Wednesday 30th May 2018
I finally arrived home from what seemed to be the longest trip in history. Sure it was a great time spending the weekend with fellow members of our church group, but to be honest I had only one person on my mind. I remember coming back from the band camp trip and thinking to myself, "I have a girlfriend." That made the story even funny for me as while I was thinking that, my very new partner was dancing around her house singing at the top of her lungs that she had a new boyfriend.
As time progressed, our relationship grew stronger and stronger. We became inseparable and it was like although I was spending almost every waking minute of the day with her, I still couldn't get enough of her in my life. We would go on outings all the time as well spend time just sitting around at my house chatting about what we both wanted to do in our lives. I'd tell her about my writing ambitions and even read her some passages of whatever I was writing at the time.
At the time I was sharing my house with a friend of mine and her 4 year old son whom I'd met at our church group. I'd found out later that the girl who had taken over my world in such a big way, actually was worried about asking me out because she believed that my friend and her son was actually my Wife and child. Needless to say, we worked past that little obstacle when I reassured her that my housemate was nothing more than a friend.
Another obstacle that was a little harder to get around, was her Father. Unfortunately, in the beginning Dad wasn't much of a fan to say the least. I guess looking back now, with good reason. I was 7 years older than his daughter and lets just say between jobs at the time. Dad made it quite clear that I wasn't suitable for his daughter till at least I found myself a job. So, using that as motivation, I set out to find myself some employment. It was also around this time, I attended a seminar at our local Tafe about looking at working in Childcare as a profession.
While attending our Church, I became a Sunday school teacher. To be totally honest, I only became a Sunday school teacher because the girl I was initially interested in, was one also. Truth be told, that's why I also became involved in our Churches version of Scouts and Guides. Yes, you guessed it, the object of my affection was also apart of that group to. I realised while I was doing these things that I had a flair for entertaining children and for some reason they actually seemed to like me. The idea of becoming a childcare worker came along, so I went along to the seminar and decided that it sounded to much like hard work and that was essentially that. Oh, if I only knew it then.
Not long after that, my case worker at the employment agency that I was attending, put me forward for a job as a Salesperson in a retail store. That started my journey of trying to seek the approval of my Girlfriends Father. Of course it didn't happen straight away but it finally did happen. It took me having to fake an interest in the horses and the greyhounds (his favourite pastime) but in the end, we had a pretty good relationship, right up to the day he passed. He was actually heading over to our house to spend the day with myself and his Daughter so he and I could go over the form guide and place a few bets one Saturday. Sadly he never made it to our house and we were to later find out that he collapsed at the bus stop, had a massive heart attack and died.
When I finally made up my mind that I wanted to propose to my then Girlfriend, I agonised over how I was going to tell her about me and who I was. I felt that if she was going to make that commitment to me, that I had to be totally truthful with her so she knew what she was getting into. I don't know whether she was just blinded by love or she didn't hear me correctly or at least understood what me being Transgender was going to mean to her. Although, my secret life was still very much a secret to the outside world, I still felt that she would benefit from a heads up to what our home life would be like if she decided to except my proposal.
Once again she didn't seem phased by what I was telling her so with a big sigh of relief, I asked her to marry me. Thankfully, she said yes. A couple of years later, we were married and our life together began. For the first five years of our married life together it was like we were on a never ending honey moon. If I couldn't get enough of her before I was married to her, I certainly couldn't after we were married. Every single moment of the day we were together, unless I was working of course. We didn't go anywhere without the other and that's just how it was.
My life seemed perfect, I had an amazing girl who loved me for who i was and better still, i had an amazing person to go shopping with anytime we felt like a splurge on some new clothes. She would tell me what she liked on me and I told her what clothes I liked on her. Everything was going well until one day she stopped me in my tracks and told me out of nowhere, that she couldn't do this anymore. She told me that she married a Man, not a Woman and that she wanted me to stop being who I was.
I swear I tried so hard to stop being me. For the next fifteen years I tried to stop being me and the more I tried, the more my life would fall apart and a little piece of my identity would fade away. I suffered with depression and began looking at ways of ending my own life. The sad part was that i was so pathetic at that point that I couldn't even do that right. I lost friends, my family could tell there was something wrong but I couldn't tell them because I didn't have any ounce of self-esteem or self-respect left. I remember driving to work in peak hour traffic and just bursting into tears each day because I was constantly thinking about who I needed to be.
As far as our home life was going, all lines of communication had broken down by this point. We surrounded ourselves with things that made us comfortable, for me it was my PlayStation as each night after work I would transport my life to the world of Final Fantasy. For my Wife, she continued her interests in Animal Welfare. She attended rallies in the city and supported Animal Welfare causes all over Australia.
You see, in another cruel twist of fate, we discovered in the early years of our marriage that we couldn't have children of our own, so that's why we surrounded ourselves with distractions. We had talked so many times about having our own kids. We already picked out names for them, not to mention, going out a buying baby clothes and other accessories. I remember one month when my Wife told me within those first five years that she was late. We both began building our hopes thinking this was it, we might be pregnant only to be crushed a few days later when we discovered that we weren't. It wasn't long after that that I had a count down only to find that I had no swimmers at all.
It wasn't long after we received the test results, that my Wife hit me with the "I married a Man not a Woman" line. Sitting here now re-thinking about that time in my life, I remember feeling like my whole world had just self imploded. The sense of despair was overwhelming and I felt trapped because it wasn't if I could go and talk to someone about it because no one else knew. I was literally living in my own private prison cell for the next 15 years. To afraid to speak for fear of the consequences of me speaking out.
Thankfully, this all changed after a night out drinking with two of my friends when I finally opened that door of the closet that had been holding me for the last 46 years and taking an all mighty leap of faith.
At the time I was sharing my house with a friend of mine and her 4 year old son whom I'd met at our church group. I'd found out later that the girl who had taken over my world in such a big way, actually was worried about asking me out because she believed that my friend and her son was actually my Wife and child. Needless to say, we worked past that little obstacle when I reassured her that my housemate was nothing more than a friend.
Another obstacle that was a little harder to get around, was her Father. Unfortunately, in the beginning Dad wasn't much of a fan to say the least. I guess looking back now, with good reason. I was 7 years older than his daughter and lets just say between jobs at the time. Dad made it quite clear that I wasn't suitable for his daughter till at least I found myself a job. So, using that as motivation, I set out to find myself some employment. It was also around this time, I attended a seminar at our local Tafe about looking at working in Childcare as a profession.
While attending our Church, I became a Sunday school teacher. To be totally honest, I only became a Sunday school teacher because the girl I was initially interested in, was one also. Truth be told, that's why I also became involved in our Churches version of Scouts and Guides. Yes, you guessed it, the object of my affection was also apart of that group to. I realised while I was doing these things that I had a flair for entertaining children and for some reason they actually seemed to like me. The idea of becoming a childcare worker came along, so I went along to the seminar and decided that it sounded to much like hard work and that was essentially that. Oh, if I only knew it then.
Not long after that, my case worker at the employment agency that I was attending, put me forward for a job as a Salesperson in a retail store. That started my journey of trying to seek the approval of my Girlfriends Father. Of course it didn't happen straight away but it finally did happen. It took me having to fake an interest in the horses and the greyhounds (his favourite pastime) but in the end, we had a pretty good relationship, right up to the day he passed. He was actually heading over to our house to spend the day with myself and his Daughter so he and I could go over the form guide and place a few bets one Saturday. Sadly he never made it to our house and we were to later find out that he collapsed at the bus stop, had a massive heart attack and died.
When I finally made up my mind that I wanted to propose to my then Girlfriend, I agonised over how I was going to tell her about me and who I was. I felt that if she was going to make that commitment to me, that I had to be totally truthful with her so she knew what she was getting into. I don't know whether she was just blinded by love or she didn't hear me correctly or at least understood what me being Transgender was going to mean to her. Although, my secret life was still very much a secret to the outside world, I still felt that she would benefit from a heads up to what our home life would be like if she decided to except my proposal.
Once again she didn't seem phased by what I was telling her so with a big sigh of relief, I asked her to marry me. Thankfully, she said yes. A couple of years later, we were married and our life together began. For the first five years of our married life together it was like we were on a never ending honey moon. If I couldn't get enough of her before I was married to her, I certainly couldn't after we were married. Every single moment of the day we were together, unless I was working of course. We didn't go anywhere without the other and that's just how it was.
My life seemed perfect, I had an amazing girl who loved me for who i was and better still, i had an amazing person to go shopping with anytime we felt like a splurge on some new clothes. She would tell me what she liked on me and I told her what clothes I liked on her. Everything was going well until one day she stopped me in my tracks and told me out of nowhere, that she couldn't do this anymore. She told me that she married a Man, not a Woman and that she wanted me to stop being who I was.
I swear I tried so hard to stop being me. For the next fifteen years I tried to stop being me and the more I tried, the more my life would fall apart and a little piece of my identity would fade away. I suffered with depression and began looking at ways of ending my own life. The sad part was that i was so pathetic at that point that I couldn't even do that right. I lost friends, my family could tell there was something wrong but I couldn't tell them because I didn't have any ounce of self-esteem or self-respect left. I remember driving to work in peak hour traffic and just bursting into tears each day because I was constantly thinking about who I needed to be.
As far as our home life was going, all lines of communication had broken down by this point. We surrounded ourselves with things that made us comfortable, for me it was my PlayStation as each night after work I would transport my life to the world of Final Fantasy. For my Wife, she continued her interests in Animal Welfare. She attended rallies in the city and supported Animal Welfare causes all over Australia.
You see, in another cruel twist of fate, we discovered in the early years of our marriage that we couldn't have children of our own, so that's why we surrounded ourselves with distractions. We had talked so many times about having our own kids. We already picked out names for them, not to mention, going out a buying baby clothes and other accessories. I remember one month when my Wife told me within those first five years that she was late. We both began building our hopes thinking this was it, we might be pregnant only to be crushed a few days later when we discovered that we weren't. It wasn't long after that that I had a count down only to find that I had no swimmers at all.
It wasn't long after we received the test results, that my Wife hit me with the "I married a Man not a Woman" line. Sitting here now re-thinking about that time in my life, I remember feeling like my whole world had just self imploded. The sense of despair was overwhelming and I felt trapped because it wasn't if I could go and talk to someone about it because no one else knew. I was literally living in my own private prison cell for the next 15 years. To afraid to speak for fear of the consequences of me speaking out.
Thankfully, this all changed after a night out drinking with two of my friends when I finally opened that door of the closet that had been holding me for the last 46 years and taking an all mighty leap of faith.
No comments:
Post a Comment