So I'm writing this one slowly, trying to gather the whole thing into a coherent narrative for Erica Ravenwood.  Because when I was first struggling with my new reality, and it was scary and terrifying and I didn't know what was going to happen, I went looking for the stories of other people in my shoes.  But...they were stunningly hard to find.  And when I did find them they were usually stories told  years later after a long period of painful adjustment framed in such a way as to show that marriages can survive gender reassignment and that 'leaving was not an option' for these partners.  Which is good, important, but...where were the other stories?  The ones like me that didn't know what was going to happen, what they wanted to happen, stories talking about the process of finding out and dealing with the secrets, the confusion, balancing our needs vs. theirs...during the time with  all the flying emotions to help us feel normal and okay and have a direction where to go?  I'm really grateful to Erica for inviting me to put my voice there too, it is validating to know that the partners matter also and our feelings and life experiences may help both sides of the relationship coins for others. 

So I tried to leave my voice on this site for others like me, and I will try to leave my voice on her site for people too.  Not because I'm special, I'm really not, I'm just a girl who loves her husband, son, animals, and all turtles of the world.  But because I'm not shy and I have no shame about any of this and think it should be talked about, and want to be there for the future Bree's to help them, and the future Nikki's.  Because calm Bree was way more helpful to him than flipping out falling apart Bree was.     Partner sections on transgender forums are SO quiet.  I guess I dream that partners, both men and women, will realize it's okay to talk to each other and find support and answers and just camaraderie like our transgendered mates do on these sites.  I think it would help partners a lot, but so many of us are almost trained to just suffer in silence when marriage isn't the perfect cultural model of it. 
 

To be honest, throwing out that 'perfect' cultural model and letting our marriage evolve around our two individual personalities, including changing how it functions as we age and our needs changes, is what made it work.   We had a lot of talks before the wedding and after about defining what it would be for us, and dropping the cultural/media information about it, and we made a good go of it.  I met Nikki May 20, 1998.  Which was hilarious, as it was the same day of the year I met my first husband.  Apparently that is my 'marriage day'.  It's now 2016, and we're still going.  Problems come, problems go.  We get frustrated with each other, we support each other.  We drive each other batshit crazy, we make each other supremely happy.  The thing we don't do is be mean to each other, put each other down face to face or to others, or fail to prioritize us as a couple.  We learn what to do and what not to do from the examples of others, and we know when those examples don't apply to us. 

Life is good, even with all it's uncertainties.  Now if only I had some breakfast.