I have, at last, had the most consequential conversation of my marriage with my wife. I wish that it might have been born of strength and courage and determination on my part. It was, in fact, born of absolute despair and personal desolation. For three years, even as I took hormones my wife and I politely skirted (no pun intended) the issue and implication of my transition.

In three years, we've both come to know - silently and individually - that a change must come to our relationship. It was the unspoken topic, ever present, never acknowledged.

Who or whatever I was crumbled in this silence. In this last week, came tears I couldn't hold back, emptiness within so vast, I couldn't find any purchase to stir myself forward.

I AM transexual. It isn't an experiment, a phase, a diversion from some path. It is my path and I must find it's end. This I told my wife. There was no equivocation, just what is. As it is, I said, I have to leave. I have to find out who I truly am and this is the only way i can ever truly know.

For years - my life - I have been coming out. At the very first even to myself. I recall the moment, alone in the stacks of a library, seeing my life, my 'script' laid out in a medical journal as if written of me personally.

I don't know if there is a single way to come out to those we love. My family has known now for three years but I have continued to present as male. Being transexual is now like some invisible blemish on me. In all of this my mother has stood by and even today we spoke.

"It is done, mother, the words spoken to my wife." She practical in her compassion and concern. Is this the right way to do things? I don't know.

This discussion with my wife was - in contrast to its profound impact on our lives both together and apart - unremarkable and mostly dispassionate. Perhaps three years have so worn us both down that there is no spirit left in either of us. It is a joyless moment - there is no victor only victims both and ironically winners.

I guess in the process I chose for transition, to take time, to hide, I learned that it only serves to deminish the beauty of the love that two people have had together. Perhaps better to be quick. I don't know. My path has finally opened again. My wife is silent. I know what I have done for me - I have finally saved myself but I can't escape aching about the cost to her.