No matter what’s going on with an individual with a problem, it isn’t only that person who’s affected. The people near and dear to them are impacted in all sorts of different ways. Routines disrupted, expectations changes, sometimes the end of a relationship or the grief that comes with the end of a life and continuing on.
As trans people we’re sometimes pretty focused on our own struggle. It can be all consuming and there really are some compelling reasons. We’re in pain, then we’re going through major life changes and sometimes we aren’t very good at looking at those around us to pay attention to their needs too.
About four and a half years ago I wrote:
Wife’s doing pretty well considering. We had a bad snowstorm Thursday into Friday, so I worked at home and dressed as Rachel. I changed to go to Temple for the evening for many reasons, but primarily for her and because I’m not out to them at this point. Although it’s a small community and the rumor mill just flies.
I got Saturday until I got home and made the mistake of showing myself in a skirt. Just too much. You could feel the bad vibes making the walls shake. So I changed, and we settled in to eat dinner and watch a cute movie (Miss Pettygrew lives for a day)
Imagine what she had gone through. Only eleven months before she learned I was trans having never suspected anything like that. She adapted to see me in female clothing although there were limits at that point. That was a year before I went full time and six months before I started transitioning.
But I also wrote:
But I’m really unclear how well she really understands what’s in my head. She called the situation bizarre, but doesn’t really understand that this feels pretty normal to me. And I really cannot tell her that this is my last stage to figure out if I can stop short of transitioning. I think that would be just too difficult for her.
It was becoming very, very clear that stopping short of transition just wasn’t going to work. I engaged in quite a bit of wishful thinking. But while she didn’t understand what was in my head all that well, I didn’t have a good perspective of how difficult acceptance is for someone who really just heard this news about a year before, whereas I had known for about fifty years.
Those close to us sometimes lash out and it can be cruel. Yet it happens because they are hurting terribly, their hopes and dreams and plans have been crushed or at least vastly rearranged.
When it came down to it for us, we decided that we’ll be content with friendship and living apart. I know of no heterosexual marriages surviving without enormous change through a partner’s transition. Perhaps it could happen if the partner’s bi, but otherwise I don’t see how.
The journey isn’t a fast ride down a froth filled river of cold water. There are hazards, but they approach in a more leisurely pace than submerged boulders or icebergs at sea. The dangers are seen and unseen but have to do with finding happiness.
Somewhere at the start of my journey a friend warned me how I could lose everything. Family, friends, community, work, the entire ball of wax. There are some poor souls who do go through Hell and can lose much of this. That was not my fate. Was that true because I chose my friends well, lived a good life, was lucky? I’m not sure. I have my loses. [[ My losses are still not over now, two years later ]]
There are different ways of losing. I spent time with a small group one evening and this one person kept complaining that their wife, who had passed some ten years before, had never accepted her as female. I thought it pitiable. To only keep her memory alive for a slight, and probably one she had little control over seemed unfortunate, and then there was the whole who does this hurt issue.
Everyone has losses. It’s inevitable.
I wondered at whether I’d keep my male friends. At first I thought yes given their reactions but I’m not so daft as to judge people by what they say alone. Intentions can be wonderful but actions tell. The truth is that no relationship of mine with a male friend has gone unchanged. It can be really hard to know what will happen, but then it isn’t only them wanting to remain friends with me.
How I’m treated is subtly different and attitudes that were sometimes ok before are offensive now. Social graces are of more import now than before and so situations that were ok are sometimes less enjoyable now. I couldn’t begin to guess what fraction of the men I’ve known, many for 30+ years, will become distant acquaintances over time. No straight rejections, just realignment. [[ or non-contact is another popular method ]]
What remains is to accept this with grace and dignity. Not all change is bad, not all losses need cause us great pain. New friends exist out there and can be found.
My Gifted Life 
Well said.
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