I Want To Become A Cherished Wife

[CharlotteW]

Well, I think I should ask something but I'm not anyone really knows the answer too. I knew for a long time I was attracted to men. Even as my body lusted after women, my soul longed for the touch of a man. The thought that I might someday be loved by a good man makes me weak with joy. But, seeing as how the divorce rate is 50%, it seems even women reared their whole lives as such do not know how to make men happy (and vice versa).

I truly believe the soul is sexual. And I seek to bond with a man, but he must bond with me as a woman. I'm very leery of these chasers I have heard about because I question the degree that they accept us as women, true women. I accept transmen as men and I think a lot of them are cute, and if I'm destined to marry one, that would be cool, as would a bi guy or straight cis-guy, although I would like to have man with a functioning penis. I'm human, and lusty. Still, when I imagine a man, it's different than when I had fantasies about being a straight man with a woman. My man is handsome, but looks are not everything (though ideally he has broad shoulders and a sharp, close cut beard that makes me giggle thinking about it ) My ideal man,well his eyes radiate both deep compassion and an intense love of me. I image, briefly us doing non-sexual things, taking walks, watching movies. In these fantasies, I am, or try to be my man's best friend.

I know women sometimes have unrealistic expectations about relationships. I am wondering if I am asking too much. I want a husband who is:

Kind

Thoughtful

Intelligent

Christian

loves kids

loyal

sees me as a woman born into unfortunate circumstances

loves to have sex with me

loves to hang out with me

And preferably

White

handsome

Fiscally conservative

around my age

somewhat well to do

loves to show me off

(as in: Hey guys, this is my wife Charlotte. She's the greatest wife ever and you can't have her )

That's part one. Proper expectations. Now comes the most important part: if I am to have a real chance at a good man, I need to attract him, not just physically, but to make him appreciate me, as a person. I thought that living as a male for so long would give me a leg up, but it really hasn't. They only thing I can deduce is that for all the perceived advantages of manhood, the price is extreme repression and loneliness. Men who enjoy making themselves look good are disparaged as metrosexuals, men who don't like sports are considered very weird and miss out on a lot of guy conversations, at least in my experience. Men need, and need quite desperately to know they are loved and accepted, and a lot of men seem to feel very judged by women if they try and become romantic, something which is bitterly resented but considered to be the price of admission and not something to whine (talk) about.

Other than that, how do you make a man like you, then after marriage, how do you keep him happy and make sure he wants to keep you happy too?

[Sally]

The answer is very easy - I know the answer because I am divorced.

It is very simple, you have your lists, the important list is the first one, the other is just wishing,

You have to have a sense of humor, you must genuinely care for you husband as much if not more than yourself and you must both put the marriage ahead of yourselves.

It can't work if only one of you is willing to compromise - trust me!

That's all there is to it actual love, not just lust, mutual respect, treat each other as equals and life is so easy.

Love ya,

Sally

[Guest Elizabeth K]

My advice? If you truly become the woman you are, and act the part, and FEEL the part? A man will find you.

Lizzy

[Guest ~Brenda~]

Dear Charlotte,

Forgive me if I am confusing you with someone else, but I think you are way to young to be worrying about things like marriage. Marriage, as well as any true loving relationship demands a tremendous amount of giving and maturity and sacrifice. I wouldn't worry about any list of attributes you would like to see in your mate. You will be surprised, when the day comes, that you are in love and married, your mate will be nothing like what you think your mate should be today. For many, marriage includes raising children, either by adoption or naturally. Regardless, raising children is a serious responsibility. Do you think you are at the stage in life where you could do that? You are very, very young!! Enjoy your youth (it is really so fleeting,you have no idea!). Learn more about yourself. As you mature, your clarity of your mate will also mature. Marriage starts with love. Love starts with friendship. Your future mate will start out as your best friend!!

Life has so many wonderful twists and turns, enjoy the ride!!

LOL

bernii

[Guest April63]

The problem is that people tend to not value or understand marriage anymore. People rush into relationships and rush into marriages. Then when times get tough, they rush out of them, instead of trying to work together and fix things. In many cases they can't even do that, because they don't really have a strong relationship; they rushed into everything and don't understand why they got married in the first place.

I don't think your list in unreasonable or asking too much. Just shop around. Find guys that you like that like you. Don't focus on just one guy, or you'll never find a good husband. Keep your options open, and when the time is right you can get into a more serious relationship with one guy. Take it slow, make sure you can talk openly with each other. If you're right for each other, things will work, if you're not, they won't work. Just don't rush things. Do things when you feel it's right.

That's basically what I've heard from a bunch of old people. lol people who have successfully, or sometimes not quite so successfully, gone through all of it.

April

[Guest Sarinah]

I know how you feel Charlotte, I too want to find a spouse who will fill everything on your first list. For myself to help me get there with as few stumbling blocks as possible I set a few guidelines for myself.

1) Abstain from sex until marriage. I did not choose this because of religion or some moral standard, but because I want to be sure that my sexual relationships have a foundation of love and not lust. The best way to insure that someone is with you out of love and not lust is to deny them the lust until they make a true and deep commitment to you.

2) Search in the right places for the kind of person I am looking for. I am looking for a Christian. I am not going to look in a bar or some website. I am going to look in the church, many churches have something to help single people in their churches find eachother.

3) Find out who I am before I go looking for someone else. People grow allot especially in the highschool years up through the mid 20s. My beliefs and those things that define me have changed so much in the last 10 years. I am turning 27 this month and am just now starting to come into focus. I truly believe that most if not all people would greatly benefit from waiting untill they are in their mid 20s or older before they make a commitment of marriage.

4) You will never find someone that is perfect, but dont sell yourself short on the important things you want in your spouse.

[Guest Donna Jean]

Charlotte.......

I find your post to be very moving...well thought out.

My role model, my grandmother, was married at 16 and remained with him for 52 years until his death.

This year my wife and I celibrate 30 years of marriage and although I am transitioning, we intend to remain together.

And unless the government intercedes after I fully transition, we will remain married. So it's non traditional.....love has no boundries.....

The instution of marriage has seemingly changed over the years...it used to be a lifetime commitment....now in this "Throw away" society 50% of all marriages end in divorce.....how sad.

Good luck, hon.....

Stick to your ideals....

HUGGS

Donna Jean

[Sally]

Charlotte,

We have all told you how to remain a cherrished wife but I am now going to tell you the secret to finding the right guy.

Where do you go to look for him, how do you attract his atention, how should you act to reel him in?

Here's the answer - don't look for him!

As long as you are actively seeking Mr. Right, you will try to make any guy you meet into him and you will overlook some really bad traits.

Go where you normally go and do what you like to do - the men there have some ofthe same interests that you do so that's a start.

Never try to 'close the deal', don't rush - let it happen and you will be very happy.

My sister had tried dating people that her friends found for her and each had one to five different traits that she could not live with - she got tired of dating and decided that she would just live alone and started house hunting. She worked in the Library of a major University in another state so she was really talking about living all alone. One day she talked to a Graduate Student doing Civil War Research and helped him in finding the reference materials. He seemd nice and they talked whenever he came in - which was rather often working on a Masters in American History. There was an empty desk very close to hers and he arranged with his professor and the head of the library to designate it as his desk and one day my sister noticed that the phone was back on the desk and a little later here he came with his briefcase and a stack of books. As the semester went along he asked her to go to lunch with him and they talked and eventually began dating, he graduated and was hired to be the research librarian (he already had a Library Science Masters - he loved research)in a small university in yet another state. He left for Georgia and promised to call and to come back to visit - after a couple of months of incredible phone bills and a lott of frequent flyer miles he proposed, she accepted and they were married a year later, she moved to Georgia and they were happy together but didn't care much for the job situation so he started applying and ended up back in East Texas where he has now retired and she is still working as the head of three libraries in the small towns around them 37 years so far - because she quit looking!

My that was long!

Love ya,

Sally

[Guest leo]

all i can say is good luck finding Mr perfect

[Guest bronx]

coming from a guy and a guy who just got married to a wonderful woman, I want to tell you to get to know you first. Hang out have some fun. You are young and relationships are not easy they can take away from you if you don't know who you are as a woman. Being a man I met my wife at work she wasn't looking for someone infact she told me that she had given up on a relationship let alone marriage. Anyway I had recently broke up with someone as was working two jobs to stay busy and one day she started talking to me, didn't think anything of it, this continued for a few months and I finally asked her if she would cook for me (she's a chef) I was joking around about it. I didn't expect her to say yes and she did. Well we exchanged numbers and talked oon the phone alot and I went to the bookstore and bought her a book for our first date. i guess that got her attention so to say and we've been together ever since.

What I'm saying is that let things happen. My wife is my best friend. There are things about me that she doesn't like but she tells me and I work on it. There are things about her I don't like but we talk about it and she works on it. The thing that makes it work is that we laugh alot. We have things in common, and we also have things not in common but we support each other in everything.

P.S. my wife is not a social person at all, I on the other hand am all over the place. But you know what she is so secure in who she is that it doesn't bother her.

Bottom line if a woman isn't secure with who she is and doesn't know who she is then she's not gonna find that guy that's gonna treat and love her the way she wants and needs.

[Guest Elizabeth K]

I keep coming back to this TOPIC - and there are some wonderful responses and some great examples.

I think as transwomen and transmen, we ALL want to experience life in our prefered gender, and that includes relationships, an possibly marriage. It gets complicated in the fact that biologically there are some limitations, but not always. And what is to become of us who are already married?

Personally, alyhough i would really love to experience passionate gratification as a woman, I have a wonderful best-friend-in-the-entire-world already. She is terrified of what will happen when I finish transition. She swears I will want a man.

I will want a partner - I tell her I already have a partner - her. So my pledge to her is if she will stay with me, if she will have me, then I will stay with her and keep her safe. So I sacrifice sex with a man? Well, its just sex. I would rather have the love of someone than the sexual lusting. I think I am making the right choice, and she has no problem with my feminizing body, and we do really well in pleasuring each other -Works for me.

AND you ask:

Other than that, how do you make a man like you, then after marriage, how do you keep him happy and make sure he wants to keep you happy too?

My advice? Be at peace with yourself. Be the woman you always have been. Be natural and loving. He will adore you for that.

If you love you, he will too.

Lizzy

[Sally]

I will want a partner - I tell her I already have a partner - her. So my pledge to her is if she will stay with me, if she will have me, then I will stay with her and keep her safe. So I sacrifice sex with a man? Well, its just sex. I would rather have the love of someone than the sexual lusting. I think I am making the right choice, and she has no problem with my feminizing body, and we do really well in pleasuring each other -Works for me.

AND you ask:

Other than that, how do you make a man like you, then after marriage, how do you keep him happy and make sure he wants to keep you happy too?

My advice? Be at peace with yourself. Be the woman you always have been. Be natural and loving. He will adore you for that.

If you love you, he will too.

Lizzy

There you have it!

The definition of marriage really doesn't include sex specifically but it is all about love!

And we all need to learn to love ourselves, that's why we are transitioning to become to the world the true inner person that is no longer hidden and ashamed, but free to love and be loved.

I could hardly even say I love you to my family, I hardly ever said it even to my mother and now, I sign my posts with love ya, because I do and when I talk to my friends on the phone I love you just pops out serveral times and of course the call can not end without it.

I have denied myself so much for so long, it is all just waiting to explode.

I do love so very many people and now I like to let them know, I have made so many close and wonderful friends here because I let my true self into the playground and I love her - it is easy to love others when you love yourself and when they feel all of the love, it is easy for them to love you.

So in closing, Love ya,

Sally

[Guest Sandra]

Well, I think I should ask something but I'm not anyone really knows the answer too...

I was thinking about this also so I'm glad to come across this thread. In my view the only 'perfect guy' we'll find is in our fantasies. I'd like a guy who's gorgeous, a true gentleman who's educated/successful and treats me like a princess and I'd love to be his devoted gf/wife. But in reality most men are egocentric, unattractive, insecure, obnoxious, uneducated --Censored--. It's tough enough for natal women to find a good man, let alone transwomen. As you mentioned, that's another challenge I perceive, can a guy love a ts woman in the same way or would that trans part always hold him back? I'm sure there are some men like that but they'd be hard to find.

One option would be to go full stealth and never tell them about your real past. You'd get treated the same as a natal woman but then you'd have to be completely convincing and have a good story to back it up and you'd be living a lie. I've seriously considered this idea and I can understand why some t-women do it. At least for flings its not a problem, but getting married is a different story. And for me there's things I love about men and things I hate about them. I guess I'll sort it out when I fully transition. I tend to fall easily in love with females but of course they can't love me in the way a man could..perhaps I'll end up in a polygamous relationship in the future and have one of each.

[Guest Evan_J]

Knowing what it is you want is the first step. STICK TO YOUR WANTS. Other than that you got a ton of good advice, the one I would "ditto" is "do what you normally would do". All to often people are "outside" of their regular self because they are "looking" for someone. When you find someone then unfortunately they haven't met "you" they met "who you were being to find them" and it CAN'T work. Definately be like the young lady who "made the plans to just live by herself". Besides, if you "can't" live with you why would you think someone else can?

On a lighter, "less than serious" (though food is very serious lol) note, learn to cook. Mamma wasn't kidding when she said "it's the way to a man's heart" lol.

[Guest mia 1]

Intelligent

Christian

loves kids

loyal

sees me as a woman born into unfortunate circumstances

loves to have sex with me

loves to hang out with me

And preferably

White

handsome

Fiscally conservative

around my age

somewhat well to do

loves to show me off

(as in: Hey guys, this is my wife Charlotte. She's the greatest wife ever and you can't have her )

What's up with white....handsome ..... well I miss out on two of your preferences......Mia