Staying Married

[Dilys C]

My name's Dilys. I have another name but hope I won't be using it much longer. Here's a bit about me and my journey so far.

I am a rare male in a family where women predominate.

My father had four sisters and no brothers. My mother had three sisters and one half-sister.

I have one older sister. My father died when I was 12.

 

At my first school (in Luton) I was bullied, by boys, I the early days. I sometimes wonder if this had anything to do with having been sent (reluctantly and once only) in a kilt! My mother, a Scot, presumably wanted to make a statement about my heritage.

I was a quiet child with few friends of my own.

 

I remember that, at the age of about 9 or 10, my best friend was a girl in my class. I was sad when her family moved to another town.

 

When at secondary school (all boys) I was always embarrassed at the thought of chatting up girls.

 

I often thought, from around that age and through my life, how much more pleasant it would have been to have been if I’d been born as a girl. The idea that it might be possible to change gender never reached me until I was about 30, when I first met a trans person.

 

After this, and when I was still single, I experimented with cross-dressing, restricting this to my flat.

 

I started an intimate relationship with a woman when I was 33 and we married over two years later in 1985.

We conceived and raised together two boys, born in 1986 and 1989.

 

In 1998 I first started to have serious feelings of gender dysphoria to a point where I wanted to live as a woman. I discussed this with my wife and started seeing a counsellor. On one occasion my wife and I met the counsellor together, but this did not prove helpful. I would wear women’s clothes when my wife and children were out. Occasionally I would go out dressed, particularly to shop for clothes. I also spent a weekend at a Gendys Network conference. This episode lasted for about 6 to 8 months, ending close to Christmas-time. I was persuaded by my wife not to tale this any further until the children (then 9 and 12) were older.

 

For the next few years I kept these feelings mainly under control but the re-emerged to a point at which I needed to act on them early in 2002. At this time, I had more opportunity to dress as a woman because I had a small business at which, for 2 days a week, I worked on my own. I saw my GP, who referred me to the Sheffield Gender Identity Clinic. I also say a private gender specialist, Russel Reid, who prescribed hormones for me which my GP kindly agreed to transfer to an NHS prescription. My wife was not happy about this. We stopped having sex and she and was clear that she would not continue to live with me if I came out publicly. I was not willing to see our family break up and, early in 2003, I stopped the hormones and abandoned cross-dressing.

 

From then until about a year ago I kept this dysphoria under control, though did have these feelings/fantasies about how things might go if I were widowed. I feel quite ashamed of this – I don’t want to grow resentful of her as a block to my self-realisation. Towards the end of 2017 I started thinking seriously for a few weeks about progressing towards transitioning. Somehow these thoughts and feelings subsided, until around October 2018, since when I again started thinking seriously about preparing to transition. The yearning to transition has grown stronger ever since. I have done some serious study on the way forward. As our children are coming home for Christmas, I have decided to postpone any discussion with my wife (and with my GP and private clinicians) until the New Year. At this point I will ask my GP for a referral to the Sheffield GIC and make an appointment with a private Gender clinician. My hope is to transition to full-time living as a woman.

 

I am hoping that this won’t be the end of our marriage. My wife and I still feel warmly towards each other and appreciate our life together. I still love her and hope she would still love me if I go for transition. I haven’t been open with her lately about my true feelings– I guess she imagines that I have left these behind. Transition now would be less complicated now that the children live away from home. I will need to persuade my wife that having the soul of a woman is an essential aspect of who I am – she cannot expect me to discard aspects of myself that she is uncomfortable with. I very much hope that she would agree to stay with me through my transition and beyond.

 

It will not be easy to explain things to the boys, though I believe they will understand and accept what I am doing. This would have been so much harder when they were still young.

 

I don’t think I will have much trouble coming out to friends. Those closest to me I would like to tel in person and others I would probably email with a template explanation.

 

The groups I am closest to are my Quaker Meeting, my community choir and the cohousing group I belong to. I ham sure I would find tender support from the Quakers. I think the choir would accept me. The Cohousing group would be important as these are people I would hope to be living with.

 

I am also a Samaritan volunteer and I don’t foresee any problem in keeping this going.

 

I also belong to a racquetball group. This may be slightly more embarrassing as I am nor particularly close to the other members, but I hope I can be accepted there too.

 

I'd love to hear how other married people in my situation have managed their relationships tenderly through their transition.

[Jani]

Greetings Dilys!   Thank you for joining us and sharing your story.  As you can see the feelings never leave us, they just get buried only to come back harder.  I cannot offer how your wife and sons will react to your news as we are all different.  I wish you well.  It seems you have a fairly active life which is wonderful, hopefully those close to you will see the true you and be accepting.  

 

Please keep us informed on how your holidays go and please do join in the conversation here.  Reaching out to other like minded folks is calming.  

 

Cheers, Jani 

[Dilys C]

I was going to come out to my wife yesterday but found myself unable to do it, reflecting that what I have already as a male is too precious to risk for a very uncertain future as Dilys.

So Dilys is saying good bye now to all you lovely folks.

[DeeDee]

3 hours ago, Dilys C said:

I was going to come out to my wife yesterday but found myself unable to do it

Hi Dilys, you are the only person that can say what is the best thing for you to do in your situation. This is not a black and white or on/off (binary) thing.  Perhaps just finding a counsellor that would allow you to talk through your feelings is enough at the moment. I wish you all the best for this coming year.