Where Nikki's gender questioning messes me up a bit.
Entry posted by Briannah
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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 has real trouble communicating thoughts and feelings (something that doing is inherently female to me, this throws my ability to see his inner girl but I keep trying) so maybe he's just not expressing himself well, but what he does express boils down being a girl to....boobs, makeup, and clothing. So we talk about those things a lot, but...they're all superficial to me. They are not what make me female. I didn't get a choice about the boobs(and would shrink them by half if he wouldn't have a massive sad and there was a nonsurgical option), and I ditched the makeup the minute I realized I DON'T need to do what society tells me to and I don't care for doing it much(but I don't mind Nikki doing it, but it triggers my I'm not artistic and I don't want to do this attitude), and I grab whatever I can find in clothing. But Nikki only ever says "I feel girly" if it's physical. Sometimes I try to interact with him like I did past girlfriends and he just gets weirded out. Granted I wasn't a very good partner in a girl/girl relationship, so maybe I"m doing it weird and that was part of why they all failed, but still... And that is making me question the whole thing. Not Nikki's needs, but the whole gender thing, and what IS my place in the world as a female? Is it just what I look like? Surely it can't be. Spent my whole life and equality stance on the idea that it's more. Was I wrong?
I thought it was the strength to deal with all the ugly emotions, the flexibility in thought and beliefs to alter with every new understanding of the world, my ability to relate and maintain those relationships with others, my emotional barometer, and even the general softness of behaviors that i and most women I know exhibit. The physical stuff is just what I'm stuck with. Everytime I try to talk about these things with Nikki, he looks at me like I just grew a second evil head. He listens, but he stares at me utterly confused and it goes back to the phsyical conversation again.
Option A: It's like he's idealizing what it is to be a woman based on what men perceive women to be, instead of feeling like one and trying to make his outside match his inside.
Option B: I really don't understand what it is to be female, and have fallen into a trap looking for it to mean more than my outside to deal with societies judgement that i"m part of the lesser population, and am trying to attach strengths and behaviors and meanings to it that aren't there to counteract that feeling of lesser in my head.
With time it will all get sorted out. I will keep telling myself that. But I had no idea this was going to make these kind of internal questions come up. I thought my part in this was to help him sort himself out, not have my own sense of self challenged to this degree. Although the psychologial websites say this is a normal phase for the spouse, so I guess I just got to it a wee bit late.
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