Thanks for sharing Lisa. I do hope that both you and your wife can come to a common ground and if not, well perhaps you can be close friends. There is no sugar coating it but do wish you the best.

Hi Lisa,

I had to go through all of that WAIT - no - We (my wife and I) had to go through all of that, and skipping the middle to now, we are together and very strong in our commitment to each other keepig our marriage strong. 

Ok the begining and the middle bits;

I took up courage to tell her about my cross dressing 4-5 years ago, we were both pleasantly drunk, and she said oh that's great we can go shopping together in London you can be my mate, great I thought. The next 2-3 days was however like living in Siberia, she had obviously had time to wonder why I needed to do this, and thought that perhaps she wasn't adequate enough to meet my needs (which wasn't the case).  I had another wardrobe purge, she also didn't aprove of my doing that either. several months later I purchased more clothes, and she was ok about it. Several months later I developed gynecomastia (it's a moot point whether this happened naturally or due to phyto-oestrogens - tea tree oil, lavender, and puerarai mirifica - my take on it is it's the latter), this was diagnosed by docters. at the same time by, coincidence a couple who were very dear and close friends also came out to us as he was part time Trans. This seemed to brighten my wifes perspective on my Transness. We arranged a photo-shoot at our house, but my friend was a lot less tranny tart than I was, and also a lot more convincing, anyway we had a fun evening together. A couple of weeks later whilst we were out together (the 4 of us) my wife suggested us going out to a local Trans meeting at a LGBT bar in Birmingham, so she was strating to get properly on-board with the idea of the new me. She was ok about my going out as Eve on our holidays, I did this in Berlin and the following year in Munich. She was happy enough that I was part-time.

However as many others have found out the genie is out of the bottle and expanding. I got prescribed to oestrogen aftert surreptitiously self medicating with Premarin. We had by this time a fair few Trans friends some of which were full-time. I had to go to Charing Cross Gender Identity Clinic (CHX GIC) in London for appointments, but kept the fact from my wife as I didn't want her to worry and at the same time started to dress en femme more and more incrementally. She had time to adjust to my increasingly female appearance, eventually I told her about CHX, she said she thought it a little dishonest of me even though I told her why. I then asked if she wanted to split up with me, she said no. At that time GRS was not on the front burner for me, and and I said so. I was still part time trans, I went out with her as Steve. 

Eventually due to Austerity measures in the UK and my working for Local Government, my job appeared to be a risk, and she said play the Trans card if it happens, but they already know about my part time trans, so the only forward is to be full-time with name changes etc, amazingly she said yes OK do it! I didn't waste any time. I did all the document changes myself to avoid her any extra worries and second thoughts. Now I was full-time trans with an acquired female gender, I started to feel the need for GRS. We had a friend around a couple of months ago who just had her GRS nad I was questioning her about rather intensley, the next day my wife asked me if I wanted it and I admitted it to her, more mixed feelings resulted, but she accepted it. She had asked me this before I was full-time when I answered that it would remove a bulge in my trousers, but wasn't on the front burner, so I guess she'd already thought about it.

With the awful UK election result, my wife wants to move to the Ardenne in Belgium before any UK referendum on EEU membership, she asked would I have had my GRS before then, because otherwise it will be an expense that we might not be able to afford, she has been fully on-board with me as a female after our recent Dutch Holiday where me being Trans did not detract at all from our enjoying our holiday.

Sorry to give you my potted transition history, but I have given it to you to show that by transitioning slowly and incrementally, it gave my wife time to adjust and realise the my inner core is still as it was, plus I'm less argumental, more loving and forgiving, and can understand women so much better than Steve was ever capable of. 

Of course you might ask, but would the end result have been the same if I had transitioned faster (which I would have loved to do), who knows, but I seriously doubt it.

I hope my long and laborish text helps you, in your troubled state.

Hugs,

Eve x

Eve, I beg you, please do not self-medicate with prescription medications.  Am glad you found a doctor you could trust and get a proper prescription and medical follow-up.

Hope that you wife can keep an open mind and learn as much  as she can.

Monica

Monica, I'm not sef medicating that's past history told honestly & my wife has got an open mind, she's learned a lot and is a senior Doctor. 

Just because I did foolish things, there is no expectation on my part that others should or will follow.

Eve

Eve, thank you for sharing your story. I really appreciate it. My hope is, as in your case, that time and circumstance help us persevere through this as a family. That is the hope anyway.

And certainly, self-medicating is not good. I thought about doing that many times with prescription medication and I am glad I did not. Though, I did take over the counter vitamins and glandulars for a few months, which actually worked. Though, I am off of those and will not do those again.

--Lisa