Briannah

So as some of you know i sort of went on an obsessive research binge to understand transgenderism in general and specific to what is needed to make my marriage successful. Only what isn't showing is that I'm still almost obsessively researching the social aspects of this. And I do mean almost obsessionally. And my friend M asked me why I'm stuck in this, and things gestalted. I have a huge problem in this marriage that has nothing to do with Nikki's transgenderism, but is being triggered by it. Nikki never has my back in a conflict situation. I'm always on my own. I hate conflict every bit as deeply as he does, and i get physically sick from it, and terrified and spirally. Whenever Nikki gets into a conflict situation, I always have his back and am right there as his first line of defense if it's an untrue or misunderstood issue, or give him space to work with this information if Nikki is in the wrong. I've never left him alone on the hook, and he's been clear he never wants me to. And I never really consciously realized it, I couldn't figure out what was wrong in our marriage prior to this coming out, and why the increased closeness and working things out wasn't <b>fixing</b> me in the thought it would. And why I was so hung up on him throwing me under the bus in our talk with L on an issue i"d worked really hard to correct before any of this came out and was making a lot of strides, and when I explained my problem with Nikki saying now, she basically put it on me that i ask for to much. So that amkes sense, whenever I ask something from Nikki, he says no. EVERY single time. And then does it. Now, I have no gauge when no MEANS no. Nikki got angry with me if I accepted no and tried to do it myself or went to do something else if I was asking him to do an activity with me, and he got angry with me if didn't accept no because i literally can't tell anymore. When L asked what other issues were being worked on, and I brought that up, she brought up I ask him to do many things for me and that I was blaming him somehow when I as trying to express that I am literally confused about what NO means based on his behaviors. And I said I don't think that was what was going on but I"d work on it, and he literally said nothing until she asked the next qustion, and I let it go because that's what I always do. But the more I was doing for myself, the less I was feeling in a marriage because I was still on my own when it was hard and not being taken care of in a physical sense to substitute for it. I know, substitution is never a healthy thing in something like this. Nikki has been working really hard on that because h'es realizing I've lost my guage and I don't take it in a flirty way, and has been cosciously stopping that. That helps tremendously with that problem. It took a bit to gestalt, but I'm substituting the emotional feelings of 'he cares' when he does something for me to cover the realization that I'm on my own when things aren't pleasant and happy. And how much I really hate knowing that. When I asked him about not mentioning to L that I had realized that on my own and worked to get it under control, was he misleading me that I had have great success? He replied no, he was just uncomfortable with arguing with her. If he can't say to one of his bets freinds "She's worked really hard on that, it's not part of my thinking it's cute to say no every time she asks for something and confusing her and not hearing that she doesn't find it cute" how can I ever expect him to have my back with my ongoing issues wtih my parents, or in a new social setting like bars and nightclubs while he's dressed? This forum has been beautiful, but some weren't. Some were really clear to me that I"m just collateral damage or baggage, or that I'm now allowed to have needs or am shallow for thinking that bodies matter and if I love/find him sexually attractive as a male I should automatically be able to do so as a female. I can choose to pick a forum where I can connect with people emotionally and learn from that interaction in a positive way. But in a face to face situation I don't really know how to not just want to cry and feel ashamed of being me. And Nikki honestly admitted I would be on my own. I don't know what to DO with all this. He said he'll try to work on it like I have with his new needs, but it's all so confusing. It tangles up in my head with how does someone value you if they are only really there when it's easy or when the difficulty is on their side and they need you? This is a godawful time to come to this realization too. Nikki will be home soon and wants to talk about this and I don't even know how to verbalize any of this. That's why I wrote it down, maybe he'll just agree to read it and then ask me questions so that I can get some sort of internal sense of direction and what I actually WANT to make this better. I don't even know what is realistic and fair to ask for.

Oh there was only one fight when he put my one gray dress on the wrong side. It would have been okay but he tried to wear a patterned dress like a jumper over a competing patterned tshirt and my eyes wept.

We're already at that point Blue, I was giving my closet a hard cleaning out, and he grabbed up most of it. We have an arrangement that anything on the right of the divider (a very small section) is mine only, and the rest is a free for all, and he has no problem with his female wardrobe being a freefor all other than his comfy pajamas. Which aren't the kind I like and highly unlikely to be raided by me, as he is unlikely to want to wear mine. I like the shorts and short sleeve tshirt type, he went full on sleeves and long flannels. WE'll probably fall outta synch as one of the advantages of being a gm is he loses weight faster tahn me. *grumbles*

I will once I get confirmation from Nikki that the items will work with my hernia! I've had a few clothing surprised there, and with money being tight I want to have a better unbaised degree of certainty that I'll be able to wear it instead of putting it on once, OUCH< and tossing it in the closet. Well, at least there is the I can give it to Nikki option now until his weight loss way skyrockets past mine when that happens.

It is really easy to fool the brain through the eyes. Some of us are more susceptible than others, like when we were watching the movie The Saint I think it was with Val Kilmer, who was playing some kind of spy or something (this was a while ago) and kept having dramatically different looks, in some scenes I couldn't pick out where he was hiding in the crowd until he did something to draw the attention even though he was one of my favorite actors.

when you're browsing transgender oriented stores for your mate and suddenly are considering things for yourself too. Is this something like what Nikki feels shopping on the woman's websites? That this stuff is nice, I'm not the intended clientele, but dangit I want to wear some of this. Then I trip over my own social paranoia like I'm not supposed to take these items and wear them, they're not meant for me, and then I realize wow, that is a silly feeling if the whole idea of embracing this new adventure we're on is that it doesn't matter who the clothes were meant for, only how the person who wears them feels. Nikki is on an unholy quest to find me things he wants to see me in, after I (somewhat more timidly than I like to admit, behave dismorphia, embrace that Nikki finds me pretty and dress up for him) asked him if maybe the answer for my really awkward body shape and weight distribution might be found in these stores. It never even occured to me before this to look. I didn't close down Nikki's world, and for that he's opening up mine and maybe this won't help at all, but the possibility and looking at things is fun and good bonding with Nikki. He's also threatening to take up sewing and waved an unholy amount of scratchy-type lace at me that will make my skin go crazy...I think it's supposed to be motivation to work hard on finding better clothing with him. It also made me realize the last thing I ever sewed was my first wedding dress (made my own!) and how long ago that was. Talk about skill atrophy.

I see you, with all your strengths and flaws, and I understand, and I am so glad you are my friend. *Hugs*

HEhe...Bree and her ulterior motives! Hair be gone! Seriously, I hate Sweetest Day. First of all, ti's in the cold weather again. If we need big cultural romance holidays, can't we do them in the summer when there are so many romantic choices to do? Snorkeling, caving, picnicing, lounging in the pool or poolside, camping, grilling out under the stars, whatever. And when I first moved here I literally thought it was Swedish Day so I made Swedish Meatballs since everyone was asking me what I was going to do for my boyfriend at the time and I really didn't understand why I was expected to participate since Swedish was not part of my cultural or genetic makeup and I know very little about Sweden other than it's pretty in the pictures. And everyone laughed so hard at me. Grr. You're fabulous about making sure I can completely ignore that stupid fake holiday and I"m grateful for it. And um...let's be real, I had the ultimate Valentine's day that will be THE memory for that holiday for my entire life, what more can you really do for me?

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.

Thank you so much both of you! It's so confusing in some ways, and being attention deficit disorder, confusion is a strange thing for me. I have trouble with it. IN one sense I'm always slightly confused because I think differently in day to day decisions than people without the disorder and that ignites the stress component, similar I think to something trangender people feel when they realize they are out of step with themselves. Mine is external, but disorienting to me. My values aren't touched, but that creates a weird thing with me that big things are easier to handle in general and trying to decide what i want to eat for lunch is nearly a paralyzing issue that I face every day with Nikki as I'm an unfortunately picky eater who failed to overcome that and he just wants me to tell him what I want to eat and I can't. But conversely, I have spend so much of my life trying to avoid external confusion that it's hard to sort through so much of this and really understand as much as I'd like to and have to let time take it's course. Now the little paralytic decisions that i usually try to ignore to not make myself nuts have to be looked over and sorted out. And realizing I can't ask him to figure out and control his depression and learn to understand his disphoria and how ti's going to affect our lives if I'm not dealing with my dismophia and how it's affecting our lives, so I'm trying to work through both identifying his new (to me) needs and who he is and how to meet them, and also what mine really are under the dismorphia and what i need from him and how to balance the two disorders so that everyone is getting healthier. I truly believe I make this as much more complicated as i make it easier for him. LOL Steph, I think you are giving me WAY more credit than i deserve. I've been somewhat helpful to him in the arenas I'm good at, hair care, skin care(oh, I can never moan about my stupid skin's ability to flip out on me without warning enough), female hair removal for consideration(I'm SUPER excited, I've had him try a variety of things and last night's attempt he really seemed to like, GO VENUS RAZORS! I got it right!), emotional care, but I'm crap with dressing. In fact, I sorta turned mine over to NIkki. *hangs head in shame* I suck that bad at it. One of our conversations was prompted by my reading through forums and running into a 'I hate when cis girls waste having what I want so bad' threads, that sent me into a tailspin of omg I'm totally not the right kind of female for Nikki and he resents me and whatever that 'trying' is people say I"m not doing must be a real thing and he had to calm me down from that. I'm one of those quit shaving years ago no makeup I just wanna be comfy types of girls, I fess up. Shopping pokes my dismorphia hard, and the minute I open up a store online or walk into one I immediately just want to get the bare minimum I need because my brain tells me nothing I do will make me look appealing and just grab and get out of here RIGHT NOW. I'm working hard on that, and asking Nikki to take over and shop with me both so that I can 'shadow' for him (I hate that beard term!) and so he can guide me and give objective appearance improvement. Since I have no self-judgement in this arena, turning to Nikki and actually wearing the 'look at me' clothes he likes instead of trying to be invisible is a huge break through for me. I do rock a wicked understanding of tights thought apparently. And I'm pushing past my natural comfort zones, I will NEVER ask Nikki to face his and not do the same for him. Now this rower better do something about the awkward shape of my thighs as I slowly shrink so I can wear thigh highs like his, he expressed a desire to see that. I have a really weird body shape that nothing clothing wise works exactly like it's supposed to, and it's garter belts or thigh highs around my ankles and I fall on my face for me. They stay on him! He has better legs.

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.

LOL Nikki told me I act like a turtle for so long I have literally started to think of myself as one and went with it. : ) And of course, it doesn't hurt that there is literally an entire islands worth of turtle collectiables all over the house any time I need votes on things. *winks*

Depends on what your area does to you for spring. We get blizzards in April and occasionally May becuase Ohio is a bizarre state.

That dress looks amazing on you! I am completely blown away by how pretty. *Hugs* I love the black tights going with it too.

Yeah, I'm trying to learn to express my thoughts without losing people while respecting Nikki's need for privacy in this. I'm SO not good at cloak and dagger, if I got sucked into one of those dumb movies where I had to do spy stuff to save the world for no apparent reason, ya'll would need to make peace with whatever you feelings on the afterlife or end of existence and at least hope I messed it all up fast cuz there won't be a nifty deus ex machina last minute fix my poor skills magic movie moment! M is closer to me, and L is closer to Nikki, but both are friends to us both. Just personalities fit better to one or the other. It's actually a part of a bigger group of about 20 people, but Nikki gave me a list of five that he's comfortable knowing, so it's J, M, L, N, and C in my lexicon. which is going to mess ME up becuase C's nickname I use starts with an N. LOL Now we're lounging eating V-day Candy. Nikki gave me a Twix bar. I love Twix bars.

Okay, it was worth seeing, Colossus was awesome. I love Colossus. Nikki enjoyed it, score!

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.

I am completely l learning about things I suppressed in opening these boxes with Nikki. I am totally becoming a better Bree because I have grown so much since my past. Sometimes I have articulation problems. When I say I earned my shames, that is acceptance, and growth from it. My natural tendency is to hide it all and present a shiny Bree that isn't real. I worked hard to overcome it. But I don't wallow in it either. I don't usually think about these things, but it's all connected orginacally in my head as I"m learning to navigate and love the new. Nikki's new life experiences (new to me, as in first time they are being shared with me, not new to him, I understand this) touches pieces of my life I never exampled A while back we were in our living room chilling out on a winters day enjoying being wrapped in furry microblankets and warm. I think it was a weekend, so total relaxation mode was kicked in. I was surfing the web, I think Nikki was embroiled in a movie while he tinkered with some 3d art. I opened my Facebook, and freaked the fuck out entirely. My ex-husband was trying to friend me. Which, on it's surface, all the normal emotions of someone who hit you and threatened bodily harm and to steal your child suddenly intruding in your life was there, but something was off. I couldn't define it, something was wrong with my reaction to it. Working with Nikki made me understand it. Just as the relationship with him has altered my relationship with sex, it has altered my relationships with a lot of thigns, including what I carry actively around in my head. I had let a lot of it go and never known it. I stopped thinking about being hit every time I disagreed with him. I learned relationships can be safe. I never unlearned they can hurt you badly, but I learned you can be totally safe in them too. And that is what I was acting on for two decades. I had subconsciouly packed away the past because I didn't need it to function anymore. And it wasn't until now when we're talking, and we do a one says something, and the other tells them what they hear that I even realized this. And that's what was off about him intruding and my feelings. I was spiraling of course, but the comfort wasn't working because I wasn't working on the right fear. I stopped being scared of him a long time ago. I had taken the time to learn how to kill a man with nothing but my fingers through his eyes if I ever needed to. I understand even as a weaker person I have chances to defend myself. I'd worked through all that. but I had a deep seated fear of dragging all that baggage back into my life after I conquered it, and that was what I needed to address. Nikki and I both were tryign to address what we logically thought was a fear of the person himself. But i was actually scared of me destroying everything I worked for. I am becoming the best Bree there is, the one I used to wish I could be. I take both your advice seriously to heart, and doing my very best to keep shining. Nikki knows the story, and I"ll tell here. I came here to talk and interact and expand my humanity, I have no need to do my weird protective behaviors anymore. At the end, when he realized he was losing his grip on me despite the violence and threats to bodily harm people and steal the offspring, I was slipping away, losing my fear, and neither of us was going to change that. So he tried a new route, and swallowed ALL of my mom's medications. He timed it so I would be arriving home shortly after. I was out alone, my mother and my son were also out together. As expected, I arrived home, and he told me what he did. With the whole manipulation hoopla of I can't live without you. But the actual effect on me was not what he was trying to achieve. For the first time in my life, years of social training, and deliberate nurturing of the empathy skills I"d learned....stopped. I looked at him on the floor, and thought about what I had looked like bleeding on the floor. I thought about how I'd looked on the floor after he threatened to hurt people and showed me a gun. I thought about the fact that the only thing I had touched in that bathroom (it was my mom's that I rarely used, I used my own in the back of the apartment) was the door handle. I knew for fact I'd never handled any of the medication. And I backed out of the room, I never even said a word. And I closed the door, and I went into the living room and I turned on the television. I knew i had just decided that if he lived or died, it had nothing to do with me. I was not going to save him. I would not stop him if he came out to phone to save himself, but I wasn't going to save him. Until that day I had no idea I would back away from a person like that. I had interrupted suicides before, and done everything I could to save them. Teenagehood is hard, I suspect you all know how hard better than me. Back then I didn't understand why anyone would want to die. But he took those pills himself, and I wasn't going to do it for him. The only reason I picked up the phone and made the 911 call is my mom arrived with my son, and I had to save my son. Even though it mean nearly getting killed later, I made the right choice for the right reason, that wasn't something I wanted to scar my baby, being in the house with his dying father. And I hated myself for it for a long time until I faced it and worked through it. I was scared of myself. It made me question my ability to be a mother if I didn't value all life like I thought I did. That is the flat unvarnished truth. There is shame in that that for a moment, I put aside all my hard work. Not shame because society would tell me that was a horrible thing to do, but because it went against what <b>I</b> believe. What I'd worked for. And taught me that if I had a potential to be dangerous, and I took that seriously and worked hard. SOme lines, even if you do change your mind at the end, are just dangerous to cross. But through my life i learned facing these lines, sharing them with people who want to know me, reinforces what I want to be. Which is better than that. I can't undo that moment, I don't know what I would do put back in it. I am not that person anymore. I can't even really emotionally connect with the memory of why i made what choices anymore. But I can use that memory to always remind myself that being awesome Bree isn't free, and I have to be careful with the things in my head because if I'm not things could go really wrong. I could harm someone, probably not physically, I don't have a sadism part to my personality, but by a careless word or thoughtless action that I am prone to. So I was really careful and took that time to self-sort because I love Nikki so much I don't ever want to be that unshiny with him. He has never done anything but love me even when he made choices that weren't what I preferred. But it also makes me hard to know how shame works in him. He didn't ask for that creature to do that to him. So I have to remind myself emotion is not the same. Shame for me is a completely different place than for him. Conceptually and practically. His instinct was to hide it, mine was to tell him and get forgiveness and confirmation that I did improve, get better, and earned my self-value. It's only real if you earn it. SO I have to poke at things to figure out when I'm projecting my life understanding trying to follow what he tells me or not, does that make any sense?

Emma, I think being older when I landed physically in harms way helped so much in being able to tell people what asshat husband was doing to me at the time. I sorta had to learn the hard way, trying to sort between Grandpa's healthy teaches and messages and my parents really unhealthy ones, and I let myself into a really dangerous situation. But being an adult, albeit a very young one at the ages of 19 to 21, I had some sort of ability to separate what was being done to me from deserving it. I don't know where that goes for either of them, being children at the time who so often internalize the blame for everything. How do you stop carrying that inside? I don't know. Maybe it's impossible, but I believe Nikki can learn to come out of his pain past it, because he's so amazing. I just think it will be a long slow process. Listening to them tonight really makes me wonder what I would have turned into if I hadn't had my normal relatives to counteract the really bad ones. How would that interact with my sociopathic leanings, which never developed into a full blown lack of feeling/empathy because Grandpa worked so hard to connect me to the world and life and the value of others? Where would I be today? I don't think I would have done as well as they did. I gained my strength later, and if I had hit that wall at a younger age i doubt I would have overcome as far as they have. I was really lucky despite all the bad, and this was a nice reminder to appreciate that. Remember, we hate leukemia. It stole the last 20 or so years of my grandpa's life and our shared times. He spoke of making a conscious decision not to self-medicate all of it away when he was young, and how glad he is that he was able to build what we have together despite all that inside. He's so much stronger than me in many ways, and I"m stronger in others, and together we take on the world. But I completely awe at his strengths and courage. I hope whatever he chooses to do in the future to heal, he learns what he needs and how to give himself whatever it is he needs to make his life as wonderful as he deserves. I do all I can to help him achieve that, but me alone will never be enough. I know that too. Just like I have to stand up on my own when he holds his hand out to me, my legs still have to make the effort to lift me back up when he pulls when life knocks him down. But my hand is there for him always. I really loved that she had a fully balanced perspective, and wasn't shy about asking how the other felt about our feelings. What are your limits in this Bree? Do her limits make you feel limited? sort of talk. And she knows my strengths and flaws and was able to be really specific asking if I was doing certain behaviors that could make this a problem, and I think was fairly surprised to learn I hadn't been. I'd been working on being a better turtle for a while before I started this new phase of our life. And this was a stark reminder of the difference between shame pushed on you by life, and shame from things you actively chose to do. My worst shame moment was a choice I made that was horrible, and i knew it was horrible, but I was going to do it anyway until I was interrupted. But there is a realization I had that choice, and made it. This that they and you carry is so different, none of you had choices. And that makes my heart bleed for all of you, to have that much pain and you never earned it like me.

Thank you everyone! We're home safe and sound (My feet are frozen, it snowed and I wore heels). Actually, I wore a stupid outfit for the weather entirely but it's was saying no to and tackling my dismophic desire to be invisible and in solidarity with Nikki facing his fears I put on an outfit he loves on me and am wearing my black dress with really bright magenta look at me tights. He was amused that I am as willing to work on getting my things under control as I am supportive of him doing. Doing it together make the work easier! He was also highly amused that we share the tights. LOL I don't ask him to get better and refuse to get better for him. Nikki is well, and I think opening up and talking about everything with her made him realize, sadly, how MANY people out there share their story. That they're not alone, and while they know they didn't deserve that, there is something to having a secret shame hidden from self and others that hurts inside. She pointed out some things that I need to work on to continue improving things as a couple and i think I took them more seriously than Nikki. LOL But he deserves my best, so I'm going to try to overcome a lifetime of communication trends and learn new ones. It can't be any worse than my attempts at trying to type like a human. She was also quite frank in telling him he has to decide for himself how far he wants to open the box, and that it's possible to reclaim the missing memories if he feels like he can't resolve it without facing it (some people need that) and that it also possible to resolve it without ever visiting it (some people need to never look) and to really focus on his feelings with that while in therapy. Very sage advice. He's feeling good about it, maybe he'll blog. Talking about his emotions has always been hard, but he's doing better and I think liking it. Or he's humoring a crazy wife. Nikki seems like some of the internal pressure valve opened up and he was relaxed on the way home, and I think is going to strait to bed when he gets out of the bathroom since he works stupidly early in the morning tomorrow. He told me on the way home when we were talking about how lucky we were to find this board that the reason it works here for him as well as for me is the lack of pressure on him to transition, something he decided for himself he's not ready to do feeling this uncertain about himself and just starting exploring the new possibilities. Hearing him say it wasn't about me and my idiot fears was a big relief. I don't want to hold him back. And the diverse voices and life choices here gives us both a wide variety of stories and examples. And the love and respect and kindness has been tremendous. This is the most amazing place. She did tell us that Columbus has more of a vibrant going out type scene than we get here, and will ask around for places for me. It's not that much further out, and it would be fun to have her join us on hangout vs date nights. So we're expanding our considerations. It's further, but it's not like we don't go there to visit people now. And i like the road trip feel to going there. It's a nice mindset. And I got Boston Market Chicken. Twice in two weeks, SCORE!

So today is kind of a scary day. Were supposed to meet up with a mutual friend who has agreed to talk to Nikki about her childhood abuse, since they suffered similar pain. I"m terrified for Nikki. He's already stressy and nervous, and this will be the first time he's ever going to try talking to someone more than a brief "this happened" sort of thing. He's doing this form himself, not for me, not for any advice, but because he wants to sit face to face with another human that shares his life experience. He didn't want to wait until he gets in with the therapist. I asked them to decide if I should be there or not, and they both requested I do so because I give good hugs. It has been a long time since I sat in on a conversation like this. And I'm scared for how Nikki feels and wll feel in a few hours. And I want to find the person that did this to him and do things I won't get graphic about here. I do have a rage for this faceless person that hurt baby Nikki. And a general one for all people who harm others. It really sucks that my best love and support, while important, can't really help him feel better, he has to experience this for himself to work through is feelings. I guess this is where healing begins, whether you talk to a professional, spouse, or another survivor. You have to let it hurt and face it before it gets better, I know that, but I have this unrealistic urge to somehow magically make it all better for Nikki and am frustrated that i can't. I think he feels a similar frustration when I'm broken and on the floor in a mess and he can't fix it. But I can't protect him from this, I can only love on him and let him know he's not alone. Nikki is very much is a problem solver, he wants to always 'fix' whatever is wrong right then, and sometimes we have problems communicating on things that can't be fixed, only lived through. I honestly feel like that contributed into his fear to talk to me. Because he didn't know how to 'fix' either his feelings or our day to day life to work with them. That is part of why I had so MUCH confusion when I first found out, his relations to me and behaviors are so typically waht I understood to be masculine(so much so I really had to learn to understand that cleaning my windows wasn't a whim, but literally his way of "I love you, and I'm showing you by doing this thing that will make you happy, there was a time when I wondered if I was some kind of living sex doll for him and if he remembered I was actually here, but once I figured it out I was floored by the sheer avalanche of ways he showered love on me), but I absolutely believed him when tells me that he feels like he's supposed to be a woman and the confusions he has going on inside, so I went into a crazy spiral of just confusion. I asked him if someone let him go back to the day before I found out, would he sanitize the journal entries I stumbled into, or would he let it play out? He thought hard, and said he would go back and do neither, but instead do what he should have and talked to me(That was his words, not mine that he should have). So I did get he answer I was looking for, he IS happier and this IS what he wants, for me to know and have been able to make my choices on how this works for me and have the chance to try to live up to his wants and needs from me. Going forward I think we are stronger. I think we have learned to talk better to each other, talk more completely to each other, and to hear each others actual voice instead of echoes of our own issues in our heads. We have a good foundation for a therapist to work with! LOL We have also made a tentative plan ever fifth anniversary to take a staycation and do intensive marital examination like we did after this, because keeping better behaviors is a lifelong process and commitment to earning them through work and communication. Apparently before I found out, this was a dip in and out thing and Nikki didn't really self-examine all that closely, but my need to understand helped him focus and find some answers in himself to know what he feels and wants. Nikki has always been very focused on doing whatever it took to make me happy, in big and small things. So I suppose honestly beforehand really digging into his distress and confusion would have presented a conflict with that desire, but now that I know and <b>I</b> needed that to regain my footing and security, it became much easier for him to do. He told me me that me knowing and asking and researching and sharing what I see both the positives and negatives, helped him start to come to terms with everything in himself instead of being a nebulous cloud. So we're learning together, and I like that. I think he likes that. Now we just have to get through today, and through the work he'll have to do in therapy to conquer his depression and regain his joy in life. I wish for him to feel as much joy in himself and his life as he tells me he feels in having my love and how hard I work to make him happy to. Today's good mindset: Scary things are okay. Overcoming is what brings health, happiness, and security. Today's Fear: Oh my god what is this going to do to my Nikki.

The detail on those is lovely and intricate! They are very beautiful!

Good days are things we can hold onto and hug, I hope you collect them in a great big pile the wrap yourself in!

Huge hugs, and there is NOTHING blah about overcoming an issue like that, that takes incredible strength and courage to overcome. He absolutely should be proud, and I'm proud to be able to cheer both of you onward!

I am so cold. My job is cheap with the heat, and I sit by a window. And I"m in the middle of a mass of office equipment, so a space heater is not practical. So I'm freezing cold, struggling with the four new steps they decided to add to an overly complicated invoicing process on a day when apparently the pricing dude decided not to deal with it so I have two weeks backed up. Stressed out. SO...Nikki had mentioned girl mode today and playing with the clothing and the forms, so I told him to take selfies for me and show them to me after work so I had something to think about besides the rest of my office trying to kill me by death from a thousand paper cuts. I do like the pictures, but he looks so serious. I think I bring more out in him than he does by himself, when I took photos the other night I got emotion all over the place from him in them and he was really into it. So now I'm really considering what that means, and what i come up with is make Nikki feel safe and free in either mode. He opens up when I'm around, always has in boy mode before I knew too compared to how he is when I'm not there. Our freinds at the summer retreat used to tell me that when I went down to the lake with E to swim Nikki would quiet up and bury himself in a book or videos, it took a few years before that stopped happening and he got more comfortable in this group. But even one on one apparently I bring out the best in him. And that is the best thing ever for a life partner to be able to do for each other. Now he's wrapped up in the new PJ"s we picked up from WomanWithin and I'm wrapped up in my new jacquard wrap, but the real reason I"m warm is Nikki loves me and needs me.