I feel exactly the same way YS. Your words just made me cry. It's such a struggle and I often hate myself.
Hugs xxx

Also, YS, it's not just a question of loving them whatever they look like on the outside. I'm sure we wouldn't abandon them if they lost a limb or got disfigured in an accident. Being transgender is so much more than what they look like. It's their identity, their mind, their very being that is changing. That is what is hard to come to terms with. The change of looks is really to align their bodies to that.

"So much change and upheaval" -- that is an understatement. One can say they are "just" changing their gender, but in the process, so many other things change: sexually, socially, financially, domestically, safety-wise. Not to mention visually, which is maybe the least problematic in most ways but the constant reminder of all of the other changes. It is human nature to push back against so much change.

I guess as much as our spouses usually battle self-loathing over the years, we get a taste of that too. But it really doesn't do anyone any good. Just try your best and be as patient as you can. <3

I feel your pain. I married a male. I fell in love with a male. I like malenes. Thats what I am attracted too.
I am being asked to change.
My husband stands in front of me and states ' I am the same person on the inside'
My reply now is... I married the person you were pretending to be. Thats the man I fell in love with. I dont know the real you.
After 20 years of marriage, I dont know who I married.
Thats tough.
I am being asked to change my sexual orientation. Funny, all my life I have been told you cant change what you are atracted to.. I can't learn to love women in a sexual way.. why am I even being asked to?
It is like I have 3 people in this relationship. Me, him and now her.
Every day I lose a bit of him to her.
I dont know her. She is intruding in my marriage. I may not like this new person. Uncertainty is killing me.
.

Welcome Linda. I think we all have/have had those feelings during this unwanted (by us) journey. I too have felt that 'she' is the other woman, and a rival in our relationship. I too can see her taking over more and more, and it hurts, a lot. I also worry that I won't like 'her' (at the moment when he is in female mode, I really can't see any change in personality at all, but maybe that will come), but I have to try.
Hope you and your husband are able to talk and communicate and can find a way through.

We hear a lot that the transgender person is still the same person as they were, just a different body. We're expected to accept that, or else we did we even love that person? I don't see how they can be exactly the same, hormones do funny things to people. I've read many stories on other forums about how the transgender person changed once they began to transition.

We need more understanding, from both sides. Just because we're struggling, are we bad partners who are manipulative and cold? We're humans, who sometimes make mistakes, or can't see a way through without hurting the one we love.

Uncertainty is eating me alive as well.

"Still the same person" is like a trigger phrase for me. I'm not saying that everything I knew about my spouse is a lie, or that they are completely different or opposite now that they are out, but not the same entirely, either. I mean, when you repress a major aspect of your identity and personality for 47 years, the person you present to everyone is not quite authentic. I am finding that little by little as my spouse uncovers more layers of what's beneath this facade, a slightly different person comes into focus. Slightly, so far. I don't know how different she will be in the end. But even the slight differences now are significant. You fall in love with a sum of all the parts that make up your partner and as the parts change you have to recalculate the sum. Some of the things I loved are gone and some remain. Same goes with some of the traits I didn't love so much. So far, for me, it is a mixed bag with the new sum being different, but maybe better. Even so, you still have to learn to accept and love the differences.

I feel like if we were on that show The Newlywed Game, I would really struggle because I don't feel confident that I really know what my spouse likes and doesn't like anymore. After 23 years together and feeling like I knew him 99%, it is an unsettling feeling. And this riff isn't because I wasn't paying attention or I lied to myself. It is because of how they presented themself and the excellent job they do at convincing the world to believe their facade.

I am actually doing pretty well at the current moment and feeling rather confident that my marriage will last and stay relatively intact. I do think it is possible, but I wanted you ladies to know that I totally feel you. Hi, Linda! Hang in there everyone <3

Strangely, I haven't seen any great differences in my partner. He has got nicer, and calmer, but I thought that was him just mellowing with age. I've always seen the nice, caring, insecure side of him - which is why I fell in love with him. Other people find him very distant, slightly arrogant, moody and difficult to get on with. He has terrible social anxiety and insecurity and disguises his fear by this persona - which I know isn't real. In the last couple of years, if he gets irrationally angry about something the kids have done, he now apologises to them later, and talks it through with them. He never did that before. I guess that is the only real change I think. It's one I like.
We have got closer too, but I assume that is because our emotions are running very high at the moment.
So, in essence, he is still him, as far as I can see. If he ever starts hormones, maybe the big changes will come.
Glad to hear you're doing well GR.
Sending lots of love and strength to everyone!

Sylph, shedding his anger was the biggest bonus for me too! Oddly enough, he didn't seem angry when we dated or were first married and over the years as he grew angry, he seemed to always blame it on me. So I thought he was mean too and spent years trying to figure out what I was doing wrong. Then when he came out and we had some heart-to-heart conversations, I told him how terrible he made the kids and me feel over the years. He realized almost immediately that it was part of how he responded to repressing himself and felt so bad and made a quick 180!

The biggest negative change has been in honesty and forthrightness. In the past, he wore it like a badge with pride. It was part of his identity and brand, that went along with his midwestern values. So to find out that he lied and hid this his whole life and all the secondary lies attached to keeping it hidden... well that has been harder to swallow. And that trait didn't just disappear when he came out. It has been lingering. Probably getting better though -- but still there.

And some of the hardest to wrap my head around are the tiniest ones that individually don't have much impact but as a whole create distance between us. Things like the fragrances I thought he liked vs. what he really likes, or the clothes, or the fact that he may be interested in wearing jewelry, or how he feels about his body, his intense interest in porn, why he likes certain music or movies, etc.

Thanks for being here everyone <3

I'm going to brave it and jump out here. The "same as he was before" thing gets me everytime. He always was more sensitive and caring, never lost his temper, he's been a hunter and fisher and worked around the house. Wearing the clothes around the house was an easy change for me, be comfortable - you're at home. It was after the hormones started and things really changed. The dysphoria was more apparent, he has had three serious crying and emotional breakdowns. He wears jewelry, more and more of it, wants his ears pierced, wants to grow his hair long, wears bangs, and the breast envy is flattering in the beginning but repeated mentioning of it becomes irritating. The conversations have changed to how passable different people are, how big his breast are, what is happening with his trans friends. And it is overwhelming. The personalities do change somewhat, the body changes are difficult, but in all honesty the idea of walking the streets to a play with him dressed as a woman is very uncomfortable and unnerving. If he had on full make-up and was dressed up as a woman, I do not know that I could kiss him or look at him as I do when he is my husband. I am a woman I am heterosexual, and all the rationalizations in the world can not change that I am an old fashioned person who believes in man and woman. I do not discount, or disregard people that are different, I just don't feel comfortable around them. I don't think it is unrealistic to expect that not everyone is going to get on with everyone. This situation seems to me like we as spouses are being forced into situations that go against our traditions, our belief systems, our cultural upbringings etc. I realize that sex is private and between two people and what they do should not make any difference to anyone else. But, the IDEA of being with my husband with breasts and a whoha is unnerving. I just feel like it is asking us to change who we are. I know that married people need to change and grow with one another, but this seems to me to be pushing the envelope.

If I decided to be a man and I liked burly think facial hair, wild hair, hairy legs and hairy armpits and flannel shirts and hanging blue jeans and had dirt under my nails, would my spouse find that I was someone he wanted to get naked with? Would he feel I was the same? If my breasts were removed and my whoha was closed, would he not feel slighted and disappointed that the soft hairless woman with a curvy body and breasts was gone? Would I not be a changed person? Could i in all fairness say that I am the same person, I just like mens clothes?

I am struggling here because while I give my spouse the latitude to be himself, my boundary is that I will not go out with him in public dressed as a woman. BUT, I did not realize all the other transgendered things that happen that cause me to be overwhelmed.

Ladies, I have days where I can handle it and it isn't a problem. Then there are days when I feel like one more transgendered thing will push me over the edge. This week I told my spouse I couldn't handle it. He stopped everything. Cancelled all the plans that involved his trans friends, took off the jewelry, has been wearing his male clothing. He hasn't had dysphoria. He presents as a man at work and dresses androgynous at home or when we visit the kids. He doesn't dress in dresses and high heels, He usually wears women's dress slacks and women's tops. But, it almost seems like he can turn it on and off. I don't understand it, the whole thing confuses me. I am still working on it and I hope we can manage it and make it to the end together. It just all depends on his needs and my needs. Can we find a balance. I don't want him to not be himself, but I also do not want to be with a woman - so we need to find a compromise. I thought we had, and so did he, but this week was hard for me.

And, the porn issue, my spouse was heavy into porno before he came out. Once he came out and started hormones, all that porn crap was gone. I never liked it and hated to see it, it never did anything for me. I do like this change in him though. I feel it is healthier not to be so engrossed in porn. My opinion.

I lift all of you up. I pray for all of our families in this transition. I especially hope that we can be the women that can find a way for ourselves and others, and be examples of how to make it all work out.

Gutted - please do NOT respond it is NOT welcome.

Ys, 100% and always supportive just isn't realistic. I mean here I am 20 years into transition, 9 months post op, relationship is going ok and I have a new queer identified lover.

That doesn't mean there aren't some things I miss about before. There are things about being physically male that didn't completely suck and my new lover would have liked me with a penis even though she surely likes me better as I am now, it would have been nice to know her both ways.

I will never regret transition, the things I miss are in the <1% column and I feel blessed to have a partner who's really quite accepting of me and open enough to have introduced me to my new love interest.

Doesn't mean everything is roses, there are hard days and I work diligently not to project things on my partner.