To preface, this is not a post about missing my ex and wanting to get back with them. I'm currently seeing someone, a good and kind person who has been nothing but wonderful to me. My relationship status is not even the main subject. The subject is everything that made up my life before, and how much of it has been changed or been lost since coming out as trans. - In October of 2017, I came out to my then girlfriend of over 4 years. In July of 2018 I started testosterone. In September of 2018 my girlfriend of over 5 years and I broke up. Not so long ago I was living life as it had been for some time. My then girlfriend and I were renting our first house just the two of us, no roommates, building a home together, sharing experiences and supporting one another as we had from our beginning. We'd hardly ever fought, hardly lost our temper with one another, ever. We were best friends, and understood each other better than anyone in the world. My chronic depression had always caused some strain on our relationship in the way it sometimes made me distant from her. She felt I pulled away from her too much, mentally and physically. Overall we were happy together. But there was always that lingering sense of distance. I know now that most of my issues stemmed from dysphoria, and they manifested as an inability to be completely open with her, and made intimacy difficult as I struggled with my own discomfort over my body...but I couldn't explain that to her, I could hardly explain it to myself. When I came out to her in October of 2017, for a while it was like a veil had lifted...that she understood why I'd seemed distant, why I struggled with physical intimacy. But...she is gay, and we had entered our relationship under the understanding that we were a lesbian couple. My coming out obviously forced us both to have to consider the weight of our identities vs. the weight of our love for each other. I told her from the beginning, "I would never, will never, ask you to abandon your identity for me. If you can't be with me because of this, I understand." But she chose to stay and try, I think because she did love me. She was supportive. My champion. She bought me boxers and cologne and used my pronouns and was sensitive to my feelings. We continued our lives as normal, because I was still the same person...I was just altering the outside part. She supported my art goals. I supported her music. We adopted a kitten... -This was huge, as I'm allergic to cats and it was a process to acclimate and become immune, but she desperately wanted the kitten and I did, too, because I had always wanted one. I loved that cat so much. (Don't worry, the cat is okay) It felt so right, to be living more authentically and sharing these experiences and raising a pet together in the home we had made. We shared friends, and social groups, and DnD nights, and I went to her shows and helped with the ins-and-outs of band life, we went to each other's family functions be they happy or sad, everything. See...I am a shy person, a quiet person, and she was a lot better in social situations than me. This is one reason we shared friends, because she was good at bringing people together, and I was happy to be there. I got a promotion at work, her band was getting more and more shows, things were looking up, I thought. I really thought so. Two months after I started testosterone, I was feeling a bit more confident in my identity, wearing new clothes, making plans for my male future. One day I took her out on a date, because we had been a bit busy and had felt a bit of that distance again...and I wanted to do something with her, like couples do. We had a nice time, it seemed. That night I sensed her mood was different. I was always rather sensitive to her mood and grew anxious if I sensed something was wrong. In my anxiety I told her what a nice time I'd had that day, that it meant a lot to take her out and spend time. She responded somewhat distantly. We listened to the new Slothrust album and worked on an art project for her band. We entered a conversation...she expressed that things weren't working, weren't going to work, that she just wasn't happy. I knew what she meant. I understood. We broke up. It didn't feel like being dumped, because it was unavoidable. She is gay. I'm a man. It was impossible, no matter how much love we shared. An impossible situation, I called it, an unavoidable impasse. We went on as normal for a while, best friends, coparents to our kitten, DnD buddies, artists, Netflix watching pals, late night junk food companions...only we didn't kiss each other anymore, and I was sleeping in my art studio across the hall from the bedroom which was no longer ours, but hers. I still had my life: My home. My cat. My social circle. My best friend. (- This is the order in which I would lose all of these things.) She started dating. I started dating. She made plans to move out. I made plans to have a mutual friend of ours move into the house with me, as I loved the house and didn't want to lose it. Things were okay. Then...our mutual friend and I had a falling out. They'd no longer be moving in with me. I couldn't afford the rent by myself. I would have to move out of my home. Some good new friends of mine offered me a space in their house when the time came, thankfully, and I was very grateful. I still had about a month left in my house, though, and began the process of packing up my life. I was spending a lot of time with the cat, as she would be living with my ex after the move. Then...my ex took the cat away, saying she wanted her to spend time with her new partner's cats to become socialized with other animals. She said she'd bring her back after that, so I could see her again before the move. She never brought her back. My ex moved out. I'd hardly seen her in those weeks. It had been me and cat, mostly. Now both were gone. My new partner was staying with me a lot, helping with the move, being all sorts of good to me...she's like that. The time came to close up the house. To dispose of all the trash, spackle up the nail holes, and clean every corner to get it looking good for the landlords. I was forced to haul all the trash myself in my Honda Civic as no one could help me. It rained heavily that day. I couldn't get it all, so I had to leave some empty boxes in my car, one of them an empty box from a TV...I realized my mistake later. My ex helped in the beginning, moving some things out. She was busy with work, and there was a death in her family, so I really did understand why she couldn't help much. But I did wish she could have been there more, to say goodbye to the home we shared. She was always less sentimental than me. I'm no doubt too sentimental for my own well being. Time came to meet the landlord at the house to turn in the keys. I got there early, showed the landlord how I'd tried to patch everything up and leave it nice for them. My ex brought her new partner along. We turned in our keys. The landlord gave us our deposit back in two equal shares, thanking us for leaving the place looking so nice. We closed the door for the last time. My ex said, "Later, dude," in a passive tone she'd never used with me. It stung for some reason. I asked if we could hang out soon so I could visit our cat, she said maybe next week. I moved into my new house that night. I left my car parked on the street. Someone saw the empty TV box in my back seat, thought it was their lucky night, and busted in my window. $500 insurance deductible for repairs. There went my house deposit. I settled into my new place, my roommates kind and great friends, my new partner kind and supportive. Weeks passed. I asked my ex about hanging out. About visiting the cat. Maybe soon, she said. I messaged less, for fear of being annoying, but missing my best friend and missing the kitty I loved. Nothing from her. I messaged our DnD group about getting into a new campaign we'd been planning. No response. It was weighing on my mind. I felt forgotten. I was feeling sentimental one day, and messaged my ex for the first time in a while...telling her I missed our friendship and the experiences we shared - her shows, DnD, etc. I was very clear in that I did not have ulterior motives. I just missed my friend. She responded..."I'm sorry dude, I just want to move on with my life, nothing personal." followed by saying I could go to shows and hang out with our friends if I wanted to, followed by saying she was "not in charge of my happiness and she was not going to be the person to facilitate me making friends anymore," and that we should close that chapter of our lives and move on. This...cut deep. As I said, I'm a shy and quiet person. I didn't know she felt that way about our shared social life. If we shared mutual friends, it was never because I required her to make them for me...it's just that she was my best friend, and the times we shared happened to be times I cherished, and those happened to include the friends we made along the way. All at once this woman who I'd spent half a decade with said she didn't want me in her life, and that I'd burdened her. I understood what she was saying. I understand her need to move on and reinvent and find new joy and experience. I'm happy she has found that, and I say this without irony as someone who has only wanted the best for her. What I can't understand is why it had to end that way. Why she would speak to me as if I'd done something wrong. Why it was so easy to completely cut me from her life. Why she was capable of taking our cat away and never letting me see her again. Remember how I was up front from the beginning, I understood entirely if she could not be with me because of my gender. I understand how it must have been incredibly hard for her to have her sense of reality in her relationship shaken, and to be forced to make that choice to be true to herself even if it meant letting go of a partner. I'll admit to feeling an incredible sense of guilt over it all, over coming out and "erasing her girlfriend" in a sense and feeling like I wasted her time. So believe me when I say I'm not blaming her for moving on and building a new life where she can feel true to herself and free. But it's so, so very hard not to think thoughts like..."If I were not trans...if I had not been dysphoric then I wouldn't have made her feel alienated. If I had not come out I would not have lost my best friend, my home, my social circle, my cat, and nearly everything that made up my daily life" - all of which I loved so deeply. All of which made my life what it was. It's so hard not to think, "If I were not transgender I would not have had to give up my entire life." And it hurts and it is so hard to reconcile with. Especially because, the truth is: 1. I know I can't change who I am. 2. This genuinely has nothing to do with missing an old romantic partner, but everything to do with missing the best friend she was to me (and that's very hard to find any helpful information about on Google, I've tried) 3. I genuinely adore my new partner and I feel like I'm insulting her by being so messed up about my past when she helps make my present worthwhile. ... I know I've rambled on, and I do feel like I'm complaining too much, but it won't leave me be. It makes me hate being transgender even more than my dysphoria does. I wake up sometimes and wish to god I had never come out. Knowing full well I'd have always felt dysphoric, so I'd probably have lost everything anyway, and if hadn't lost everything I wouldn't have found my new friends or my new loving partner. But...damn, I miss my cat every single day. I miss my old friends every single day. I miss my house every single day. And sometimes it's too much to bear. So...the reason I posted this here is...really, I just needed to get this out. And I'm wondering how many other trans people have experienced similar loss after coming out. Because I feel quite alone sometimes. And I feel shame over having a hard time getting over it.
Submitted April 14, 2019 at 09:24PM by MovingForward246 http://bit.ly/2v1J6aj
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