Elsewhere in the forums, I mentioned watching the movie Imagine Me & You. In an age where every movie offers the cliché 'happy ending', this is one story that I felt - personally - gave some hope to those of us in the process of coming out. In short, the outcome is good if unexpected – the... sorry, I won't spoil the ending for those who might watch it.

I watched this with my wife. As most of you know, she is fully aware that I am TS (can I just say that or should I qualify it with 'self-described pre-op TS') and intend to transition. From all of the discussions we've had, the implication is clearly that this makes a future together pretty much impossible. At the moment we haven't addressed what that means in terms of the steps we have to take and when we take them.

It strikes me that we all view the results of 'coming out' as a Zero Sum Game - like boxing there is a clear winner and loser, no second place. This isn't necessarily the case. It can be that 'coming out' is a Win-Win circumstance that will ultimately benefit both parties. That is the message of the movie.

I first 'came out' to my wife as a crossdresser some six years ago. I chose a bedtime admission of this feeling it was an 'intimate' moment when we could bare our souls. She was horrified, jumped from the bed and left the room. For two years we slept in different rooms and for second of those years she took a job in another city that kept her away for a year.

The first year was filled with emotional outbursts at the most unexpected moments as the implications of what a crossdresser was, came to her.

"Do you OWN womens' clothes?", she demanded in the middle of traffic. When I indicated that I did, an appalliing, discomforting silence fell between us until the next question fomenting in her surfaced,
"Where to you keep them?"
"In the house.", elicited the immediate demand - nearly shouted,
"How dare you bring this into the house! I want them gone! Now!"
However one should respond I could only - in abject shame - say, "Okay."
Later she would ask,
"What do you wear?" I cannot tell you how embarassed and silly I felt, listing my wardrobe and answering her questions as to why.

I was, of course, compelled to give an unqualified promise to end this 'behaviour'. A promise I made – and truly, earnestly, desperately wanted to keep – but couldn't. In fact, the reality was much different that I thought at that moment and ultimately more 'horrifying' for my wife.

Our life became a string of embarassing moments for my wife. Every comment innocently dropped by family or acquaintance, on TV or in a movie or magazine about alternative lifestyles, crossdressing, transvestism or pretty much any alternative lifestyle that was in some way insinuated with condescention was a personal humiliation for her. My 'coming out' she informed me had put her 'into the closet' with a secret she could never unburden herself of. I hadn't thought of my actions having that outcome and yet in the moment she said it I understood.

Three years ago, I confessed to being Transexual. Crossdressing she had come to rationalize as a 'hobby'. She had been to counselling. I had been to counselling. Some of it was beyond bad - down-right harmful, some indifferent and some unacceptable. But it was 'my problem' afterall so further counselling for her, she saw as unnecessary. I had to sort this out.

In these past six years, my life - and hers - has slowly frayed at the edges until there is very little left. The decay is subtle but it's there. The love hasn't gone away but it is distant and protected. Every exchange is cautious. We are not intimate emotionally or physically. Our worlds really only overlap in geography and our common memories from a different time.

I have gone from being apologetic in the extreme to matter-of-fact. I have moved to the basement. I have a wardrobe out in the open. She tidies up occasionally, now, but nothing much is ever said. She has inspected my wardrobe and cosmetics. Certain items that I can only imagine she finds offensive have conveniently 'disappeared' - one a black silk nightshirt.

My toes are painted but I wear socks in the house. She monitors me closely when going out. She doesn't want to be shamed by me. I try my best but slowly her spirit is being crushed - and so is mine. Still, we keep on. It's that, that no one understands, not even us.

The seeds of our existance now were sown as early as the day we met. She was in the instant I saw her, everything I wanted - no needed - to be who I wanted - needed - to be. I was building a castle in the sky. I think in a way, she was too. Both in our early thirties, this would be my first relationship of any consequence and her second. Not good odds. We were both pursuing a personal dream hoping that the other would make su something we were not - and never would be. I was blinded by false dreams - how things should be - that society seems to aspire to. Trouble was, I was never a part of the mainstream, I just thought I was.

Neither of us can give up on the love, but I think neither of us can find happiness through it alone. It is hard to let go of something with no certainty that another hold exists to catch our fall into oblivion.

It all takes me back to the movie. Sometimes the best thing we can do is to be honest and to accept the outcome of that honesty. That outcome, can be good. Perhaps, I'm not the hero of the movie of her life, but only a bit player, a diversion from her true path. Perhaps, in the 'movie' of my life, she is not the true heroine. Maybe there isn't even one for me. Maybe there is.

I know I am loved - I'm just not sure of the reasons. There are reasons, some of which my wife won't share. Maybe I'm convenient around the house, a good handyman, a good date when required, a 'piece of the furniture' that completes the home she so desperately is trying to achieve. None of it is done with ill-will, of that I'm sure.

None of this is intended to suggest what anyone should do with their lives. I only share how mine is unfolding - for better or worse - and imagining how different it might be, when, having started this path and process, I move to complete it. I only know that we watched the movie is silence - each in our own thoughts, with our own feelings. We didn't talk about it at the end, but agreed that it was a 'good' movie and a 'nice' evening together.

And then, as we do every night, she took to her bed and dreams and I to mine.

"I could sympathise, if I was able to devine |sic| the truth."

Yes, Frances, everything that you indicate being from me, is. It certainly seems that the pieces don't - can't - fit. It is easy to disbelieve, Frances, and I don't fault you for that. That's what most people do. I admire you being forthright enough to state what you think.

For most people, it's just too hard or takes too much time to connect such events that seemingly make no sense. It's just easier to dismiss it all as lies.

It make no sense to me either, I'm just sorry that you choose first to disbelieve, Frances, before trying to understand. In rereading your post, perhaps you are giving me such a chance - a chance to 'prove' myself.

There was a moment, reading the post when I thought, "I've got to show how all the pieces fit. I have to make you understand." Is it worthwhile or have you already passed judgement? I'm unsure, Frances, if your post is a sincere interest in understanding or an indictment.

Ironically, every entry - in the chat, the forums, in emails and in my blog - is my honest, candid appraisal of that moment. I don't know, Frances, how one moment of joy can so quickly vanish. I am clutching at straws, at any offer, at any news. I will myself to be happy to see opportunity where actually - truth be told - there is none.

I jump from one untenable circumstance to another. One moment it seems that my life can turn around on some thread of opportunity.

No, I didn't take the apartment. It's there alright, a portion of a basement in a townhouse (rowhouse). It's shabby. It's damp and dim. My lie, Frances, is to believe in that moment, "I can make this work! This can be a new start!" and then, to be a coward and not go forward. I'd like to think that I came to my senses a day later that that change would be a misstep.

My turmoil, is that the pieces don't fit. I have a graduate education from a top school in Canada, I ran my own companies, went bankrupt, and now attempt to restart my life, to come to terms with an 'existance' that others still deny me.

"Look at you! How on earth do you imagine you're really a woman! This is nonsense! Rubbish! What a crock!"

I see a beautiful world and all the things I put in it, that I fought for slipping through my fingers. I swallowed my false pride at being 'an executive' and took a job landscaping -- literally digging ditches. Was it noble? Worthy? Or just 'what I deserve'? Many might say the latter.

I'm sure it is an amusement for some to see this fall. How with what I've had, what I'm capable of, am I so incapacitated? How CAN I put up with what my life has become? How much longer can I cling to an illusion of past success for my neighbours? Shouldn't they know that it's all a shame? I am not some conservative pillar business as they see me on those days I go out or the reality, for whom they can feel embarassed and awkward or even ridicule at their next social.

Have I pleaded poverty? Yes. Is it really so? To stay on my hormones, Frances, I've chosen - literally - not to eat. There isn't money for both. And what money there is, is mostly borrowed from family too silly to abandon me by a person - me - shameless enough to ask.

Have I told my wife? I have. But neither of us has had the courage to act on what we now know. That is our shame. Neither of us yet, has the courage after these conversations to do more than be silent with each other and to wish these conversations had never taken place. And so we do nothing, she wishing for the past and hoping that with nothing done it will return and I wish for a better future, too fearful to take any step forward. So, at the moment, I guess you can say that Im all talk and no action - a blowhard. And my fears, Frances, that go to my soul is that every step now for me will be a misstep. All I'll accomplish is hurt and destruction. So, yes, I dream and imagine and delude myself. And hide.

I have been prejudged before, ... even if to say "get lost.". for things that were not as they seemed. I feel no malice at this. Maybe, I even deserve it.

There are some who try to understand and there are those who cannot. The saddest though are those who choose not to.


"I just don't believe."
"That can't be true."
"That's just not possible."
"Bullsh*t!"

Frances, If I have done anything to offend you, then without qualification I sincerely apologize.

To say you are forthright, I thought a compliment. Certainly it was not intended in any way to be a slight. You are confident in speaking your mind. I admire that. If, however, you feel that it is a slight, I accept those feelings and apologize.

May I call my writing a 'stream of consciousness'?

Does my life make sense? Clearly it does not. I certainly can't make sense of it. I cannot resolve the paradoxes in my life. Why do I write about myself? One reason is to show myself the stark insanity of it. It is different to say or feel something in the moment than reread perceptions and emotions at a later time and with the observations of others. I am analytical, Frances. It is my curse. I don't see machines but the gears and motors that drive them. I'm intrigued by its design and function. I don't see arguments as just emotional conflict but the sincere expression of feelings, ideas and desires behind them. I've had a life of being ridiculed for my interest in everything, science, birds, literature and just having a questioning mind. I have always liked to learn, but I'm undisciplined and not particularly good at it. But somehow I look the part of a 'geek' or 'bookworm' or whatever the lastest expression is. That's why I declined the offer of a job. Factory work I couldn't face. The work I can do brillianlty, it's the people. I could face it if I could be left alone, but that isn't allowed. It's a world that I'm not allowed peace in. I've been through it all, "company man", "do-gooder", "toff", "snotty", "pompous". I'm heckled for working too hard, making others look bad, not being 'one of the gang'. And sadly, I can't afford admission to the places that I might be accepted. And I can't figure out why my life has gone this way.

Truly, I am trying to master this thing called 'friendship'. Clearly, I've never learned these skills.

I don't mind being taken to task on my contributions here. I'm not offended by that, I'm not angered. I am perhaps a little hurt but it is undeserving self-pity. I need to be taken to task. I do take something positive from it. I'm dragging my life out in front of the world to find its ugliness, its insanity, its irrationality and the delusions I live under. Who am I to presume myself better than others? Who am I to presume anything good? The facts of my situation prove that. I'm dragging my life out so that I'm finally forced to stripe away all the rationalizations and lies I tell myself about who and what I am.

I have in the recent past become more assertive in my replies, thinking that pushing back is some how better or right. It's not.

I do make mistakes, misinterpret and misjudge. For these I apologize. If I have offended unintentionally, I have never disputed the injury but apologized without qualification. It seems in life that I cannot apologize enough.

Frances,

I quite simply do not know how to reply to your post, nor your PM regarding the timeliness of my followup. I am doing everything possible to presume the intention of your letters is well-meaning but, candidly, your messages can very easily be taken as rather rude.

I appreciate that you have read my thread and taken the time to write. However, I'm not obliging you to reply to my posts and presume that I am under no compelling obligation to respond directly and specifically to every comment you make.

With your past messages to me, Frances, I have made allowance for the tone presuming that English is not your first language. The tone of your letter would be seen as rude, if received from someone whose native language is English. I'm still trying to decide if your messages are intended to be amusingly ironic or you feel that I am obligated to reply to you within 24 hours of you adding a post to my thread.

Dear Ann,

May I ask, why you seem to be having difficulty, making a follow up, to my last post, to your thread. You ask for help, someone makes an observation! Silence! love frances

'seem to be having difficulty...'?. Are you serious, Frances? Speaking to you as a friend, I'm trying to keep this light and pleasant, but you've really got me wondering. Instead of expressing appreciation for your post and offering a bit of guidance on English, perhaps I should be feeling insulted. I might rightly ask, "How presumptuous of you to expect a reply within hours and failing that question that I'm 'having difficulty'."

May I suggest that your letter might have been better expressed,

"Ann,

I responded to your post but, as yet, haven't seen a response. It's only been some 24 hours but I am very eager to hear back from you.

Frances"

This is the second time you've sent me a letter that insinuates poormanners or some difficulty on my part.
On the first occasion, you didn't receive replies from me because your email was not functioning. I sent multiple letters, I spoke to a number of girls to try to get through to you, apologized for causing you to doubt me (all the while thinking the fault was mine) and finally when I did get through you offered no acknowledgement of my efforts, didn't offer any sort of 'thanks but not necessary' for my apology. I at least thought that you would acknowledge my effort and at least offer, "I'm sorry Ann, that I suggested that you were not courteous enough to reply. The mistake was mine."

Now, you give me something short of 24 hours (the time between your post and your message) to reply. Frances, I don't know what to say. This is crazy. I read your post less than 12 hours ago and your message less that 3 hours ago (I.E. 15:00:00 EDT October 25, 2006). I've taken some time to consider both what you wrote in your post and again some time to consider the message.

I'd love to talk with you. That you take an interest in me is greatly appreciated. Perhaps, though, you're unaware that the tone of your letters as written in English to most other readers would be considered deprecating and rude. I hope that is not the intention.

You're under no obligation to respond to my posts or blog entries. Please understand that I don't see that I'm under any obligation to reply directly to any response you or anyone may add. I don't know of anyone else placing the obligation of a reply on their contributions, let alone within 24 hours of it being posted. Just the matter time zones makes it almost impossible.

And, for the record, I do reply to almost every correspondance I receive out of appreciation to the author and as a courtesy. But, please, give me a little time to get to the computer to see that a response is there, to read and consider it, then time to formulate and write a thoughtful reply. Lastly, Frances, you have to allow for the differences in time zones that unavoidably create long pauses between each correspondance.

I hope this sorts out the matter of my manners. This is intended as the well-meaning advice of a friend. To consider this otherwise and to doubt me again would, quite simply, be rude.

Separately, I will provide some feedback on your reply. That follows.

Frances,

First, I would like to thank for your contribution. It is nice of you to post a picture.

As you request, I will respond directly to your post.

I'm uncertain how to take your comment, " At any rate, it is better than a ring around the roses or whatever that little bouquet was.. I'll chose to take that as a bit of humour. I thought the bouquet that I appended to one of my messages to you was a gesture of friendship and to acknowledge that although you misread one of my comments, I still accepted responsibility and wanted to make a gesture of apology. I just thought a picture bouquet captures my intention better than just, "sorry, didn't mean to upset you.'

On the matter of over-thinking things, Frances, I do. It seems that my brain is wired that way. It is an inextricable part of how I view the world. My challenge then is what to do -- or not do -- about it.

Wendy

An interesting post, some of which I'm still puzzling over.

If I may be so bold, it is perception that is variable not truth - if truth be defined as reality. For example, a rock has a quantifiable weight - an attribute that we both agree as 'true'. While I may perceive it as heavy, you may perceive it as light but true weight of the rock is still the same for both of us and unaffected by either perception.

I do agree that we are compartmentalized. It is imposed on us and at some point becomes self-imposed. At that point, 'appropriate' behaviour like religion seems exempt from any rationale more strigent than, 'just because'.

The idea of two beings is intriguing. Quite a number of people here have said that. Personally, though, I've never felt that I had two identities. Interestingly enough, Hanna was exploring this idea in the chat one evening looking for a understanding of this feeling of being two people. She, like me, doesn't feel this. While most of the girls there felt that they had two souls - if you will - I could only explain the reference to myself as Ann or Michael as solely for the convenience of others - like my wife - who needed to know how I was 'presenting' myself at a particular moment.

For me I could only explainI have always perceived the world from a single perspective but very early on my perceptions and tangible responses were categorized by the people and world around me as 'appropriate' or 'inappropriate'. I had to learn this distinction but the origin of my behaviour was and is a single self-identity.

I have the distinct recollection as a child of seven being challenged by a friend of my older brother to put on my sister's bathing suit. I recall being only mildly puzzled at the request and though nothing of it. Having put it on I was mystified by his taunting. My only sense of 'inappropriate' was a child's sense that wearing my siblings' clothes without asking them first was 'not nice' no different than if i had been dared to wear my brother's clothes – which I coveted because mother dressed him in blue, and therefore gave him all the really cool jeans and me in green and therefore I was committed wearing shiny green slacks and shirts like a gas station attendant.

For example, my sense of guilt about wearing my sisters' clothes was built solely on 'borrowing without asking' that any child is taught. My identityy of the time didn't differentiate clothes by gender. It was purely an aesthetic choice. However, as I grew I began to see that certain behaviour; preferring to play with the neighbourhood girls, crying, the dislike of getting dirty, spending time with mother, etcetera were 'inappropriate.

I feel that I had to 'learn' that wearing or wanting to wear girls' clothes was 'inappropriate'. I had to learn that liking certain colours was 'inappropriate'. This was the genesis of a life strategy where from a single identity I had to learn to distinquish - by cue from others, particularly my older brother - what was 'appropriate'. Gender just wasn't a criteria I used. I had to learn this. From early childhood, then I was - without having a name for it - crossdressing. The guilt was to come.

It's interesting to look back on this time. I see now that I was mystified by mothers' insistance on dressing me in green and refusing to allow me blue - eventually explained as no more than a way for easier sorting of laundry by child - in exactly the same way I was mystified that I was not allowed panties as colourful as my sisters. Oh, and woe betide me if I ever again referred to my underpants as panties.

It wasn't until I was thirteen - puberty - that any sexual component of crossdressing arose. I can in fact recall the first occasion that I had an orgasm the consequence of being crossdressed. In fact, outside of a wet dream, this was my first. It was fortuitous because as I began to comprehend sexuality - as much as an exceptionally naive teenage boy could comprehend the explanations of slight older but absurdly misinformed teens around me - that I was that virile that orgasmic relief was an essential requirement for good health and in the absence of compliant girls or magazines, clothes were a convenient alternative. I convinced myself that the compulsion to crossdress would vanish with my first real girlfriend. This remained a central aspect of crossdressing unitl my early thirties.

I learned to be perpetually conscious of my actions - gestures, movements, emotions, dress, in fact everything - to ensure that 'natural' inclinations that I had learned as inappropriate were stifled. Even so, I was continually reprimanded by my older brother for how I held my books, walked, dressed and spoke. I seldom went more that a few days without crossdressing - mostly at night in bed or on the occasions when I was alone at home.

This moves away from your theme, Wendy, of two identities but bears completing, having come this far.

By my early thirties (mid-1980's) I had come to rationalize - in a horribly disfunctional way - my crossdressing as entirely sexually motivated - not withstanding no serious attempts to pursue girls and an increasing self-identity as female. My role in any sexual fantasy was as the female with men. I did not see this as a homosexual role. I ritualized crossdressing to require orgasm and then the disposal of the female items - pantihose or panties. Unfortunately, I carried a morbid fear that I was in fact homosexual and I became quite paranoid given societies attitudes at the time.

At this time I willfully looked for another 'me' inside so that I could detach crossdressing from my aspiration to do everything 'right'. I wanted to have a second personality - my Mr. Hyde - to explain my compulsive deviance into crossdressing.

In this period, orgasm became the penultimate (second last) act of crossdressing. Guilt and shame after orgasm were essential to my explanation. It was 'right' to feel this way after orgasm, the guilt proved that I was a man. Without this, I lacked any socially acceptable explanation.

I speculate that on my own, only restricted by the inhibitions that I had learned and now free of reinforcement of them began to lose sight of male benchmarks. Again, I see it - for me - as a single identity producing undifferentiate behaviour that required external compartmentalizaion by the people around me. Sadly, I was creating a world without people around.

In my mid-thirties, I discovered the existance of transvestites, read my first TV magazine and visited a porn shop for the first time. (Yes, this is true.) Compuserve and AOL were dialup sites - the internet as a public place still only speculation. The 'pleasure' of crossdressing, it's purpose, orgasm disappeared. I would literaly abuse myself to injury desperately trying to climax. The erotic component had vanished. I began to crossdress on a continous basis - essentially underwear - and simply ceased any attempts at dating. I had 'learned' crossdressing was 'inappropriate'. No longer able to claim is was a sexual activity, I was left with only self-doubt, self-loathing, guilt and shame. I even recall an episode of the 70's sitcom Barny Miller where a truck driver is picked up in Central Park dressed as a woman and the hilarity of the show based on his embarassment (or lack there of) having to explain to Barney, the cell mates and an incredulous friend there to bail him out that he did it, "because it makes me feel pretty." I couldn't see the humour of this. It seemed entirely reasonable, but I knew enough to hide my profound embarassment and pretend it amusing.

---

to be continued...
oh, and I'll correct the typos too.

Frances,
I'm at a complete and utter loss as to how to respond. I'm really struggling to understand why you are so offended at my actions and at the same time offer no acknowledgement of my feelings.

I am not being ironic or sarcastic to say that you should include with your posts the obligation that you place on me to respond within a certain timeframe which - it seems - is within 72 hours.

It is because of other activities in my life at the moment - notably interviews to find work and a very real struggle to maintain my emotional balance - that I am not on the internet all the time and even aware of your correspondance.

For the record, I happened to speak with Sammi in the chat and had mentioned to her that I wasn't going to be around much given all that I'm going through, knowing that others might inquire and possibly even worry. It strikes me as common courtesy that you might inquire of the girls as to my whereabouts before you presume me rude.

How do you wish to untangle this circumstance we have arrived at? What would you have me do? Give me the rules by which you would like to correspond. I am not being sarcastic. I am totally sincere in this.

Again, Frances, if it is truly a matter that I am misreading your English I willingly apologize and only ask that you at least acknowledge that I'm making every effort to defuse this and accomodate you.

Yes, Wendy, I see your point and agree. The same reality 'cheating' is the constant, what changes with a change in 'value's' is a change of 'perception' from an act that was right to wrong. Well put.

Expressed scientifically this is;

PV =nRT

(Our perception that cheating was positive is inversely proportional to how good the sex was.)

Ann,

We live an entire life in which we are compartmentalized. This may be due to our brain structure, necessity or, probably, both. I have commented on my own experience a number of times. I sometimes felt as if my "computer" (brain) had two CPUs that process the same data and come out with entirely different "truths". Perhaps one is natural and the other conditioned. For whatever reason it is not uncommon for humans to see the same situation in different lights at different times. In part this has to do with what input is in ascendancy at the moment. Truth is neither static or absolute. It is a result of perception and processing. perhaps this is a good thing as it lets us see, if we let ourselves, more than one side to a situation.

Not two brains or identities, Ann, but two sets of rules for processing facts. Two different "correct" conclusions. Not two different realities. Two different value systems. The clearest, but not best, example I can give is that I once held my crossdressing as something that I would do almost anything to keep to myself. Now I'm not willing to give up my transgendered life if that absolute closeting is the price to be paid. These are the two different answers that the same set of facts broght me to using two different value systems (ok, not the SAME, but the principle is the same)

Now some men make the decision to cheat on their wives and later wonder why they did something so stupid. Well, they input different valuies into the process at two different times. Their reality altered to fit the situation. Not an exact example but I think the idea carries over. Same person, same brain, same facts....two different results.