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My Wife, Bob

My Wife, Bob

I often wonder sometimes how I would have reacted if the shoe was on the other foot – that being, that, if one night, my wife would have come to bed, got under the sheets and surprised me wearing Men’s Briefs and genitalia to compliment them. Could I be ok with that, if it were me?

Lets take it a step further and add in Male hormones, a boy hair cut, facial hair and she would now like YOU to address her, as “him” – a “man” named Bob.

I have talked with hundreds of M2F cross dressers and transsexuals, and one of the things that I find that most (but not all) have overwhelmingly in common, is that they identify as heterosexual, or Trans-Lesbian. I wonder how any of these people (or anyone, for that matter) would feel if their wife came home and said, “I think I am man”.

If you’re Transgendered, try to imagine for one second that your not. Now imagine your beautiful wife that you fell in love with – and all her femininity that balances your masculinity, is now being offset by her’s. Think about your first company picnic, where you bring your wife and all your co-workers and even your boss is first exposed to your “spouse”, Bob. Could you deal with having to be forced to appear as a homosexual Gay man?

Better question: Could you perform sexually and stay committed emotionally to a man. I’m not talking about TG issues here. I am talking about if you were just an every day, run of the mill American Male, COULD YOU DO IT? Could you stay with a woman that transitioned fully, Post-Op into a Male? That is to say, that we presume she wants to stay with you, and not pursue a female to live or marry after she transitions. How would you feel when your wife, now a male, goes out and starts getting looked at or picked up by women – How would you feel about her/him taking lots of videos and photos and posting them all over the internet with you or your children in them? Can you imagine that? What if she/he spent all his time online talking to God knows who about God knows what…. while you are all alone in your room… would you question your self worth? How would all this effect your dignity?

These are the things we ask of our spouses when we begin to cross the gender divide.

Personally, I will admit, after thinking long and hard on this question, I could not. This is where I find myself to be weak and shallow. At the end of the day, when the truth be told, I fell in love with my wife FIRST because she was a complete babe! I got to know her over the course of time and even fall in love with her – But it was her Red hair and 36C Chest that caused me to run red lights!

I did not begin my marriage thinking I would transition – I accepted that both of us would get old and grey and I could accept her, no matter what – in sickness and in health; even if that included being overweight, or otherwise. However, it goes with out saying that NO ONE bargains or even fathoms that their spouse will change their gender. So when you think “in sickness and in health”, you never really allow yourself to think that may mean gender variance too.

Maybe its my heightened sense of femininity that makes me shutter that if I was still living as Ted, and my wife Rene wanted to be Bob, how HARD that would be on everyone – Myself included. Of course, living as a Female now, I would be perfectly ok with being married to a man, as that compliments my femininity… {dares to dream} *sigh*

I know this is a double standard – I KNOW I am a hypocrite. Still, it seems to me that being a lesbian in this world is more widely tolerated than being a homosexual male. People can deal with giving into femininity, especially when it’s a woman giving into it – but I have yet to see where anyone “other than Gay men” want to see 2 men kissing. There are no “Guys Gone Wild” videos of young sexy college Co-Ed’s kissing in the shower (At least not to my knowledge). Can you imagine that?… A woman going around with a camera to construction sites and sunny beaches asking men to lift up their shirts – or for that matter, TAKE A SHOWER? lol

My wife has admitted to me very candidly, that if our children were not in the scenario, she’d be gone. (yeah, it leaves a horrible feeling in my gut). But can you blame her? I used too… now… I am not so sure.

In the beginning I used to tell myself “I am the same person, what’s the big deal?” Well, it IS a big deal. Whether you’re a man or a woman, when people get married, their masculine or feminine persona is part of the exterior contract that goes with the vows – and it goes with out saying. A woman marries a man because they expect to live a heterosexual life and vice versa.

Of course I thought about these things LONG before I transitioned – but they just didn’t seem to click. That was, until I had a nightmare a few weeks back. In the Nightmare, I was again my Male heterosexual self, Ted. My wife and I were on our way to a meeting – the meeting was in a dim lit basement of someone’s home and everyone there was a man. After socializing for a few minutes, I realized my wife was nowhere to be found among all these men. I searched for what seemed like all night, asking everyone “have you seen my wife?” – They just laughed, looking puzzled… It wasn’t until the end of the night that I finally realized, the guy with the short red hair, was my Wife, Bob…

-Chloe

9 Responses

  1. I think this one of the uncomfortable things that we trans people don’t really want to look at, but it is a valid point. It’s hard to put one’s self in the spouse’s shoes because we don’t want our marriage to fail, but it most cases, the failure of the marriage is inevitable. My ex wanted to be with a real man, one who could satisfy her sexual needs, I no longer was able to do that, I was not a real man. That’s part of being MTF trans, weather we like it or not. We have to accept that about ourselves and we have to accept that our spouses have needs also, needs that we can no longer fulfill.
    Then, there’s the very valid question of—would we be able to accept the process of our spouse becoming a man? How many of us could actually do that? I’d like to think that I could live with that situation, but I can’t say that for sure. Thinking that you could deal with it and being presented with it in reality, that’s two different things!
    Thank you, Chloe, for such an important and revealing post, it’s something we need to be aware of in this journey.

  2. Now I am not saying it is right or wrong to transition while being married all I know there is so much pain unless both parties are ok with it. Me, I am transitioning on my own and I refuse to date because I do not wish to break anyone’s heart. When I was married she accepted me 100% but I wasn’t out but I was female too and we made it work for 10 years. I hope you two work it out and have a wonderful marriage, you only live once so enjoy it.

    xxoo

  3. This is yet another time in which I think that this web site would benefit from expanding your focus beyond simply transwomen and include more — any! — transmen in the discussion.

  4. Kiva, Thank you for your comment, your point is plausible at the very least; could you please elaborate #1 from what perspective you share this inside knowledge of how Transmen think and have contributed to discussion with TS women before and there out comes – and #2, in what way would Transmen add to this perspective? I am eager to know – please share your views so that we can understand you and our selves, better. I hope you will not find my reply at all insulting or challenging – as I said, I am very eager to understand what you know -Thank you.

    -Chloe

  5. I would love to see more trans-men posting here! I don’t know how you would attract them to this sight though.

  6. Well, for starters, inviting them would be a good idea. People don’t just wander up to this site and start posting — the contributors are all invited by the admins.

    And of course, they’re much more likely to comment if transmen aren’t just a convenient boogeyman to be used in hypothetical situations concentrating on how uncomfortable “they” would make “us” feel. This site claims to transcend gender but is very much oriented toward the MTF experience exclusively.

  7. Well, I am “Bob”.

    And my husband came out as bi/pansexual just before I came out as trans.

    Sometimes life’s good to us 🙂

  8. interesting post

    it’s not always cool, as a lesbian, to have those straight male fantasies inflicted upon one …

    and straight women seem to prefer gay guys …

  9. I know I’d try to support my wife if she wanted to transition. I’d wish her all the best. But you’re right, it’d probably end our marriage if she came home as Bob.

    But then I also know that if/when I transition, it’ll end my marriage. As accepting as my wife is of my crossdressing, and as understanding as she is of my situation, I know that the day I choose to become a woman full time is the day I effectively end my marriage. She’s not even remotely bi, and I really can’t expect her to continue to love me in that way if I transition. I don’t expect her to stay married to me if I do that. It’d be nice, but I know it’s not who she is.

    It’s actually one of the three main reasons why I don’t transition. One – My marriage. Two – My family. And Three – the money. Emotionally and spiritually as an individual I’m ready to. But I can’t bring myself to hurt the people I love.

    But I also know that life is funny. Paths take unexpected twists and turns. Doors close. Doors open. And people even change. Some relationships aren’t meant to last forever. Some are. So I walk the best I can, keep my eyes open, and hope for the best, for everyone. If it’s meant to be, something will happen.

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