Narratives like this one are always so hard to read. It’s all so familiar, and brings me back to a time when I hadn’t made any peace (yet) with my partner’s transition, and I knew so much more going into the marriage, had not yet been married 20+ years, but to “Diana” – you’re not alone. There are a lot of us out here.
This paragraph, in particular:
Can I walk away? No. Can I stay? Today I don’t think I can, but my answer changes all the time. I don’t just love this man, I adore him. After all these years, he still makes my toes curl when he kisses me. Every day he makes me laugh. He holds me when I cry. We have always been there for each other. To this day, my favorite thing is falling asleep on his shoulder in front of the TV at night. I believe him when he tells me hurting me like this is heartbreaking for him. This man whom I have admired for so many years is also fighting depression and has confided in me he’s thought about taking his own life. He’s also hurting and struggling with the turmoil he’s brought into our lives. He isn’t a deceitful monster. Like me, he’s stuck between what he wants and what he can have.
I really need to get the next book written. I really, really do.
That paragraph says a lot, and more honestly than I’ve seen. Couples are always two mice in a teacup at sea, but now the storm is worse.
I’ve never wanted to kill myself, but my bent toward self-destruction is always on the surface. I’m only now realizing what an amzing woman I married; someone as skillful at hiding her emotions as I am, while still loving me without reservation.
Her talk about that feeling that her world is being hijacked really resonates with me: I keep thinking of that crappy play staging I saw where empathized more with the wife than the transitioning husband, especially when “he” began trying on the wife’s dresses.
Fuck that pink cloud shit.