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Briannah

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  1. Briannah
    So it's crazy busy season at Nikki's job and he hasn't had a day off in weeks.  He MIGHT get one day next weekend, but it's also equally possible he'll work five weeks strait with no days off until the Christmas shutdown for the eve and day.  And while he's upbeat about it, all the overtime is paying for our next cruise this spring for his birthday and his dad and stepmom are going (I love his dad, his dad is awesome.  His stepmother stresses me out, shes a nice person overall, but she gets randomly weird without warning and creates really awkward and unpleasant moments out of nowhere and talks in a kindergarten singsong voice ALL the time).  So that keeps him going.
    And in an effort to make his home time as great as I can, I spent an hour in the kitchen working on an awesome lunch.  I pan fried some boneless chicken in butter, onions, and garlic, then cut it up and tossed it with four cheese tortellini and dressed it with a roasted garlic alfredo sauce after I added some extra carmelized garlic and onions to the sauce, all the while baking some fresh bread.  I laid it all out on the table so he'd see it the minute he got him, and I went to the bathroom.  For a minute.  And when I came out...you got it...my miscreant thieving pooch was standing on a chair helping herself to our lunch.  And she absolutely knew better, the minute she saw me she immediately went into the guilty phase.  *headdesk*  So we went out and had a nice lunch, but all that effort.  At least there didn't seem to be enough onion to make her ill, onions are not healthy for dogs and I don't let her eat them.  It's impossible to watch this dog 24/7, she gets into things.  Two years ago there was an emergency vet run after she at THREE POUNDS of Christmas cookies.  Her stomach was SO distended she couldn't stand up when I got home, and did she stop eating them at some point?  No, she ate til they were gone and she couldn't stand up.  *shakes her head*   She didn't get to the bread, so we ate that for a snakc later, and I saved a bunch and sliced it up and am drying it out tonight to make french toast tomorrow. 
    And...I was so mad.  I didn't do anything about it but whine a bit, but sometimes the small things just get to you, ya know?  People are always saying don't sweat the small stuff, but sometimes it's just about how you feel inside and not about the actual trigger of those feelings.  Nikki gets me however and didn't try to put down my frustrations or minimize the annoyance while focusing on figuring out what we wanted to do now that lunch was gone.  He has learned a LOT in therapy, and we have a connection better than we ever had before.  And he just lets me be me, even when it's irrational and disproportionate as long as it's not manifesting in a way that would harm someone.  They say people can't change, but the reality is we change every day.  Sometimes a lot, sometimes a little.  And when we spend an effort to change together, the pay off is huge.
    We set a game day for Thursdays to just do something fun, connect in a fun way with no stress.  Mondays we have a conversation slot for anything that is on our minds, in a completely safe zone.  Anything can be said, and nothing is left inside festering.  Saturdays are hobby days, where I join Nikki for movies (he's way into movies, I'm not, but I bring whatever I want into the living room and work on it while watching the movie with him, compromise between my ability to just sit and watch something that makes my add crazy and his enjoyment of it).  And it sounds so silly, and it did sound silly even to me when I came up with the plan.  But...it's been several months now, and it's working.  We don't stick strictly to the schedule, sometimes the talks are Tuesday for example and moves are Sunday, but they get done every week regardless of what day.  It flies against the grain of everything I had been taught by my family about how marriage works, and I was hesitant to bring it up to Nikki, but he and I were talking about it the other day and he loves it.  He doesn't always think to tell me things on his mind in the bustle of our day to day live, so cuddling up on the couch with a hot chocolate for talk time focuses him on letting me in, and gets me to open up a lot more than I do normally when I'm in the mulling it over phase.  And he can poke at the add and dysmorphia in that setting without freaking me out. 
    Things can be worked out.  But only if you let yourself feel your feelings.  I guess my moral of the day to myself is it's okay to be stupidly angry that my silly grand romantic dramatic plan & presentation were ruined.  It's not about the dog behaving badly, or the actual food, but about all the effort I put into it and expectation of a romantic lunch time and making Nikki happy that got ruined.  It's okay to be mad. 
    It also got stupidly cold here, so I caved and gave Nikki the thermal underwear and parka jacket I got as Xmas presents.  His old one was ratty and he's never liked shopping for boring old necessities.  He'll shop til the end of time for cool tshirts or dresses, but getting him to spend five minutes replacing worn jackets, socks, underwear, etc and it's like I just kicked his pooch.  LOL  I felt bad watching him freeze when I knew I had these warm things hidden away.  I'll have to get something else for under the tree now.  And it really did get stupidly, abruptly cold.  It's snowing.  And it was raining earlier, so I'm very happy today that I don't have to go to work and deal with the ice sheet hiding under the light powder dusting.   I need to make a list of staples I want to stock up so if we get any bad storms we can afford not to care about grocery shopping for a week or so. 
  2. Briannah
    There are some broad tendency (probably from social upbringing) differences between men and women.  And one of those differences is staring at me from catching up on Deadly women (and other forensic shows, I have some weird obsession with forensics, I don't even know why).  This is in regard to premeditated murder, not heat of the moment kind where everyone male or female has just lost their minds for a minute.
    When a guy is going to kill you, most of the time he just does it, and fairly quickly upon deciding it has to be done.  When a woman is going to kill you, it reaches some insane levels of crazy detail planning and some really long term patience.  And we tend to like poisons in general.  Sometimes accidents, but we seem to have picked that up from the guys who often try to use accidents to cover it up and in a general sweep (or at least what cases they decided to feature) we really like poison.  Not suprising I guess, we know a lot about them in our day to day role as keepers of the house.  Very few women don''t know the dangers of the household chemicals and pest controls we use.
    Why do they still get caught?  Because male and female murderers share a similar thought processes again; most of them don't think or plan beyond the actual murder to what to do with the body and evidence. 
    I'll just not kill anyone and make my life easier both without all the time and mental effort required to plan and then physical effort to carry out and clean up and the jail part. 
    Still cold ridden, but Nikki fed me chicken soup, I have my plush turtle, my favorite Halloween microfiber blanket, this cushy recliner, my Ipad, and more episodes of Deadly Women to entertain me while my head feels like it weights a few extra tons.  I think I'll make it.   
    Tangent - this is why that commercial for the flu shot is so stupid.  They keep showing this commercial showing people missing out on life moments because they are sick, and they imply that if they had their flue shot it wouldn't have happened.  So while hopefully they got the flu strains in the shot right this year and I won't get the flu (because I got the real influenza a couple of years ago, not the stomach 'flu' or heavy cold 'flu' people associate with the word and I heartily respect flu now, and now understand why it can kill people) it doesn't save you from other ailments.  Colds, strep throat, GI infections, etc.   In other words, flu shot taken, but plush Mr. Turtle has job security anyway.   Don't show us a birthday party with a woman who looks like she has a cold, advertise how many people actually died of it last year (because they did).  I totally respect death statistics when considering if I should get a immunization.
    Get your immunizations folks, let's all live!
  3. Briannah
    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.
  4. Briannah
    I keep seeing in group after group a demand to reject labels.  And I can't support it. 
    History has made me really wary of this idea.  In Europe, most people couldn't read.  It wasn't just the expense of books, it was a choice by their leaders that they should not.  And the spread of literacy across Europe did indeed change everything, and directly influenced the various revolutions.  In America, very few slaves were allowed to learn to read and write, only those that their masters deemed required to know to do the work that the masters didn't want to.  And were punished if they shared.  Illiteracy is a chain.  They didn't understand why it worked the way it did back then I'm pretty sure.  One doesn't have to know why a thing works to apply the knowledge, the observance of a result to pattern is enough to make it a behavior that is socially taught to our children.
    It works because there is a correlation between words and thought.  Literally, the more words you have, the deeper you can form your thoughts around anything.  This in no way implies that those with very limited vocabularies are in any way stupid, there are several factors that determine true intelligence, but if you had two brains with identical iq's (the ability to learn knowledge) and identical abilities to apply that knowledge, but a vast difference in the amount of words each was exposed to and learned, the one with more will be very much further ahead in terms of the complexity of the mental work.  It's how our brains work.  The more words we learn, the more concepts we have.  And because our brains are processors, that means the  more new concepts we can get to because we aren't working out the base concepts to have the thoughts.  It doesn't matter the language, the more words a speaker knows in his or her actual language the more she can do mentally.   This concept that people who don't speak english in our country are too stupid is idiotic.  That is an entirely separate brain issue. 
    So labels are concepts.  Where my life experience has led me to conclude we get into trouble with them isn't their existance, but how we use them.  They are a thing.  A label is a word with a specific ascribed complex meaning.  Organic - both a word in scientific terms, and a also a label to the health conscious counter with a related but separate meaning for example. (Which is also how it gets financially abused, when some marketers use one term to mean the other, example no hormones or anything but seed fed to the chicken, and the buyer conflates the meanings to be the ethical organic free range, which the marketer KNOWS and hides that free range is not this chicken's life).  Anything can be abused. 
    Labels can be abused on a mass or micro basis.  There are well known ones that send everyone into an instant rage.  I don't need to cite examples.  Their entire intended meaning is to cause harm to a group or individual.  However, that is not the inherent use of labels.  The inherent use is to convey complex meanings quickly, so that you can get on with the deeper concept you are trying to convey. 
    I think socially we have gotten away from communication and real literacy(exposure to a great many written words, there are now literally people who have a great deal of trouble communicating in non-'leet' speak for example).  We have started to demonize it, villify it, and abandon it.  I have seen people who can only type in 'leet' openly mocking the literate on an almost daily basis now for not understanding the world and being part of the 'advancement and change'.  And this movement to reject these things is a mistake.  These are the things that help us make the great leaps, help narrow the gap between the upper and lower classes, and help provide the famed American 'social mobility'.  Which is absolutely dying, we are slowly moving back to a 'lord and peasant' reality financially and socially.  And a big part of that is someone introduced this counter culture anti-word movement.  I don't know if it was done in all earnest good motivation at the start.  Look at the harm of the n word for example!  And these other ones!  Labels are bad!    And as I said, some are.  And some that are used every day that aren't culturally horrifying are also, like stupid(look at case studies of the damage it does to children being raised constantly told how stupid they are), ugly(there's a reason plastic surgery is a HUGE moneymaker), fat (think how harmful this is to our young people who are average size and weight and how often this leads to severe eating disorders).  Now, realize that kind, smart, generous, motivated, helpful, etc. are all also labels.  Transman or transwoman is a label, just like the tword. 
    Label's aren't bad.  It's what we DO with the labels that matter.  Accepting new labels and meanings is also critical to our knowledge and progress as a society.  Example - I often seen the statement "We need to do away with the gender binary and create a society in which all genders are acknowledged and respected'.  This requires words for all those genders.  People can't acknowledge or respect what they don't understand or conceptualize. 
    We need to expand our lingual base.  We need to stop being afraid of words, and start taking responsibility for the use of them.  Does the label political correctness mean anything to anyone reading this post?  Really think about what it means.  It's a way to sneer at having manners.  To sneer at treating people with respect.  Example: requiring people to say learning disabled instead of retarded.  One has a degree of respect and lack of insult the other doesn't.  African American instead of black.  African american has a connotation of a person who is of african ethical/cultural descent.  Black has a very complicated, often dehumanizing history.  I don't need to highlight the Transperson vs. xxx, but same effect.  When did treating people with basic respect and decency get reduced to a sneering 'have to be all politically correct now'?  When the majority solidarity in how to treat others started to disintegrate.  When I as a white, cis citizen tell someone who thinks any of the ethnical or social minorities in my country are not human that they are beneath me knowing and horrible people.  IT's a way out of the responsibility of their behavior to others, by trying to put the blame on me for expecting them to treat other human beings like...human beings.
    We need more labels, and we need the understanding of what they are, and that a label does NOT limit our growth ever unless we let them, either personal or social, it's a building block to the next growth.  We need to increase our understanding of how words affect the human brain and psychology.  Language is not just a convenience, it literally effects brain development just as brain development effects language, ti's symbiotic.  Look at the studies done on feral human children found who were raised without contact or language.  Every culture in the world has a language, right down to the most isolated pockets of people in the Amazon who are largely unaware of what the rest of us are doing.  It's an important part in our development.  It terrifies me to realize how common, and how insidious, this call to voluntarily restrict our own thinking and expression is becoming.  If a label makes people uncomfortable, we need to define why.  Some individual labels DO need to be put away.  But a great many more need to lead to a set of new ones to give greater cultural understanding to the complexity of the human condition and increase awareness of those conditions so they can be recognized and normalized into our society.
    This is why I will never agree with the people who say we need to do away with labels.  I feel we need to embrace them, understand them, and use them to reach greater heights in science, math, art, social equality, and technological advancements.
    Embrace new words.  Embrace new thinking.  Be aware of the effect of your words on others, and their words on you. 
  5. Briannah
    Feel free to ignore me, I'm just venting to try not to explode.  I'm super frustrated as we're so close to escaping my froot loopy idea to stay with my mom (man, I moved back into my awful childhood, what was I thinking that this would work out okay???) and it feels like everyone is trying to stop me. 
    First Nikki got mad at me: my fault, and sorta not my fault, I was trying to do research, I didn't realize any mortgage brokers were going to CALL HIM I thought I was just gathering intel or I would have told him what I was up to, he was blindsided and annoyed.   I wasn't trying to jumpstart anything, but I did.  Just like we bought the first house by accident, we sorta started on this path again by accident.  But once he got over the shock of what I was up to, and I was able to talk it out with him about having had the talks at work to make sure they are keeping me, getting made formally a full time actual employee, and making sure my income and position are secure, and running the numbers, I realized we COULD afford the second mortgage for cheaper than the apartment we were trying to find that would take fat pooch.  (most of them have a weight limit of 35 pounds, at her skinniest my poochie is 42 pounds).  And can I just say landlords, crazy laziness makes you look like froot loops, the 35 to 50 pound cat limits are nuts.  What do you think we have, cougars?  So Nikki got on board faster than I did and I was the one researching the option.  Then I got panicky and Nikki had to gently shove me back into the mindset that we're going to do this.  And, of course, I had to put my 20th anniversary budget into the downpayment instead.  So if we don't sell other house, no anniversary glory for me, I'll just try to move my expectations to the 25th.  That's a big milestone too.  
    Then there was the actual house hunting, the ups and downs of trying to match desire to budgets. That sucked.  And of course I fall for one higher than we wanted, but still affordable and cheaper monthly than the apartment we were looking at.  But she fits my criteria (two bathrooms, nice kitchen cuz since we started dash living has mattered more and more), room for my pool, and lots of room, its' big) and Nikki's criteria (mostly move in ready, nice yard, older architecture, central air), and in our target chosen dream town we wanted to go to on a lovely street.  
    Then we made the offer, on the same day that someone else did!  Some jerk bid on my house!  And I went into a tailspin of this isn't going to happen and trying to divorce myself from my emotional attachment to it, only to get it.  LOL  
    Then there was a long wait for inspections, vacations, appraisals, and some sort of unreasonably long wait for the title agency to do thier thing that had the seller,  us, the realtor, and our lender all cranky about the hold up. 
    NOW there is some wibbling with the underwriters about the electricity in the living room.  I've lived iwth the sockets not working in my current house forever, why in hell would this be a dealbreaker for me now?  *cranky*  So I sent the home inspection that says it does, but there is a problem with teh elctrical box, with the seller is fixing, so I probably now have to wait for the realter to get a statement from the electrician before I can close and move.  
    I just want to go.  Living here is sucking out my soul, and as  usual here is the only place I can admit that.  I probably need to go back into therapy once we're down to one mortgage because I am so not okay in my head, and I've go SO far backwards inside.  I can't even tell anyone with a connection closer than the other side of the internet that I'm not okay, which is old me and hasn't been a problem for ages for me.  Nikki has no idea how bad it is in my head, and I can't make myself say it.  And writing even here is scary because that stupid little voice that is out to get us in our heads is all "Emma knows your phone number, you can end up having to talk about this voice to voice".  Even though I rationally know Emma would ask first.  
    I hope moving will make it better.  Nikki will be massively happy.  Nikki wants less commute, girl time, and less asthma problems for me (no carpet in the new house, carpet all over here).  I just want time to rebuild myself into who I actually made myself without the influence of my family and moving back into those influences.  I need out, I think I'm slowly imploding.  

    How much longer can it take to get the green light to move really?   When did I lose everything inside I worked so hard to gain?  
    It's a weird time in my head, because I'm gaining a sense of self-worth through my job I've never had before, while reinforcing all the things that made sure I never had one at home at the same time.  I'm back and forth between really happy and really miserable.  
    In other words, life is happening I guess.
  6. Briannah
    So the more I read, the more I see a LOT of splintering and unkindness between the different groups under the big group umbrella.  It makes me sad.  All the groups under this umbrella are small population wise, logic dictates to me that banding together would be the way to go.  Rights for everyone, equality for everyone!  But instead there seems to be conflict everywhere.  Large groups of gay and lesbian hating each other, large groups of both of them hating trans people, a lot of transgender people looking down on crossdressers who are only cd, the asexuals feel like everyone hates them, everyone wanting to erase the bisexuals and force them into a choice, and other conflicts I don't even know about.  
    I think it really surprises me in particular with this umbrella because they all share the common theme of we deserve acceptance and normalcy.  With that mindset, why on earth would people deny others the same thing?  I know it happens.  I see it in my reading, I've seen it in the male-female social power dynamic.  There are a lot of feminists who do cross the line into Feminazi territory, who can't tell the difference between wanting to be equal and wanting to replace men as the group in power. 
    Why doesn't the struggle to make the world a place that just accepts people unite us?  If it can't, does that mean something?  Does it mean our species in it's development of intellect and social behaviors isn't ready to give up the division of groups and the need to feel our group is right other groups are wrong?  Are we just not developed enough in brain power to overcome that self-interest only on a mass scale?  How much do we as a species NEED the external validation of others? 
    And if we can't even do this on a smaller scale of people with alternative to the binary 'norms' (Male-female, gay-strait, mono-poly, etc.) then how can we ever hope as a species to overcome the cultural, racial, and religious divides and learn to exist peacefully and gracefully together if we can't even handle people making personal choices in their lives?  How far could mankind GO if we stopped trying to kill each other, control each other, and really learned to make peace between all the nations?  But we can't even manage it inside our individual nations. 
    Sometimes it feels to me like the ENTIRE PLANET just collectively decided to ignore the truth that we're all human beings on the same planet and should be working together.  And yes, I have fallen into that trap too.  Especially when feeling threatened.  It's an easy trap. 
    I wonder if Rodney King knew how really profound his "why can't we just get along" really was.
  7. Briannah

    Winter's Day

    By Briannah,

    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. 
  8. Briannah
    So I watched about a billion youtube videos about doing the fairly simply, layered haircut I favor yourself.  And it is actually fairly idiot proof, you basically let your head do the work for you.  Ponytail it all at your forehead instead of your crown, cut teh ponytail at the desired length, and take the band out.  Voila.  The natural spaces on your head arrange the hair at different lengths as it takes further from the nap to your forehead than mid-head and crown, etc. etc.  It's faster, no awkward descriptions and miscommunications, and best of all, no product hard sell.  There is nothing a the salon I can't get cheaper elsewhere.  And my hair is long enough that if it doesn't work out for my texture(you never know, salon or at home really, what a particular cut will do with your individual hair I have learned the hard way, I look like a weird porcupine with some kinda bent quill birth defect if I try to rock the really short hair) I can go in and get the layered bob I was thinking of.  I'm going to cut it longer than I was thinking I would like it to see how it looks first, and then I can always do it a second time if it works for me.  Then I have to redye it green, it's fading into blond really fast now.
    What is everyone else doing with their hair? 
  9. Briannah
    So much for best laid plans.  Thanks to a sick cat spewing over the ENTIRE staircase top to bottom, Nikki and I had a quick meeting to figure out how best to deal with this mess, and the staircase IS on the renovation list...so... RENOVATIONS HAVE BEGUN!  I repeat, they have begun! This is not a drill!  Grab your emergency breathing masks!  *laughing*  At this point it's easier to just start early and toss the carpet than to clean that up, poor cat really didn't have a good night last night.  The vet thinks it's lingering damage from his starvation period, he's never been quite 'right', and while all cats are puke machines to some extent or another, this one apparently aspires to be an Olympic specialist in the sport. 
    So...we did not get a pleasant surprise under the carpet, I admit I had a silly hope maybe it was nice under it, it wouldn't be the first time a homeowner removed carpet to find something pleasant underneath.  But it wasn't a horror show either, it is just a set of aging painted stairs in need of cleaning from sitting under slowly disintegrating padding.  Then probably it wouldn't hurt to trowel on some wood putty to smooth out all the nicks and tack holes from the carpet, and we can paint them so they don't look quite so bad.  The good news is that they do seem to be in decent condition, and the website I saved on how to redo them doesn't look like it will be necessary at this time, unless, of course, Nikki drives that hammer through them into the basement or something. 
  10. Briannah
    I was talking with Nikki about something today, and he called this his problem.  I didn't like that.  This isn't our problem, this is our lifestyle.  The dog constantly dumpster and litter box diving, cats peeing anywhere they please, those are problems.  Nikki enjoying dressing en femme and needing his body hair as gone as we can make it?  Lifestyle.  Because language does dictate thought.  Ideas form from words, and the choice of words colors the thought.  And the only problem my husband has inside himself is depression and anxiety fits, those do need to be and can be solved with time and therapy.  My understanding of crossdressing is simple, it's not a disease or the disorder, it's a complicated set of emotional and possibly physical needs that require meeting, and will always require this.  Just like my needs.  So problem is an ugly word for this.  I like lifestyle. 
    And I have spent a lot of time self-examining, trying to figure out all the roadblocks that we will have to face if his needs change in the future because I want to be prepared, even if it never happens.  And realizing I'm not really inclined to join other women in bed anymore made me stop and try to figure out, well, what the hell happened? 
    And I realized with the maturity and healthier mindset I have on life and myself what happened.  While I do have the ability to enjoy physical sex with partners of either gender, I never really got into a healthy commitment relationship with any of the women.  And I had always identified a strong preference for men, but now that i"m examining it all I wondered what was going on with the women.  WHY did I act on it?  And why do I really not want to now?  The answer lies in my complicated feelings for men after my abusive marriage.  I had stopped trusting them, and I didn't like to be alone.  And when the first female hit on me, and I physically responded, I thought why not?  I don't like being alone, and here I can defend myself.  And I set out to explore this new aspect of myself, but I didn't look into it too deeply.  So now after a long, healthy marriage with Nikki, I realize had it not been for a deep fear of men warping my choices, I probably would NOT have acted on it.  And the actions I took probably weren't healthy for me or my partners, but we learn from living.  I'm not embarrassed to have explored with them with them or by their place in my past, but I am embarrassed that i didn't really give them myself like I should have as a partner.  It wasn't fair, but I was too messed up to know then.  I'm sorry for anyone's feeling that I injured in my inability to love them back.  The men after I started opening that door again too.  Nikki met me at a time where I was starting to overcome my issues, and was able to actually love someone back with the baby steps he was willing to put up with from me while I relearned my way in relationships. 
    Well, at least I don't have a lot of 'what if's' about my sex life.  I tried things.  LOL
  11. Briannah
    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.
  12. Briannah
    So...making Nikki's computer dream a reality, which is the project I've been on since January pretty single-mindedly, has finally come to fruition today.  And those parts got here FAST.  Like laser fast.  So I cleaned out the dining room table so he has a work space (on the weekends that area is set up for gaming as there is a Friday night and a Sunday evening game), and he's like a little kind in a candy store right now.  It was worth every moment of locking myself in the bathroom at work to have a cry in private because it had gotten so crazy there.  I DID IT!  He's currently putting together his new baby, which is just like my baby.  Only because the parts aren't NEW NEW like they were last year he got his baby for about a $100 less.  Good bargain! 
    And...my silly little virtual reality dream?  Well, apparently only $600 stands between me and that.  They had a tester program on the website for the top of the line one, the Occulus Rift, and my computer is compatible and meets or exceeds all requirements.  So...yeah.  It's possible, and my virtual world can be expanded.  We each get a small entertainment stipend in the new budget, and I am stuffing mine exclusively into the savings account, because I want to be entertained with sharks in my computer room.  Cuz I'm a raging dork.  But I really LOVED that feeling of being there with the sharks, which I'll never know because my asthma makes scuba outta reach for me, as I"m not really willing to risk dying for it.  Some dreams ARE worth persuing at any cost, but scuba isn't it for me.  But the ability to see what I would see like that...and the Egyptian tombs they are filming now...oh total geek. AND they have a really kinda awesome tabletop style dungeons and dragons app for this thing, so that you can play with people all over.  How cool is that?
    On a more personal note, now that he's doing better from the dysthymia, which I am so grateful to his therapist for helping us sort out the complicated tangle of what is the disorder, what is current environmental, and what is childhood issues blocking him from the live he deserves to have, we are sorting out marital issues. 

    I"m pretty sure i kicked strait into "OMG must fix Nikki Mode" and while the issues were too overwhelming not to feel, my response was to bottle a lot and focus on what was needed rather than actually sorting through things inside.  But there has been five or six years of gradual disconnects that triggered MY issues, and sometimes I"m just sorta...lost in myself.  There are days I don't even know if I"m really me, because of all the adaptation and throwing out the window parts of me that didn't fit with the life i was trying to build.  There are days when I'm full steam ahead on something and blinded to everything else.  There are days I absolutely panic that the new normal for our marriage is going to fall apart again and I'm going to lose everything.  I'm messy.  I am really really messy. 
    BUT...now that he's better, he..I don't know how to phrase this exactly other than this...it's like he's remembered I'm there.  Like he'd forgotten while he was sick, but now he remembered.  And that is the start.  But he's still Nikki, and some of the disconnects and life choices are his personality mixing with mine, not all of it is our disorders.  So we're organizing.  Too many couples I know just let...life happen to them and don't do anything to manage their relationships as they go.  I'm going to learn from that.  We've set up a weekly 'serious' talk time, where we turn everything off, sit on the couch (preferably with a blanket under me, our couch is leather and it adheres to my skin in horrible ways) and we can both talk about anything, and the agreement is active listening, connection, and no one gets mad or defensive.  Or if you do, you squash it and try to think it through.  We set up a weekly game time for just doing something fun together, board games, d&d, card games, whatever.  And we set up a weekly movie night (on Saturday though, this isn't as inviolate as the other two if we are out doing a thing) to just sit on the couch and watch something together.  Reconnecting emotionally and rebuilding a slightly broken marriage. 
    And that's the lesson isn't it?  Things break.  Everything.  But you then make a choice after it breaks, you can throw it away and start over.  Or you can repair it.  It's always a choice.  We forget that.  I can't count how many times I've heard "it's broken, time to pitch it" and no question what would be involved in fixing a thing.  Anything that can be made can be repaired.  But the cost isn't always worth it.  Sometimes throwing a thing away is appropriate too, but if you just assume and don't make the choice...it's wasteful. 
    I could sit around, say there is nothing I can do, people just change as they go.  Let's be honest, there is even a neat little shield of a 17 year old secret I could hide behind and NO ONE would look at me funny.  I could be all the other relationships in my blood family and scream it's not MY fault til the end of time. 
    But I'm not.  Because..inside...I want more.  And these are the days I"m realizing despite all the poison I drank, all the horribleness I absorbed from them, and all the inner damage I'm still struggling to overcome from them...somehow I made it in some small way.  I'm not them, I got out, and I am going to improve things, instead of waving my hand in a 'what can you do' dismissive gesture.  Grandpa gave me wisdom, the knowledge, and the understanding that there IS more out there, that not everyone fails, and that the choices I will make every day, big and small, will matter and resonate the rest of my life.  My friends gave me the grace, understanding, and exposure to worlds and opinions beyond what I grew up with to navigate the hurdles in my marriage and my husbands struggle with depression and to adapt to who he is as a person, not who he told me he was.  I think I managed to be a better mother than my parents were, despite all the screw ups I made, and I let go and realize he's the one who has to live the day to day of his life better. 
    As much as I'm often not okay between the self-esteem issues, the dismorphia, and the struggle to interact gracefully with others thanks to the add, I'm also really okay at the same time because I'm doing it.  And when I die, despite the mistakes I made massive and small, I don't think I"ll be able to look back with anything but "I couldn't have done anything else than what I did, because every choice I made at the time I made it was what I thought would make things better!". 
    It cost a lot, but it was worth it.  So I don't have parents, okay.  I have Nikki.  I have my son.  I have my friends (including you guys!), and I have my self and my senses of right and wrong.  The bargain was made a long time ago, probably the day my son was born, I just managed to delay paying some of the bills, but now that they are paid, I realize trying to hold onto things that weren't really there wasn't helping anyone, and it was a good bargain.   That was the day I started turning my back on the narcissism of my father, the dead mushroomness of my mother, and started living.  Even though I had no idea where I wanted to go, I started going through any door I saw to get an idea what was out there.  And the mistakes were okay.
    Except, of course, that cheese mousse from the Princess cruise.  Trying that was just a horror story.  It looked like poop.  It smelled like poop.  I don't know why I put that in my mouth. 
  13. Briannah
    We'd finally gotten settled with a good doctor, who knows about Nikki's issues and has been great with both his and mine, and the main office is closing our town's location.  ARGH!  Finding the right doctor and getting a comfortable relationship going is HARD.  *headdesk* 
  14. Briannah
    I've had a friend for about a year.  Nikki and I met him online, and we all hit it off and became good friends.  Through the internet, they live several states away.  But still.  Ten years of chatting is a long time, and real friendships form.  So...several years ago he had a full on psych meltdown and vanished, and his wife reached out to me (thinking I was having an affair with him and he'd come to the other woman, unaware I was part of a couple and it wasn't like that) and she and I struck up a friendship because I was there for her while he was missing and the aftermath.  Then she was there for me after I was victimized with something else, and the friendship endured, back and forth every time something went crazy in our lives.  I don't have much in common with her as far as interests and hobbies, but we have a common ground of really bad ex husbands that left scars and the trials of life for us have been similar.  That creates a strong bond, even if we can't dish on the latest anime or tv show because we don't watch the same things.  Nikki doesn't have the relationship with her I do at all, she's just someone I know to him, but he's outraged by what is happening all the same because he's a good person who doesn't like seeing others hurt.  That makes me happy.  The rest makes me really sad.
    So, as per the workings of our friendship, she reaches out to me because something stressy is going on.  And I settle down with a glass of coke zero ready to listen, offer any useful advice I may have, and just let her unload.  I had no idea what was coming.
    My friend, my long term dearest friend who I trusted with SO many things in my head, he ATTACKED her and one of her CHILDREN.  *floored*  I was both completely stunned and not surprised at the same time.  I mean, I know the psych issue was bad, and I had been trying for months to talk him into getting into therapy, but you know, you can't force a person to get help.  You try because you have to, and I tried every logic and emotional appeal that I could, but it didn't matter.  And now here we are.  And it's gone into full on stalking like the kind that you see on the discovery channel tv shows because obviously she left him after the attack. 
    And I'm just floored.  So I did giver her useful advice on what to do with a stalker, having endured that myself (although mine wasn't a relationship based stalking, mine was a crazy woman with borderline personality disorder), and tried to be what comfort I could.  You never see it coming, ya know?  Even knowing there were issues, there was nothing indicating this.  He'd had simple breakups with other women in the past, no crazy.  Maybe his condition degenerates with age?  I don't know.   No one involved would have ever dreamed this would happen.  And isn't that what they always say when you watch those shows?  It really is easy to be blindsided.  Even for people alert to odd behavior.  We were more worried about him harming himself than other people, and boy we were mistaken. 
    But when I'm not trying to help her, I'm just sad.  Sad that someone I LIKED would be that kind of person.  Sad for the friendship that is obviously over, this is a huge dealbreaker for me given my history and the fear it's causing my other friend and the children (they are hers, not shared, so at least she can cut him out entirely and not have that complication!).  But...ten years of shared history and memories don't just vanish, and there is a mourning phase.  And sometimes I have an instinct to try to rationalize it away so I don't have to lose that.  I know better, but I do understand why so many people protect loved ones that might have done something, it's not that easy to throw away a person.  Especially parents. 
    So...even though it's kinda hurting, it's a good life lesson in perspective about not really understanding other people's choices until you're in the situation and learn how your own feelings and life experiences play out in how you deal with it.  I'm not sure how I would react if it was someone ever closer to me like my child or husband, or one of my lifelong friends.  I guess it's not surprising we can never really know what is in another person given we don't really know what is in OURSELVES until we are confronted with something and have to go through it and learn who we are in those moments.  It's so important to make choice, and not just act on instince I think.  My instinct says he's ill, not his fault, but I realize this is a defining moment of who I am and who I'm going to be.  Nothing in that was okay.  He was alerted to the fact that he needed help, ignored it, and hurt someone.  Even if it was driven by the illness, he wasn't so bad he didn't know he needed to do something, he just chose to not deal with it, and someone got hurt. That isn't okay, and even if I'll miss him, I can't condone it by going on.  So that is who I am in this, the one who chooses to say not okay, and we're done and support the victim.  Yay morality. 
  15. Briannah
    Seriously, I lost gobs of time to Youtube.  It always starts out innocently. I want to hear a certain song.  Watch some tutorial videos so I know what Nikki wants me to buy.  In the mood for a laugh so look up news blooper videos (OMG nothing is funnier than news going wrong!).  The try guys people I like watching trying new things for the first time.  And then...it's there.  The bane of my existence.  That bar on the right with other videos linked, ones that tempt me into clicking, and the next thing I know I"m light years away from my original topic, and have just spent 2 to 3 hours on the journey from an eye makeup tutorial to crazy science magic tricks, from John Oliver into weird video game easter eggs, from news bloopers into strange porn things I had never heard of before. 

    It's crazy how many things are out there in the world. 
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