So after the movie we started talking, and I realized that Nikki has made an extremely comfortable place for me in this.  Which is both wonderful and truly scary.  I'm included in his personal world where no one has been, and actively participating in the practical demands and the emotional ones.  I'm finally at the level of closeness to him that was just slightly off, and I had started to think maybe I had internalized too much social romance culture and didn't exist and was doubting myself that something was off as time went by and life was great.  He makes sure it all goes at my pace, and for me really sat down and examined his own needs and feelings to find out what they were.  His google fu when looking for something speicific is amazing and a skill I count on because I often want to find very specific things on the internet, but my ability to big picture and connect varying things that are related but not obviously so led him to a wealth of information about what is going on with him he didn't have access too.  While I had to redifine my understanding of him, he had to do it also, and we did it together.  We have a healthy balance of his need for me to emotionally care for him the way he physically cares for me, and him dong it for himself that I don't think we had before.  I can't even say how much positive there has been to me blundering into it.  I learned that the reason he indicated to me the first time that he wanted the hrt was he'd sort of picked up from people on the forums he tried a few years ago it was inevitable, and he didn't really have a clear understanding of it's effects himself until I was showing him my research that i did in an attempt to ease my negative reaction to the idea, and unfortunately strengthened it into a coherent I don't know that I can do this point.  Also I'm completely free to ask for either mode, and I did ask for girl mode last night so that I could use my vday plans I'd worked really hard on dangit.  That was the first time I asked for actual girl mode vs. asking to let me see him like that and adjust.  That was, I wanted to be with you like that and got myself into this mindset and let's fulfill our emotional romance urges together.  I don't know how much of that he perceived, but I think that is a huge breakthrough in my head.  And it let me go further in making my brain ignore the creepy outer plastic of the forms to try to give him a more natural full experience.

But that's why it's so scary.  And I had this talk with him last night.  So many real voices I speak with talk about how it progresses as they go, and I do have real internal fears on a lot of things.  When I first started looking for places and tried to talk to real people instead of reading pyschological information, I was either mocked for my commitment to remain with Nikki (Support groups are so not supportive if they required a foregone conclusion of action to fit in damnit) or I was mocked for having sexual and emotional issues and needs of my own dealing with this.  And Nikki has a problem where he wasn't okay with either, but he's very conflict resistant and so started stewing.  Originally I was looking for him to guide me into this world, I didn't realize how much he'd jumped to conclusions vs. actual self-examination and was working under the misunderstanding that he'd scoped this all out and was just waiting for the courage to talk to me or the day I blundered into it.  That wasn't working out so great, so my I will find us someplace kicked in.  That is how I was the one to find this place and dip in first, that may have seemed strange to people, but that's our dynamic.  There is an underlying assumption between our personalities that i will always protect him.  The first clue I got when I arrived and started talking that this was the place was that no one thought it was weird or commented that I was the first to land, and people treated me like I belonged.  Even though I am cis, there is no part of what happens to Nikki that doesn't affect me and the supportive education I'm getting here on his feelings, mine, and all of yours is invaluable as we figure this all out and you all keep me on an even emotional keel so that I CAN even figure out what frightens me, what makes me happy, what I need to be able to make him happy (and I am progressing with the prosthetics, Nikki was beyond pleased last night).  You have all completely changed the coming out story in a truly positive way.   Just because I have the commitment and love for him did not mean I had to tools to even being to understand myself or him in this time.  And I really fear losing my comfortable place where I embrace just about everything that makes him feel good in both modes. 

And then I did something I'd never done, asked him to fill a need I have that is as scary to him as the first time I went to see him dressed like a woman with breasts.  I think he's incredibly uncomfortable with what i asked (and it's NOT a trigger physical activity).  I've always been the initiator in sexuality matters.  Nikki is uncomfortable doing so, and the rare times he has is because I was so caught up in life and wasn't doing it and physical urges overrode his natural submission.  And it was a tentative would you like to...? sort of moment.  But part of my dismorphia that was cycling around for years unspoken and not even understood by me that his perceived lack of interest in starting that activity with me, even though rationally understood and accepted, was hitting my disorder in a very real way convincing me he didn't really want me, he only does that with me because I make it easily obtainable for him.   That was a terrifying moment for me, but I don't want him to hide from me, and since I had realized this in all this mess, I'm not going to hide from him.  It's all in for both of us or we might as well stop.  That being said, I don't mean he has to turn into a crazed maniac.  I think the proposed plan was he sets a repeating alarm on his clock for like every to weeks to remind hm to ask me to go upstairs with him.  My stupid brain doesn't need a full blown seduction attempt of the kind i actually enjoy putting on for him, it's sort of a really fun creative challenge for me how to reach and hit all his emotional buttons, which is why it kind of threw me that my Vday plan had been for girl mode and I had to come up with something on the fly. 

This is a very comfortable and amazing place for me, despite the ongoing confusion.  And there is still a lot of confusion on my end, when I try to talk to Nikki about what being  a woman inside means to him, his answers are ALWAYS fixated on the physical aspect.  This is not a judgement on my part, please understand, but this creates a communications disconnect for me and a lot of confusion, because my physical parts are a biproduct of it, and I rarely think about them beyond trying to wrangle their health and convenience, fitting into the damn bras and not hitting my own damn face with boobs, sexual aspects, etc.  So now I'm left trying to understand if Nikki has just not developed that part because of his kind of emotionally stunting family and didn't have a period in teenage hood like me where he realized how much he'd missed out on and actively set out to learn it for himself, or if his particular flavor of the transgender umbrella is really his brain focusing for whatever reason on the physical aspects, most strongly on body hair, general body shape, and breasts, but it likes his boy parts and psyche just fine.  LIterally, he puts on the forms and bra, and most of the time wears his normal boy clothes and does what he does around the house, and the only thing that changes is the stress switch in his head is flipped back to quiet.  Am I trying to connect to and nurture something neglected, or is it something just not there?  And Nikki can't answer until he works on this and finds out for himself.  But that crystallized some of why I'm scared about the future.

A huge potential problem is...Nikki and I really prefer the same kind of female, which he can't be in a relationship.  Which is way closer to me than him.  So while his tastes and desire for me present no conflict if transition is an inevitability he was originally led to believe (and I now now that the spectrum presents a lot of choice, and only with a lot of hard work will he know what his future life and needs will be like) that presents a huge emotional conflict and desire issue for me.  My tastes run to softer males and harder females.  I think if had been allowed to develop naturally, I would have been way more submissive than I am and acted on my inner taste for dominant males (I drool over Sabretuth, Snake Pliskin, Raislint Majere, etc.).  I enjoy dominant types.  However, my formative years being wired by a crazy man who hurt me over and over (met ex husband when I was 16 adn jsut starting out on the sexuality explorations and settings) made that impossible for me to ever trust and fully engage with in that with a man.  Nature v. nurture.

And, let's be real, him being a mix of both together, often as the same time, really works for me on all the levels, emotional, physical, and connectibility.  I think I am going beyond adjusting into full on this is my life and I like it, and I don't want to lose this.