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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.

Between sitting on the sidelines while Nikki sorts out himself and our entire future, and watching my friend whose basically been soloing a marriage for years and a complete tantrum and horribly ongoing vilifying is thrown every time she points out her needs haven't been met in years because 'she doesn't understand what he is suffering' (while he continues to smoke, not do his therapy, not do his rehab physical work, and eat in ways that aggravate his illness daily), I've come to realize my earlier blog about being the partner sucks is only the beginning of what I'm starting to work through. Not only is there an expectation that your needs will go on hold, there is a social vilifying if you don't live up to it. People can and WILL call you selfish, evil, cruel, oblivious, and a whole host of other adjectives because you can't push the pause button on...being human. And even as good as I have it, there are times I want to slap Nikki. Yesterday was one of them, when again, despite all the bending over backwards I am doing to try to support all the things going on with him, he again went after behaviors I can't control for my add anymore than he can control his with everything from crossdressing to anxiety attacks. I do everything from involving myself in the dressing and making fun happen to grabbing the meditative binaurial beats to help him relax in an anxiety attack. And we have this conversation every three to six months that you live with an add person, this particular thing isn't a behavior I can control. Why can't I get the same care I give? ARgh. It's frustrating, because I spend so much time learning where there is compromise with him and what isn't something he can help, and I realize I subconsciously expect he would be doing the same, but he's not. Sometimes I honestly think that he so made a lifestyle of suppression after his attack that he only half lives his life, including knowing me. But I still have it way better than some other partners I know. And yet I hear mutual friends criticizing their support or perceived lack thereof of their varied physically and mentally ill mates, and I've come to realize there is this almost ridiculous perfection expected socially, at least in my area if not countrywide. But I heard the same eye-rolling comments about things like this back in Jersey too. "She shouldn't expect him to care about her day, he's got X issue!" "How dare he want to go do something fun for a few hours, his wife has X, she needs him at home!" And those are just the more subtle examples, it gets uglier. Not being in a current crisis state or healthy doesn't mean invulnerable. It doesn't mean all the burden. These people have needs that should be met also. I'm just starting to percolate all this. I have no idea what the human emotional mechanism behind all this is, but I'm tired and frustrated and really really tired of being told that there is something wrong with me or I'm not a good person/partner because I expect support back and to also have my needs met. Or for having limits how far I can change myself for the sake of a marriage. Even with my admittedly overly adaptive personality even for me there are just things i can't jettison and alter in myself, or i don't think I'll even be human anymore. Of course, I'm putting most of it on hold while he's dealing with the depression and ptsd from the assault, but I still can reasonably expect him to not hold my disorder against me and that he will actually work to get better and not make this a lifestyle. This current place we're in being a part of healing, fine. Six months, a year, whatever. It takes time to work through things, I know this. But if he became like some of the other people I know who just live in this all about me and make a crisis a lifestyle, I couldn't live like this, and I couldn't even imagine expecting anyone else to. Just yeah. Still working through my emotions and my place in this marriage I guess. Some days really get so subsumed by Nikki that I actually forget i feel anything until it smacks me in the face. Thanks for listening, there isn't really much anyone can do about this I guess. It is what it is. I"m going to work now.