways we were becoming closer than ever, but inside I wanted to scream, cry and just walk out so I could breath. I could see the pain he was feeling, and he kept saying he was scared I would leave him. He expressed that he didn’t want to have bottom surgery but wished he could have top surgery. I stayed calm and let him tell me all he wanted to. It was SO much. I just can’t even begin to tell it all. We discussed how mean he has been over the years and how I started to feel like he was being hurtful on purpose, so that I would leave with the kids and he’d be free to live the life he wanted. The good thing is that he now realizes that, by hiding his feelings, he had turned his frustration and pain onto his family. We have 3 kids, and he is desperately trying to make up for lost time. He says if I’m uncomfortable with anything he’ll ‘put it all away’, but still work on being kind and gentle. I feel like asking him to do that would be selfish of me and to be honest, I just don’t think that’s possible. I have been doing everything I can to be supportive. I listen. I ask questions. I’m there when he says, ‘I need to talk about something to clear my head, because the thoughts are taking over again’. I had one break down I front of him and it hurt him so bad. After that, I kept the crying for the shower, but now I barely shed a tear. I feel numb. I’ve tried to find examples of people who have made it work. Everything I find leaves me feeling hopeless. I know everyone’s path is different. No one story is the same. I’m just struggling to fight the feeling that we’re prolonging the inevitable. I tell myself I am grateful that he told me, but I’m not sure I am. I can see the changes in him and so have our kids. However, I am losing myself. I have been doing things that just AREN’T me. Things, before October, I would NEVER have done. No one knows but me and he wants to keep it that way, or so he says. I’ve dealt with painting his toes and I even bought him a cute little anklet with a wave on it. He loves it and was wearing it all the time. He said he wouldn’t buy any clothes unless I was okay with them. I bought him a few pieces of clothing that I thought I’d be okay with. I guess I thought, and he said, a few small things would be enough. That he’d be okay with just a few things, but it seems like he always wants more. Lately he’s bought himself some things without telling me or even showing me when they arrive (normally he asks me first so make sure it doesn’t bother me). I worry that he’ll do more than that one day. I already told him I didn’t think I could handle dressing in female clothing in public or going on hormones or surgery of any kind. It’s the days when he’s really bubbly, when he says and does certain things that I know he’s feeling more like her, that I seem to lose control and lash out in ways I shouldn’t. Not at him or our kids, but in private, hoping to feel some relief, if only for a moment. And don’t get me started on the intimacy. It’s just all weird. I know I have friends and family who love me and reading these posts I know I am not alone in this, but at the same time I feel SO Alone. Most days I can push everything down… but lately, randomly throughout the day, the thought that this is real, and not some real bad dream, drops me to my knees barely catching my breath. I feel like my heart is being ripped from my chest.