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So last night was interesting and fun. I do admit I have certain kinks and my wife knows about them, but last night we decided to incorporate a number of them together for some Valentine’s Day fun after going out to see a movie and hanging out chit chatting through the evening. It was kind of an amazing thing and I loved that we were both able to connect over them in a way that we both got a lot out of it. This isn’t necessarily something she and I have ever approached before and most of that is definitely on me. Still though, connecting with Bree like this made for an amazing evening of fun that we both got a lot out of and I got to explore a kink with her that had previously more been just mine and it worked for both of us. I may have gotten home and spent the evening in boy mode, but I definitely finished the night in girl mode and it was amazing. It’s been kind of liberating to really explore all of this with her and talk to her about it, and while I’m not going to say it’s cured my depression it most definitely has made me a lot happier in general which is always a good things. Bree and I are working on our language between each other so we can better alert each other to moods and so she knows when I need to be in which mode. I kind of surprised her yesterday when I got home from work and just stayed in boy mode all day. She figured with the holiday it’d be a trigger, but Valentine’s Day is one she and I always have shared together but not necessarily made a big fuss about as our birthdays and our anniversary kind of bookend it so it never really stood out. That and it being a Hallmark amped up holiday like Sweetest Day (It’s a big thing in Ohio but neither of us had heard about it from where we used to live and thought it was kind of ridiculous so we avoid that one too) makes it a little less special. We might make a date night out of it, but we don’t go insanely overboard either.On her recommendation I’m trying a new razor for my face and body hair. It’s a bit awkward to shave my face with but I can’t deny the results as I’m sporting one of the closest shaves this morning than I’ve had in a long while and touched up some of my body hair that was bugging me this morning too. I love her for kind of embracing this part of it and really trying to help me work through it. I realize she wants the hair gone for her own reasons as well, but it’s awesome being in concert with each other’s needs.

I was scrolling around in the crossdresser's forum to get more familiar with the topics discussed since the more Nikki talks the more he 'fits' the category at this point in time, so I wanted to learn more to help him be his best her on those days. And I ran into this thread, and it's surreal. I understand all the view points, but I realize so many things. My insane life experience has made me uniquely qualified for this moment with Nikki and for once is a plus. I believe I dealt with the 'confrontation' conversation thoughtfully, and firmly on the 'this thing you did is dangerous and scary and it's a real medical professional or nothing' angle while at the same time firmly deflecting him when he tried to lie again with a "I'm not here to be angry but I'm done with being shut out of my marriage and if I can't lie to you niether can you to me and this is safe" attitude I hope helped while taking as much care as I could to reassure him this was a conversation and not a lifetime decision or freakout. Then I went to learn. I read website after website. This is 11 years after this other woman, and obviously there are more resources. I am much younger. I had brush ups before. I had a life experience that has led me to a certain fluidty of life experience understanding. My hangups and stuck points were completely different. But I could understand both her views and the responders. I had trouble with some of the responses on both sides of the issue. Love in a case like this does not conquer all, for example. Love is fluid like everything else. And it is absolutely possible to truly love a person and be truly unable to live with them in a marital situation. I have seen this play out, and know this as fact of the emotional experience of mankind. There is an inherent unfairness in finding out this is a thing in your life after so many years, just as there is an inherent unfairness in having to try to 'cure' yourself of this thing or hide away who you truly are, neither of which are healthy. Sometimes fair goes out the damn window and you are just left with what is. I didn't realize how WELL I've grown until I read that woman's post, in much the same position I was in, and the responses. And I realized that you can be in pain and fear and confusion, and never lose sight of the fact that you are talking to real human beings, and coming to them to asking them to share themselves with you to help you learn. I think even the first day when I broke down in a crying frenzy to S (the only transgender woman I know for certain that I know who I could think to ask to help me understand and was so gracious and open with me on everything from what it's like to live with and helped me organize and prioritize what things i needed to know to start talking to Nikki about instead of bumbling around in the dark) I was already open to learning to deal with this reality even though I was terrified and wanted it all to just go away on day one. I knew it didnt' work like that. And the reception I got here was beautiful and helpful, and that was something I had earned by how i honestly think. I didn't do a persona, I didn't try to make myself fit any molds to fit in, I had worked my whole life to be a good turtle, and apparently it's worked. But reading that is so surreal. And I can't imagine what would have happened to my delicate Nikki if I was more like that woman and less me. So thank you everyone along my life from Grandpa to here, for all the learning and growing you help me achieve and continue to achieve.

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.

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 is trying to fix it after some really brutal choices. And she's a great person to know, she loves you with a whole heart and is really honest with you. I don't think of my life in terms of worst case scenario in general, but I realize we had a fairly easy and quick sorting out of the initial phase as much as is possible at this point, and am so grateful for that. And...I sort of floored her. She knew from yesterday's face to face time friend we had a thing, but friend didn't tell M what it was, just that she might want to check on me, and shared some of the concerns L had about it based on my flaws and some positives they wanted to help me reinforce from my strengths. So leaving from L's I texted her indicating I wanted to talk to her this morning and not do it on text again. This is the kind of friendship we have, helping each other be shiny and overcome the dull spots, and L was worried she so emphasized with A she might not be getting me so asked M who is way like me but was in a healthier place with it earlier to reach out. So M and I hadn't really talked closely in several years, we got busy with lives and live nearly four hours apart. But it's the kind of friendship that you can pick up at a moments notice. But she told me she was floored by how much I've grown, changed, and overcome my past issues. Apparently L feels that I have more blame language than I realize, but also that I fully do not mean to be doing it. So M said she would work with me and of course Nikki has agreed to point out if he catches any, but Nikki didn't quite feel that the comment I made that triggered L's thought was blamy. So this is going to be hard improving what i don't quiet get, but I'm not dead yet, so I'll give it my best. Cleaning emotional house with her was a wondrous reality check for both of us on where we are in our lives, and that it's okay to now know the best path forward and we'll figure it out together as we go. We'll just never get to Cleveland. LOL We didn't get to Cleveland on the phone today either, but we did affirm our shared love of Nikki, and our agreement that her husband has a lot of work to do and it's okay for her to explore her feelings and decide if she wants to repair the marriage or not and owes him nothing until she decides either way. I promised NIkki and I would make the drive to her in March, since logistically it's easier that way. Offspring will care for my animals for a day trip, she doesn't have anyone for hers. We're gonna catch up and eat amazing food. Everytime we see M there is some new amazing food thing I can't believe I'd never had before. She was the first time I ate Panera bread, Nutella, and a variety of other things. OMG Nutella on pound cake. Just saying. An analogy I used to explain to Nikki WHY I want to be part of the journey and not just the destination, why confused and uncertain but shared is not only okay to me, but desirable. He likes to go on a trip with the route mapped, a clear destination, and as little disruption as possible. So it's like getting into L's car. But I like the journey, that is where I grow and do my best adaptation as the situations go. I once got in a car with M and we were trying to go from Toledo to Cleveland (I lived in T-town then) and we ended up crossing half of Ohio and back at my house. But it was the most fun road trip ever the minute we realized we were both lost and just went with it and used the time to chatter and have a blast. And we learned more about each other and forged a lifetime bond that we have both relied on during various disasters over the years than we would have with a smooth trip to Cleveland. And saw some really weird crap, Ohio, you are weird. I think I've finally expressed my feeling to him, which was vague and probably really confusing to him prior to this conversation. He never did understand WHY I kept getting in cars with M and being late to...well...everything we ever tried to go to together. M didn't know about my dismorphia, and feels like I crossed that last barrier of trying to hide things and so much she couldn't figure out about me is clear. Adulting is hard, I want to just turtle. So Nikki got home from Valentine's day, in full on boy mode to my surprise, I thought we were still in girl mode honeymoon phase, but okay, I adjusted my Valentine day cuddle plans accordingly and had a lovely morning with him. No big deal, my entire plan was tailored to things he said he wanted from me, so I have them in reserve for the day he does want them. I'm prepared! We're going to see Deadpool in a bit, and it is only my deep devotion to making that boy happy that is getting my cold shell outta this house into the SIXTEEN DEGREES that Ohio has decided to grace us with. I need more layers. Deadpool had best be as funny as people tell me he is. Cuz our theater doesn't believe in heat.