Spouses of Transgender Community Group
Being transgender it's not easy but neither for their spouses. This group is created with the intention of helping and getting to know others that are in. the same situation or to just educate those that are on the other side of the fence and want to know how does it feel or how would it feel to be a spouse of a transgender person. The main objective of this group is...
I am just wondering if any of you have changed the love you have for your spouse. The romantic love I had for my spouse has changed to more of a love you have for a friend. We seem to be just friends, travel companions and roommates any more. It could be that we're older and have been together for so long. I loved the male of him, but in order to accept or respect the female in him, I have to block out the male. I am not attracted to females, so that leaves me with a love for a female friend. That is the only way I can wrap my brain around this. Does anyone else feel this way or have another approach or suggestion?
However - and that is a big however - he has not 'changed' in any drastic way. He isn't presenting as particularly female, and isn't on hormones, still refers to himself as 'he' and doesn't have a femme name. So I guess I haven't really thought of him as a woman yet, and haven't had to try and get to know 'her'. I am happy to accept his 'female side', which I know is there, but to me he is still very much the man I fell in love with all those years ago.
But of course, I am well aware that this could change if he goes any further with transition.
Yes to this. And it took me a long time to properly convey this to my spouse and I think it is still not quite understood. Losing intimacy was one of my initial fears. (I actually sat down and wrote a list of everything the I feared or worried me and for awhile, went back and crossed them out when I would see it was not true or I no longer had that fear.) But like Sylph, the opposite happened. We became closer and our sex life has improved. Mostly I would attribute this to the fact that my spouse had turned into a jerk over the last ten years or so. I had no idea why. It drove us apart. As soon as he was outed, he realized he had been projecting all of his anger onto his family and he has done a complete 180. It is just so nice to love and feel loved again that it gets me past all the complications of him being transgender. Like Sylph, my spouse still presents as male and has not made many visible changes, but there are enough, and the fact, as Sea said, that I just know in my gut -- it can make for a lot of mental gymnastics during intimacy and has created many changes in how we interact. I don't know where I am completely with it all, but I try to enjoy the now.
So I guess I love him more and better and more romantically NOW than I had for the 10-20 years prior, but it is not quite the same as the initial love/attraction I had in our earliest years. Better or worse - I don't know. But definitely more confusing.