Hello, I am Billie A

[BillieA]

Hello all you A-Mazing, Beautiful People,

 

Where to begin........where to begin! So very much to say, share and tell. Allow me to apologize up front as I suspect this might be a bit longwinded.

 

Well, I guess an introduction would be prudent. 

 

My name is Billie A! I am a 59 year old trans woman! I am a 20 year military veteran having served in both the Navy (7 Yrs) and Army (14 Yrs), combat veteran of 2 wars (Desert Storm in the 90s in the Navy and Iraq in the Army 12 yrs ago). I  have been married for almost 30 years to a beautiful woman, inside and out! She is my best friend and my soulmate. I couldnt possibly love her more. Between the 2 of us we raised 5 children. We have had a good marriage and life.

 

So, what is the problem you ask? Sounds a bit picturesque. Well, I have not lived one day of my life whole......as my real, true, authentic self! I have known since about 6 years old that I was a girl, at least on the inside. Being too young to understand "gender dysphoria", a term that wasn't even known back in the early 70s, but old enough to understand that my body was a boy. It was so very confusing. I would spend more time playing with my sisters dolls and dollhouses, easybake oven, and we would dress in my moms clothes (they were so big on my little body), I was always drawn to girl things. I always had more girl friends than guy friends. As a 13 yr old, I met my step- grandmother for the first time. I had kind of long hair and long eyelashes.  I remember her saying "My what a pretty young lady!" My mother quickly said "No hes a boy." I remember being giddy on the inside thinking....she sees me, she really sees me......I was so excited but it was short lived.  As I grew older life got more challenging and scary. I could see how "gay" people were treated.....hated, discriminated and abused. I knew I wasn't gay but why did I feel the way I felt, there was still not a definition/explanation for it. Could I have been born this way or did something make me this way? I could not verbalize it, nor could I tell anybody about it. Then came feelings of guilt and that I was some sort of freak and if people knew how I thought of myself I would be ostracized or even physically hurt. Along the way, my brother told us he was gay and that he was born that way.  But he had the courage and conviction  to live his truth. I saw how he was treated, even by myself ( had a role to play remeber?). This only solidified my fear and anxst. I learned a bit later on that my Mom was pansexual ( aka bisexual back in the day). Thats when I had the epiphany .....I was born like this. It was validating yet vexing.  Thus began a lifetime of denial, hiding, fearing, self-loathing (surely I must be broken, mentally ill to think I am and should have been born a girl.......how could God miss like that, He doesn't make mistakes.) As soon as it became evident that there was no way to align my life with my brain/heart......I simply overcompensated, both consciously and subconsciously, to prove to me and the world how much of a masculine, dominate male I was.  I needed to be that more for me than anyone else to keep the feelings and yearning to live as a female at bay. To protect myself. It worked......off and on......sort of.

 

Some of the things I did/do and my "logic" (as if😆):

 

-Played every sport I could (football, baseball, wrestling, basketball, soccer.......being good/competitive and all........but drawn to and excelling at gymnastics)

-Was in the chorus, band, and Drama department.....love, love, loved it all.

-Went to Church, surely God could remove this burning "yearning" to be female from me so I could have peace of mind and spirit.

-I joined the military after 2 years of college.....surely that is an Alpha male thing to do. That would prove to myself how much of a man I am! I drank a lot to numb myself but realized years later it did not help and would only potentially ruin my health and life.

-I will wear my wife's clothes ( when she's not around as she has no idea...at  least I think she has no idea).....I love the way I look and feel in them. I always wish I could ditch my entire wardrobe and replace it with hers, she has such style, taste and elegance....I could learn so much from her.

 

None of it " fixed" me. I, surprisingly, was never suicidal....I love life and I love to live boldly. But it did manifest itself as anger and situational depression.....I had so many outbursts of anger mixed with bouts of moderate depression throughout my life.  The prevailing reason, as best as I could sense/ understand it was when I looked at women, I didn't necessarily want to be with them....I wanted to BE them and I knew I couldn't. I was both jealous and envious of them. When I look in the mirror and see a man, its upsetting at a certain level. I want to see the woman in the mirror that I see in my mind.  I do not hate myself but I am not happy at what I see.  I actually took many pictures and did the FACEAPP thing (which I am quick to temper my expectations and take what I see with a grain of salt) but when I see myself as an attractive female.....its a range of emotions......elation, excitement, hope, sadness, futility and outright anger.......its kind of torturing actually. All this is part of the fuel that feeds my anger/depression. But as they say, time marches on and I became a Master at masking and coping with my " mental illness" (I don't actually believe it's mental illness, but that is the diagnoses isn't it?). So I grew up, lived my life, raised a family with a phenomenal women, became a productive, successful male.Basically I have had a mostly happy, successful life.........what's the problem? I do not, nor have I ever felt compltely whole! I CAN'T, DON'T WANT TO live the remainder of my life as a man.  I long for a feminine figure (hips, butt, boobs, feminized facial features), to dress as female (clothes, makeup, nails), I want to walk and talk as a female (Not sure how that will work out having to undue the effects of almost 59 years of testosterone). I want to see myself outwardly as I see myself in my mind and feel in my heart I should be (I literally have dreams that I am a woman.....and wake up so dejected).......I want to be seen and treated as a woman by the world!

 

But here is the harsh, cruel truth.....I do not think I ever will be able to.  There are 2 things, ABSOLUTES, that I want most in my life for my life to be complete and whole.........to live the rest of my life with my best friend, my soulmate,  my wife AND  to live my authentic female self! It crushes my heart and soul because I fear I can not do/have both. Honestly, I am completely terrified to tell my wife but I need to (and she most certainly has every right to know), but I have no idea how to do that and I am deathly afraid it will be the end of my marriage and this makes me sick to my stoamch. This is not what I want. Its impossible to choose one over the other.  Its not lost on me I am going to ask her to live the rest of her life essentially as a lesbian (and I know exactly where she stands on that). It's not fair to her.  My nope is,  Could our "storybook" love transcend the social constructs and biases of what a marriage is/supposed to be? Can it transcend her traditional understanding of her role as a woman and allow her to willingly live a new role and to romantically love a other woman?

 

As I said earlier, I am not nor ever have been Suicidal, but at this point in my life I can't live without either one and what's more is I don't think I would want to. This is my quandary, and there is so very much more to tell, so many more layers to this story........which is why I am here. 

 

I need support, guidance, advice, direction but most  importantly friends that understand and have gone through/going through the same things!

 

Thank you for enduring this "story" of mine!

 

Much love to all!

 

Billie

 

[Vidanjali]

Hi Billie, dear. Indeed, God does not make mistakes. Be sure of that - you are a beautiful being. I am sorry you are suffering with this dilemma. I understand, though not from a transwoman perspective - I was socialized as female but ID as nonbinary/masc. I did reach a point in my relationship with my husband where the stress and anxiety I was battling constantly, trying to be a "normal woman and wife" was killing me. At that time I didn't clearly understand my gender or sexual orientation; I just knew I had to stop IDing as "broken" and needing fixing. I did have a reckoning with him and told him this. I said I don't know what that means for our relationship, that I chose him and still choose him, but that me holding on to this identification of broken was not good for either of us. Once I let that go, things quickly unraveled. I learned about asexuality and trans nonbinary and IDed as both. I came out to my husband and it was a gradual progression towards understanding and acceptance which was often dark and terribly rocky. In fact, I feel it's a miracle our relationship has survived, but it has and it's a good relationship. What's more amazing is that when I expressed this sentiment to my husband, he said even during the darkest times, he never felt he wavered in his devotion to me. Wow. So, you just never know for sure how strong your relationship is until it's tested. One thing is for sure, since I've given myself the space to discover who I am, I can be a better human being and partner to my husband. Do you believe your wife wants you to be happy above all else? And does your happiness depend on you being genuine? There is no easy decision. It will be a leap of faith should you decide to let her in. But, if you don't you could be missing out on even richer life and intimacy in your relationship than you could imagine. At any rate, you're in good company here. Many of us know it is not an easy decision and not an easy path. We are here for you!

[BillieA]

Thank you Vidanjali for those kind words. I am so very happy for you that your spouse still wants and supports you. I would like to believe that my spouse would respond the same.  I just honestly don't know and I am petrified to find out.  But I know I have to.....just don't know when or how.  We built our relationship on love, trust, mutual respect and honestly (ironically, I am honest in all things except what matters most to me).  I know my happiness is as equally important to her as hers is to me but the uncertainty of not knowing what her reaction will be.......lied to, betrayal, abandonment, disbelief, disgust and maybe even hatred.  I can't deal with any of that.  What's more is it is truely soul crushing to me to know that her tears of hysteria and broken heart will be caused by me. I fear she will feel everything I have ever said and done is a lie based on the pretense that our entire life together was as man and woman.......but that I never was truly and wholly a man. What does she do with that?

Uuuuggghh! If only I had a crystal ball to see into the future to see her response.

 

Anyway, thank you for your words.