Overreact much?

NO not at all. Trust is an important thing and you have shattered the trust on this site. You have made people feel uncomfortable and fearful to share their inner most fears and struggles as you ATTACK them. You attacked me, my feelings, my decisions. You judged them and evaluated them and cast your opinion about them. You did not support or guide or even attempt to educate.

I do not blame anyone on this site for fearing to share their feelings when you lurk in the background waiting to pounce on something someone says that you don't agree with. Your judgment is not supportive or helpful. I too am wondering if this site is a place I feel comfortable sharing my worries and concerns and personal struggles on. Sadly, you have taken away the one place struggling partners have to find comfort, guidance and support. Our support, our needed connections, whether you feel the responses are supportive or not.

It is a sad day here on this site. At least for us it is.

I am grateful for the friendships I have found here. I think there are reasons to have both public and private discussions and I will gladly engage in both. It is important to feel safe to express all the craziness that seems to go along with this very particular situation. It only makes sense to those who are or have gone through it. This place is the safest place I have found so far but I do not always like to share publicly - not just because of an occasionally flurry of mean comments but because I don't like the idea of anyone being able to know my business. Let us know what you find, Cora. Thanks.

This is the part that confuses me. I looked around here for a while before posting anything. An awful lot of spouses routinely say some pretty disrespectful things about their transitioning partners, AND FEW IF ANYONE OFFERS THEM A MORE BALANCED VIEW. Usually, several more people chime to validate their negativity. Honestly, how is that helpful? It's one thing to allow people to cope at their own pace and an entirely different thing to just come here and wallow with each other in your misery. I'll admit that I probably came on too strong with my little translations. That is a common strategy for getting the speaker to understand the way others may be viewing their words. Words that clearly didn't represent your true journey and that might lead other spouses to take a very closed stance with their own partners, much to their own detriment.

I believe that no matter how liberal and open we have lived our lives, when a spouse transitions it throws everything we thought we knew about ourselves into a different light. At the very moment we need unfurl our emotional bloom and soak up more knowledge and nourishment in order to survive, is the time we tend to tighten into a little bud to protect ourselves from the harsh reality of our situation. We become reactionary in stead of introspecting. We allow our emotions to drive our tongue, saying and doing hurtful things we can never take back. This is the same reaction we have to different crisis situations and it's not all that helpful.

And most damaging of all, we pretend they are changing to the point that we barely recognize them when this is simply a severe life adjustment. For example, do you remember when you became a parent? I sure do. Looking down into my daughter's face for the first time transformed my life. I was suddenly responsible for this little human and it was an awesome responsibility. In an instant, my priorities, values and self-perception shifted. I went into mom mode. High heels were no longer an appropriate accompaniment to my skinny jeans, cause I trudging around campus with a child in my arms (style of the time, don't judge). Being a single parent in college with a baby, every day was a struggle. I found out real quick which professors were a good sport about me having a quiet little newborn in my front sling and the ones the gave me the stink eye. It was the early 80's and I made amazing shit happen and stumbled along the way. Yet, I never thought for a minute that I wasn't the exact same person I had always been. Though many or most things had changed in my life and way of thinking, I was still me. The people in my life who truly cared about me didn't abandon me or go around complaining that they no longer even knew who I was. This idea that transgender people are somehow becoming people their loved ones don't recognize is absurd.

Yes, the ground is shifting beneath both partners. It is that love and bone deep knowing of the other person that is supposed to enable compassionate interaction. I believe that's happening for most spouses here, but for some reason the compassion is tempered with a healthy dose of what can only be described as disrespect. I have seen just about everything here, from spouses refusing to accept their trans partner's identity, refusal to use their preferred pronouns, actively seeking therapist who they feel are more supportive of the marriage than the trans partner, to feeling hopeful that the trans person will just suck it up and chose the marriage over their need to conform to their own gender. I've seen partners drag children into the conversation. Some seem to come up with every reason in the world for their trans partner to slow down, 'really think about what they're doing', consider the children, and worry they'll get fired, their friends will abandon them, people will stone them in the streets or God will hit them with a bolt of lightening for being trans and 'turning on' or betraying the people they love.

The suicide rate is high for trans-gendered folks, mostly because of the reaction they get from loved ones once they disclose the facts of their situation. The way I see it, we all have the same set of finite options. We can:

1) Terminate with prejudice. You separate from the trans partner while giving him/her a good piece of your mind. Shame them to the best of your ability. Make sure they know that hard as they try they will never be anything except what God made them. Then proceed not to care how this affects them or if they become suicidal. That's all on them for being a freak. You are smug, knowing you're the normal one, so what's it matter.

2) Stick with them and spend all the hours of the day trying to convince them that being trans is not what they want. Point out every single negative aspect you can think of, remind them what a good spouse you've been and how you don't deserve this, and point out how upset the children and extended family are going to be upon learning of this. Make sure they know they are going against God and their wedding vows. If they persist, drag your feet, stall, spend money irresponsibly so your trans partner can't afford surgery. Do whatever you have to save your marriage with little or no consideration for your partner's needs, truly believing your partner is confused and will just get over it one day. If you get caught lying, manipulating or sabotaging, deny everything and admit to nothing.

3) Separate from the trans partner and never see them again. No negativity, give them your best wishes and cut the cord. You may or may not continue to follow them on social media from afar. If things look like they're taking a dark downward spiral, you might message their new support person and alert them, cause you are not a total ass hat. You just didn't sign on for all this and want no part of it. Your motto is do no harm to the person by word or deed.

4) Separate from them physically and legally but stay supportive as they are your best friend and you don't wish them ill. Do a morning and evening check in either in person, by phone or social media. Your goal is to to truly be their primary support person. You are able to separate your own feelings between being their one time love mate and their current friend. You want to help get them through this time because you can imagine the two of you spending time together and enjoying a lasting friendship.

5) Hang onto them and be supportive but close off the marital relationship, cause you know with 100% certainty that you do not want end up with a spouse of their identified gender. Much like the option #3, except that you still live together.

6) Stick with them, be supportive, be careful that our words are not inflicting unnecessary pain and give a continued marriage with them a chance. You never did care for labels and this person is the love of your life. Maybe, a lot will change but you're not willing to let him go if you can possibly have a fulfilling marriage. In which case the marriage will look like one of the following:

-*-*- 1) Your partner does not fully transition because not all do and he might be happy with just a top transition and wearing women's clothing. (Or whatever your unique situation involves) This isn't how you thought you'd live your life but you discover you have a little flexibility in that area so it's all good. People around you notice and sometimes it's awkward. But who cares, this is your spouse and the both of you are happy.

-*-*- 2) Your partner really wants to transition but doesn't in order to stay married. That's great because you are honestly the kind of person who does not care about the long term implications of a trans person stuffing all their own needs and living a lie. The important thing is they validated that you really are the center of the universe. There is a small but statically significant chance you will come one day and find a really bad outcome of all that stuffing but what the heck, you're happy and that's all that matters.

-*-*- 3) Your partner actually transitions. You stick with them, support them and hate the fact that they are suffering. Spending time with them, finding the humor in the situation is difficult but so worth it. It's a prolonged process and you are really glad you didn't stifle your partner or do irreparable damage to their psyche because, strangely enough you find this process is exactly what your loved one needed to find true peace and happiness. Along the way, you begin to redefine how you see your spouse and yourself.

You realize much of what you were taught about gender identity and sexuality does not apply to you or your spouse. You begin to see that human sexuality is on a continuum with very few individuals being 100% one way or another, most fall somewhere in the bi category. You now understand why you thought that same sex actor (or opposite depending on your situation) was kind of sexy. You never really understood the subtleties of sexual orientation until now and you're finding you have some wiggle room. Now you understand why Amazon has a whole selection of book called 'gay for you'. It means the person is not gay by nature but they fall for the person not the gender, making them gay for that one special someone. Bam! In an instant, it all falls into place and you finally see the HEA that you could never see before. You are thrilled, you spouse is beaming and you ride off into the sunset together, with your love being stronger than it ever was before.

This is where you thank your lucky stars that you were able to hold off on all spewing all the hateful, negative things floating around in your mind long enough to walk through the process and give it a chance. You can now see it was nothing more than a manifestation of your own fears. You also feel bad for all the other spouses who shut the door prematurely and never really got the opportunity to learn and experience enough to truly understand that they could be happy.

-*-*- 4) You stick with the person, they transition and you go through the full spectrum of emotions only to realize you honestly don't have the flexibility to enjoy a marriage with your post-op partner. In a way it sucks and you saw it coming but wanted to go the extra mile to make sure. In a way it seems naive and a desperate that you walked all the way through the process. The things is, you don't feel angry and negative anymore, BECAUSE you walked the entire mile in good faith and you can now truly let the relationship go and even be happy when one or both of you finds someone that makes them happy. You realize this was totally not how you saw your relationship ending but hey life is full of surprises. You're actually looking forward to new and exciting possibilities yourself, because you got closure.

This group has provided me with immense support even though i don't actively write or post but I benefit from everyone's comments to know that alot of people are walking the same journey I am. Please don't go anywhere ladies!