Skip to content
View in the app

A better way to browse. Learn more.
Transgender Message Forum @ TGGuide.com

A full-screen app on your home screen with push notifications, badges and more.

To install this app on iOS and iPadOS
  1. Tap the Share icon in Safari
  2. Scroll the menu and tap Add to Home Screen.
  3. Tap Add in the top-right corner.
To install this app on Android
  1. Tap the 3-dot menu (⋮) in the top-right corner of the browser.
  2. Tap Add to Home screen or Install app.
  3. Confirm by tapping Install.

Learning to grow

A blog by Briannah in General

  • Entries

    140

  • Comments

    285

  • Views

    50,933

About this blog

This is Bree's journal talking about how life changes, and how you grow with them (probably with the occasional freakout, I'm good at panic mode too!).  Life has been hard since day one, and not doing it alone is the key!

Entries in this blog

In which Bree faces power tool ignorance.

So.  Nikki and I talked it over, and are going to start working on the actual renovations after the cruise, so around April.  (Vacation!  I can't wait!) Prime issue #1 - asthma.  Most of the things we want to do involve a lot of particulate dust matter, I can NOT be in the house with that all closed up in the winter, so it has to be in the spring when it's warmed up enough to open the house for at least 20 minutes (the amount of time I'm told it takes to recirculate the air on the average house)

Putting my hair in Nikki's hands.

Waiting for my hair to dry out, and then I'm putting the one thing about my physical form I feel good about into...Nikki's hands.  He's going to first bleach it, then dye it deep emerald green.  I'm finally going to have my dream hair, my favorite color, green.  I've been trying to do my part to help find the balance between Nikki's two sides, and have invited him as far into the girl world as I go, which isn't far really, when someone online is judging me purely on behaviors and interests they

Nervous.

So today is kind of a scary day.  Were supposed to meet up with a mutual friend who has agreed to talk to Nikki about her childhood abuse, since they suffered similar pain.  I"m terrified for Nikki.  He's already stressy and nervous, and this will be the first time he's ever going to try talking to someone more than a brief "this happened" sort of thing.  He's doing this form himself, not for me, not for any advice, but because he wants to sit face to face with another human that shares his life

Faced a medical phobia.

I have a weird phobia about things being removed from my body.  I even had panic attacks over them removing my wisdom teeth back in my youth, and I'd been raised with the understanding that would happen, there has been no single member of my family who they fit in the mouths.  So last month I started getting severe abdominal issues, and first er said it was food poisoning (cuz you know, has to happen at midnight), but then four days later it happened again, and Nikki had no issues and we eat the

Opening those cans of worms.

Had a crossroads moment, and finally ventured on to the harder path.  Helping Nikki deal with his issues and history is making me take hard looks at my own.  Some can't be conquered, but they can be mitigated.  Or at the very least, it can be said 'that was NOT okay'.  My parents are divorced, they have been since I was very young, around 4.  I don't think either were very happy in the marriage, but it ended because my father cheated on my mother.  And who outed him?  Me.  Yes, he was so interes

Surrendered to the Nyquil

I have a weird thing with cold meds.  I couldn't take any of them without risking a painful death when I was on my long term asthma medication, so I sort of developed a fear of them in general.  My brain makes important things habitiual so I don't forget when I'm half sleep or not paying attention.  So Nikki has to fight stupidly hard to get me to take them.  And of course, they are huge, my throat hurts, and damn near just choked myself.  At least things with Nikki are going great.  We've settl

Sometimes people make me sad.

So I got the new webcame to skype and roll20 game with my son now that he's moved, and I Thought, ya know what?  I wanna say hello to the world.  Omegle, here I come!  So I loaded it up.  Now, I FULLY expected to run into a lot of pervyness.  I went into it with the realization I will see things, there is no way around that, the next button is my friend.  But I had it in my head that there were other normal people who just wanted to talk to the world, and after I waded through the unspeakable th

Still alive!

So that job Nikki took last year has been going well, he's still there, and I have joined up also.  More money than I've ever made, and while the working conditions are extremely chaotic and we don't have much time for a personal life, it's weirdly satisfying and they seem to like me.  And it enabled us to afford to buy another house while we wait to sell the one we still own.  Which of course means my NJ friends aren't talking to me for this week after I showed them the Zillow ad and admitted I

That weird moment...

when you're browsing transgender oriented stores for your mate and suddenly are considering things for yourself too.   Is this something like what Nikki feels shopping on the woman's websites?  That this stuff is nice, I'm not the intended clientele, but dangit I want to wear some of this.  Then I trip over my own social paranoia like I'm not supposed to take these items and wear them, they're not meant for me, and then I realize wow, that is a silly feeling if the whole idea of embracing this n

Sometimes it doesn't matter how hard you try.

Just cut ties with my father.  I've talked about him and the complicated relationship before, and why I didn't really know what I was holding onto.  Well, he finally pushed that last button and I went nuclear.  He called me stupid again, which I'm used to really, over my belief that we have to do better as a nation to care for people.  There aren't enough jobs.  They are getting shipped overseas en masse.  The old get a job rhetoric is a joke, and there is no reason anyone should be homeless and

The One LIngerie buying rule for Nikki.

Okay, I did set ONE rule for the sexy time stuff.  (and teh same common sense financial ones that i live buy, but that is just even marital treatment).  If he is buying something like that for him, he buys something he wants to see on me.  (It's sort of an extension we used to have on video games, so no one was unhappy by not getting things they wanted and it was kinda fair, only he won that by default because they stopped making the kinds of games I like en masse).  Yes, I'm totally going to ri

Where Nikki's gender questioning messes me up a bit.

So... obviously right now gender is a spotlight conversation and understanding topic in our household while we're figuring out how to meet everyone's needs.  And now that I have time to think, I'm realizing he's confusing things in my head.  This is not a complaint or criticizing post, this is just me working out my thoughts way early in the morning.  I'm not usually up yet, and it's hard to articulate these feelings, so forgive me as I'm about to fail badly to express the mess in my head. Nikki

Happy Birthday Nikki!

The most important thing about today is its Nikki's birthday!   So obviously an important day to me.  I took him to lunch at Pizza Hut and we splurged on brownies.  No diets on birthdays!  Lol.  Right now he's playing the video game I got him Knights of Azure.  He was really interested in it for the female/female love story so I knew he had to have it!   It's cute so far I'm watching him play chilling out with my IPad.  He likes it when I hang out in here with him vs going to the computer room.

I think I"m making some moderate headway in habit changing.

So usually my add and natural personality has us living very by ear.  Planning is SO not my thing, and it has been an herculean effort to start developing that skill.   But the staycation and vacations after peak season are important to Nikki, downtime after that crazy work schedule, so I'm trying to be more organized about it to further reduce the stress on Nikki. Easier said than done, but I'm definitely making headway.  I have a menu list for staycation, no more arguments about what to eat. 

I'm still alive, just struggling to recover from losing our cat.

I thought I was doing better, then I came home from work today, and there it was, on the table, Nikki had picked it up.  The box. My cat is in a box.  And I'm just losing it all over again.  Because the reality that my cat is IN that box.  And that there will be more boxes as time goes by.  I think I tried to bottle it up too hard to be there for Nikki, to be calm and comforting, and the reality of it came crashing down with that box.  It's a nice box.  With a plaque with her name on it and the

Valentine's Day and Shiny Improvement

So since Nikki was gone all morning I called my friend M and binged like a madwoman on catching up and going over our recent marital issues.  It was a great reality check for me, I reacted extremely because my bond with Nikki was threatened by the unknown, her bond with her husband was actually severed by his choices(nothing to do with anything like what Nikki is going through, think really badly handled midlife crisis choices).  And then when he realized his mistake, now he suddenly cares and i

Still alive! :)

Seriously, contrary to facebook rumors, Bree is alive and well.    It's just...summer.  I can go outside.  WOOHOO!  Winter gets very long when you are cooped up and can't go outside without entering the er from the cold-induced asthma attack.  Anyone here have asthma and know what I mean?  Not being able to breath very suddenly sucks.  So I have spent the last couple months outside with Nikki nearly continuously.  (Yes, we should all be worrying about global warming, our local weather has gone v

Great now there is a Bree problem in the mix.

So as some of you know i sort of went on an obsessive research binge to understand transgenderism in general and specific to what is needed to make my marriage successful.  Only what isn't showing is that I'm still almost obsessively researching the social aspects of this.  And I do mean almost obsessionally.  And my friend M asked me why I'm stuck in this, and things gestalted.  I have a huge problem in this marriage that has nothing to do with Nikki's transgenderism, but is being triggered by

Wow Newegg, that was fast. And marital ramblings after that.

So...making Nikki's computer dream a reality, which is the project I've been on since January pretty single-mindedly, has finally come to fruition today.  And those parts got here FAST.  Like laser fast.  So I cleaned out the dining room table so he has a work space (on the weekends that area is set up for gaming as there is a Friday night and a Sunday evening game), and he's like a little kind in a candy store right now.  It was worth every moment of locking myself in the bathroom at work to ha

Rough week.

So last week sucked, lost our Yuriko.  The day of her vet appointment she was having seizure after seizure and we knew we were definitely taking her to the Final Visit, no hail mary last minute outs for my little kitty girl.  The offspring met us at the vet's to say goodbye and be with her as she went.  Horribly painful thing to do, but watching her the way she was was worse.  Nikki has been incredibly down and not much I do can help until time does it's work here.  Talked with Nikki about my st

Anniversary

So it was a rocky year, but we made it out okay.  Today was our 18th anniversary, and we had a great day.  And the weather was almost nice!    We had a nice brunch out(Nikki is trying to live on my schedule during staycation, silly sleepy boy so we didn't wake up til 11), my aunt stopped by to drop off my birthday card since I was busy yesterday only she actually forgot the card on her counter, then we packed up more tubs and moved them to my moms and stopped and my aunts on the way home, grabbe

I want today to be a good day.

Today is 18 years since that first date.  I took the day off, and Nikki took Sunday off, and we're going to have a three day weekend together.  I want it to be awesome.  I want him to actually enjoy himself, and have a good time, and to reconnect about something fun instead of trying to manage all the things going on, just for a few days.  Here's hoping. 

Haha! Turned tables!

Since we have decided sharing closets works for us, I have made my self at home in his comfy black knit cargo shorts.  I LOVE these shorts.  Next spring I am planning to buy several more, as these are fantastic shorts that don't ride up indelicately on me like my shorts.  I like the longer length and bigger pockets than on the female version I have.  Nikki complains a lot that I absconded with his shorts.  But they are COMFY.  Oh my god comfy.  And he absconded with my sparkly butterfly shirt, s

Words Matter, and Bree finally figures out her changing sexuality.

I was talking with Nikki about something today, and he called this his problem.  I didn't like that.  This isn't our problem, this is our lifestyle.  The dog constantly dumpster and litter box diving, cats peeing anywhere they please, those are problems.  Nikki enjoying dressing en femme and needing his body hair as gone as we can make it?  Lifestyle.  Because language does dictate thought.  Ideas form from words, and the choice of words colors the thought.  And the only problem my husband has i

Account

Navigation

Search

Search

Configure browser push notifications
Chrome (Android)
  1. Tap the lock icon next to the address bar.
  2. Tap Permissions → Notifications.
  3. Adjust your preference.
Chrome (Desktop)
  1. Click the padlock icon in the address bar.
  2. Select Site settings.
  3. Find Notifications and adjust your preference.