Intermission

On July 24, 2020 Marcie came into my life, although she didn’t have a name until 23 days later. Based on my journal

‘he’ didn’t express a sense that he was transgender, that ‘he’ should have been a she. Rather, ‘he’ likes the feel of woman’s clothes, ‘he’ likes their perspective, ‘he’ likes being considered a female [23].

She initially used the term cross dresser to describe herself. At approximately the one year point she adopted the label of trans. Then somewhere between the three and four year point she began to described her gender identity as female. She may not know exactly when she began to consider herself a woman, it was not a bright line in the sand, but she has definitely arrived.

What about me? When did I finally accept her as a woman?

Throughout my journal, my book, and my blogs, I talk extensively about accepting Marcie. I realize now I used the term ‘accept’ in those contexts to mean I didn’t object to what she was doing. I wouldn’t push back or ask her to stop.

I’ve now moved to a different place of what I call acceptance.

About the time I published my blog on “Being Trans is not a Choice” I was going through an intense period of internal contemplation of the fact I was now the wife of a trans woman. In quiet moments I’d repeatedly try to figure out what all of this meant for me now that she had finished most, if not all of the transition process.

An early draft of this post described me as having

“an inability to fathom that I’d been married to a woman for as long as the calendar indicated.”

I wasn’t confused but needed another word to convey my emotions. I decided that what I was trying to express was the fact that I couldn’t ‘wrap my head around’ who I was or what I was feeling.

I left the post alone and came back to it two weeks later. As much as I tried, I couldn’t recreate my previous state of mind. The feeling of being unsettled was gone. So I let those feelings set for a couple days, to test their permanence.

I’m now convinced that I’ve moved to a new place of acceptance, of peace with who my wife is, of who I am, and the nature of our relationship. We aren’t quite five years into this ‘new’ relationship. We are both settled and comfortable with who we are. There may be something to the belief that it takes three to five years to move from exploration to true acceptance, or maybe a better term is a ‘new normal’.

As I’ve participated in cisgender groups for the last couple years I think I’ve seen something similar in others. I’ve watched as a number of wives have struggled with their relationships and gradually moved to better and better places. Of maybe more importance is the fact I’ve gotten to know women who have been with their trans spouses for much longer than I have been with Marcie. They seem to be in a place similar to what I now occupy.

My analytical side has been trying to figure out why this has happened and why now. I believe that I have emerged from the part of our lives where Marcie being trans was overshadowing our lives. She now has a stable wardrobe, which changes no more often than I change mine. Her surgeries are completed. Her appearance has stabilized to one of an age appropriate woman. Despite the current political turmoil we are not experiencing negative consequences of her gender identity, probably because she appears as a woman to most others.

Except when I’m writing here, I no longer think about her being trans. She is my wife, just a different term for spouse. On occasion, I may still pause momentarily when using the word ‘wife’, but not as often or for as long as in the past. I’m no longer having to consider her change in gender identity when making usual or unusual decisions about our life. She is who she is.

So why write this? I think my main purpose is to let other cisgender wives know that the rough spots do pass and the change can happen suddenly as it did with me. We aren’t without conflict or concerns, but these are now similar to how our relationship worked before she came out. The only difference is that she is much more solicitous to me and of my needs. She’s obviously thankful for what I have done for her over the last almost five years.

The second message is that getting to this place has taken a long time, much longer than I expected. Such a change in a relationship is not easy, but it can be done. Those with more complicated lives may take longer, with more modifications, but I believe it’s doable.

I have no data to support this, but my sense is that if the relationship is to fatally flounder, it will happen in the first couple of years. Things will be just too hard and exhaustion will set in. Data tends to support that the stronger the relationship to begin with, the better the transition will go. I also suspect that the more complications in life such as children, unsupportive family, friends, and colleagues, financial challenges, etc. the harder it will be and the longer it will take to adjust. But don’t give up hope. This transition in the relationship is possible.

So I see this point in time as something of an intermission. It’s a chance to re-evaluate our relationship, and even out our lives. Going forward I won’t need to expend as much cognitive energy to keep things moving ahead. Responsibilities will be more evenly split. I’m already not spending so much time on trying to figure out how to be married to a woman. It’s just what it is.

I expect my next blog to be available May 6^th and to focus on the topic of the “Pink Fog”, a term for a cognitive space many trans women enter as they explore their new gender identity. After that I may focus for a while more on issues for the trans community rather than for trans relationships.

If any of you have topics you would like me to discuss please leave a message in the comments section. I have almost five years of journaling from which I can mine thoughts from earlier in my journey.

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