Chapter Three

It was six months since the night in January when Anthony had told me she was Vicky. It was also a week since Ellie’s sixteenth birthday and there was no more putting it off. I had to tell her what was going on. As I walked up the stairs to her room I felt exactly as I had done on the night I had had to phone my mother and tell her that my brother, her only son, had been killed on his motorcycle on the M40. He had been knocked off by a driver who had pulled out without looking. The driver was later shown to have been on his mobile phone. Whether or not he had been drinking was impossible to prove, because he drove away from the scene and only handed himself in three days later when any trace of alcohol would have been long gone anyway. Maybe he hadn’t been drinking, it makes little difference. It wouldn’t have made my brother any less dead. My only knowledge of this man is that he, like my brother, had two small boys at the time, so whatever penalties the law exacted, he knows that two boys grew up without their father because of him.

On the night my brother died it was me who had to call my mother and tell her this thing that would ruin her life. Before I told her she existed in a state in which her beloved son was alive, even though he had been dead for several hours by the time I spoke to her. Once I spoke, that reality, false as it was, was destroyed. Now climbing up to Ellie’s room I felt the same. If I didn’t say anything, maybe left it until tomorrow or next week, she could have more time believing that she had a step-father who would always be there. I was about to take all that away from her and ask her to embark on a journey that I hadn’t yet worked out myself. I had no idea where this was going, was it even possible, had anyone ever done this before, yet I wanted her to accept all this uncertainty in exchange for a life that had for the last six years, been very happy.

I was also, and I was acutely conscious of this, asking her to understand me in a new way. I was a woman who was going to have another woman as a partner. I was telling her I was OK with that. How would she feel? Did it matter to her that I should be a run of the mill heterosexual. Was telling her this tantamount to sharing descriptions of my sex life? What teenager wants that?! I was terrified that not only would she reject Vicky for being Vicky, but that she would reject me for staying with Vicky. How would that affect her own relationships in the future, and what undoable damage was I about to do? I’m amazed I made it to the top of the stairs.

I have always been very close to both my children, but the time spent with Ellie after my divorce, when we were struggling to make ends meet, had been strangely wonderful. Though in practical terms it had been a slog, it had also been just the two of us, while her brother was away at school. Being the sibling of a disabled child as I have said, can be very disabling. I could at last, put her first. Do the things she wanted to. She could have sleep overs and parties. If she needed picking up from somewhere I could just go get her. She often told me I was the kind of mother she could talk to, tell anything too. I was not like other mothers, like her friends mothers. I was cool. I felt very proud and very lucky. My relationship with her was the jewel in my emotional crown. The thought of risking it, of loosing it, was terrifying.

But there was no possibility of not telling her. She was already aware something was up with her step-father. I wasn’t the only one who had been living with the stressed and distressed person who had stopped smiling and withdrawn into silence. When I started to tell her that I now knew what his problem was, she told me she had wondered if he was a drug addict. Schools are very up on telling their charges the warning signs of drug addiction and, with the evidence she had it wasn’t a bad guess.

I sat on the end of her bed and said I had something important to discuss. I told her that there was a very rare medical condition that Anthony had been born with and though It wasn’t going to kill him it was going to change him. I explained that Anthony was transgendered. This meant he hadn’t been born entirely male. In his case his brain was female and his body male. It had made him very unhappy because he loved us all very very much but he couldn’t go on pretending to be male when he was really female. She cried, she asked did that mean I was a lesbian, she asked if her step dad wanted to go all the way to become a woman, she asked who was going to walk her down the aisle. She asked lots of sensible questions but I could see how shocked she was. It was every bit as painful as I had feared.

She said she was very shaken. She also said that she still loved her step-dad and didn’t want him to move out, neither did she for that matter. She just wanted to give him a hug and not talk about it with him yet, and then she would like to go out with me and not be in the house for a while. I felt desperately sorry to have caused her so much distress, but also so proud that she had reacted with such maturity and kindness. This was going to take time to get used to, of course it was, but she was willing to try. She was willing to reach out with compassion to Vicky.

I left her to get ready to go and stay with a friend, a friend who would of course be told nothing about this, and went downstairs feeling not a little relieved that the ground hadn’t crumbled beneath me and that my daughter still wanted us to be a family. It was a pretty good outcome all things considered. I really believed at that moment that the worst was over.

What I had completely failed to consider was how Vicky would feel, discovering this seismic moment in our family’s life had taken place without warning and without her involvement. I was very clear in my mind that telling Ellie without Vicky in the room was essential. If she had needed to scream abuse and anger and hatred, if that were her reaction, better by far that Vicky didn’t have to take it. I would protect my child, giving her the space to feel however she felt, and I would protect Vicky. How marvelous I was.

That was not how Vicky saw it. She was outraged that I hadn’t even warned her that I was going upstairs to do this momentous thing, she thought I was putting some clothes away. I was I have to admit, staggered by her reaction. I had been expecting praise and thanks for my delicate handling of the situation, even rejoicing that Ellie said she still loved Vicky. Amazing, I thought, wonderful. Vicky was furious saying I had presented it all wrong and given Ellie a negative spin on everything. Had Vicky been the one to tell instead of me, then all, she maintained, would have been smiles and laughter. She screamed at me and I screamed at her. The pain was palpable and unstoppable. In retrospect, this was the moment the bubble burst. My bubble that we could all get through this calmly with logical mutually supportive chats which I would control, and Vicky’s bubble that she could control other people’s reactions and move smoothly and swiftly to a life virtually unaltered by her transition. Actually, bubble bursting is entirely the wrong term. I should say, this is when the volcano erupted. I was definitely standing too close.

I vented my anger in the partners forum online:

I don’t think I have ever felt so let down by her. I put myself and my relationship with my Ellie on the line today. Vicky told me my relationship with my Ellie was never under any threat, why was I worried etc etc etc. I gasp at her naivety. I told our Ellie Vicky and I were staying together, and yes that would make us a lesbian couple. I tried to explain why Vicky hadn’t been straight about who she was from the beginning. I did everything I could to present this without bringing an agenda to it. My Ellie was upset, confused and angry with both of us at times. She said she had already dealt with a lot of hard stuff in her life and didn’t want any more ‘difference’. I listened. I hugged her. It was very hard for me seeing my child distressed and not being able to take that away.

If we are to survive as a family, Vicky is going to have to take her share of responsibility for what’s happening, and not just become angry with me for failing to wave a magic wand. Today after months of preparation and discussion, when it came to the crunch Vicky let me down. That may take a while to get over.

While Ellie was staying with her friends I decided it was time to tell my mum what was going on. this time I let Vicky know before I spoke to her. At least for me this time of telling the astonishing truth was no longer the first time, and I think each subsequent time of telling someone, ’you know Anthony, well, she’s a woman’, got easier.

My mum, concert pianist, survivor of being married to my dad, novelist, Russian translator of note and introducer of bread and butter pudding to the Soviet Union, is not your average mum. She brought her phenomenal logical brain to bear on much of the nonsense she’d been brought up with, racism, homophobia, narrow-mindedness of all kinds. I knew that whatever her reaction would be, it would not be based on any kind of prejudice.

She was worried for us all, of course, but included in her worry was Vicky. How hard it must have been living with this for forty years, how much courage it must have taken to come out with it at last. She wanted to come round and meet her. So we did, and she gave Vicky a big hug. Online I posted:

My mum is THE BEST :-) I told her earlier today. I think this is the dream reaction for any TG from a mother in law. She said she would never have guessed this was the problem, but as it was, it must have been so so hard for Vicky and she thought I was wonderful for staying with her, that must be true love. She was worried for Vicky because she knew how much she would have to go through but she thought it was wonderful that she had reached this point and she (my mum) was there for her.

That day, the day I told Ellie about Vicky had been the ‘end of the beginning’. I had foolishly imagined we had climbed the mountain and reached the peak. We had of course just run smack into the actual mountain. I was going to need more sherpas.

We limped on for a week, with Ellie at her friends and Vicky and I locked in interminable conversations that descended into weeping and shouting on an hourly basis.

I know that Vicky is going through hell. I know she wants so many things she hasn’t got yet and is fearful of so many things that may happen. I even understand that her shouting outbursts are born of fear and distress and are not meant to hurt me. BUT. They do hurt me and there is a finite amount of that I can handle, being only human and all.

There is so much love and acceptance for Vicky and me, I hope she can get to a point where she can benefit from it.

As for Ellie, she is coming home tonight, she doesn’t want to talk yet. I know Vicky will find that hard and even hurtful, but I really hope she manages to take it calmly because otherwise we will have trouble.

It’s hard to look back at that time. Until then, we had been managing to some degree. It felt like we would calmly talk our way through any problems, and somehow come through to a happy living situation without tearing our lives apart. Telling Ellie was the beginning of the breakdown. First of all it was a personal breakdown for Vicky. The floodgates of pain and a lifetime of pent up rage were unleashed in her disappointment. It was inevitable I think. There was no way that Ellie could have reacted that would have lived up to the fantasy in Vicky’s head. Up until that moment she had been living in a state of euphoria, genuinely unafraid of the possible negative outcomes because the prize was so big and shiny it just blinded her to everything else. The sad truth is though, you cannot break free from forty years of living a concealed life without a big explosion and the time for Vicky’s big explosion had arrived.

The second breakdown was my own. My fantasy that I could handle everyone and keep everything jogging along without disruption was exploded, and in that explosion my grief at the loss of my husband welled up. Though no one had died, there was real loss. I was bereaved. My husband was gone and yet I could still hear his voice, hold his hand. But it was not his voice and it was not his hand, they were Vicky’s. What the hell had happened? Where did my husband go? Where did my happiness go and what in God’s name was I going to do now? It wasn’t just the loss of my husband and all that middle of the road normality. It was the loss of a life that was fun, that I had allowed myself to get used to. My expectations had been drastically altered when I met Anthony and I had allowed my guard to drop.

Before him, my experience had been that life was pretty hard and lots of unexpected but awful things will knock you down regularly. Your job is to get up, keep smiling and be strong enough to stop any of that rubbish getting your children. In that you could be proud and hold your head up even if you couldn’t afford holidays or bicycles.

Anthony taught me how to be wrapped up and protected in his love, I stopped fearing and started trusting. I felt like this had been a huge mistake.

When Ellie was out of the house I no longer felt obliged to stay in the same building as Vicky. The anger and pain that was erupting out of every pore of her was unbearable, and at that point, being very squarely laid at my door. There was no compassion left in me, just anger and indignation. I left. I had no idea if I was going to my sister’s house for a cup of tea or to stay until I could find a new life. I was utterly shattered and only able to think of that exact moment.

My sister was sad but not surprised to see me. She was horrified to hear how badly Vicky continued to react. I just couldn’t stop crying, it was unbearable pain, could I really have just lost the love of my life. Really? Forever? How had we got to this? What the hell just happened? We all want unconditional sympathy and dogged partisan support at moments like that, but I’m not sure how good it is for us. Surrounded by people who kept telling me how marvelous I was and how dreadful Vicky was, I was all too willing to listen. On the other hand I can’t imagine I would have reacted well if they’d all told me how marvelous Vicky was and what a terrible wife I was for leaving, so I can’t really blame anyone but myself for buying into words that were meant to soothe and comfort but which I took as objective truth.

Vicky tried to call me and she sent texts but I wouldn’t reply. Instead I sought more support from the partners online, the only people I felt, who might have the slightest idea what was going on.

I posted, where Vicky would not be able to read or comment:

The thing is, I thought it did go well! I thought Ellie took it really well!! She was saying she still loved her step dad, understood this wasn’t something he was doing but something that was happening and she even went down and gave him a hug!!!! I mean, God knows what Vicky was expecting, but I think that was pretty damn marvelous of her.

Since then all I’ve had is a list of my ‘failures’ to make this all easy and happy. I’m gobsmacked!!!!!! I can’t believe, after all the support I have given, after the huge journey I have made to understand that I love Vicky and we can be together as two women, after all that, to be told that I’m letting Vicky down? All she seems able to give me is anger and resentment - I just don’t know how to move beyond that.

I thought our marriage was secure and I trusted she loved me, but I really don’t know now. Maybe, despite all her protestations, she doesn’t want to stay together and is sub consciously driving me away? My daughter has gone to stay with her friends, I know she’s told her closest friend what’s going on, so at least she’s not dealing with this on her own, but I wanted to be there for her, instead of which I’m at my sisters house trying to decide what on earth to do.

One last thing, both my daughter and my niece, who is 19, had assumed from Vicky’s behaviour over the last few months, that she was on drugs, such has been the change in her personality from happy and fun to angry and grumpy most of the time. Vicky still won’t acknowledge she’s angry - she says its all me ‘over reacting’ but how many people will it take for her to question her own behaviour and stop ‘lashing out’ at those around her.

Honestly, I’m devastated, because I don’t want to lose Vicky, but right now I see no way forward

Vicky’s refusal to agree that she was angry or behaving in any way unreasonably was an aspect of the arguments that I found particularly difficult to deal with. For me that refusal hit a lot of very sensitive triggers from my childhood. My father, irrational and often violent lurked in my memory. His rages, sometimes connected to epileptic seizures and sometimes not, were terrifying to us as children. Almost worse though, was his ability to switch them off suddenly, leaving us near hysterical with distress while he told us to ‘calm down’. I can barely type those two words. ‘calm down’. Saying them out loud still makes me feel mildly nauseous.

The echo of this childhood experience in Vicky’s insistence that she was not angry but simply making a valid point, when she had been screaming at me, made it unlikely I would respond well. Instead I froze inside. “This is madness’ I would think, ‘I’ve seen this before and I’m not going through it again’. It made me want to run and run and never look back. Except that there was a part of me that understood this was not the same as my father’s madness, this was just failing to deal with an enormous amount of emotion all released at once. The reaction was, at some level, reasonable. If this had happened to me, I would think, I expect I’d be screaming. I wanted to help her, I just didn’t want to be screamed at while I was doing it.

It was an awful time and it ended with all three of us in different places. Ellie at her friends, Vicky at home, fuming, and me at my sisters. That didn’t even last the whole evening though, because I couldn’t stay away. My sister wanted me to stay the night. Everything was calm and normal there, I could have supper with them, relax, and have some space to decide what I should do. It was eminently sensible and very tempting but I just couldn’t do it. I went home. We needed to keep talking, and somehow find a way through this mess. The thought that such anger could end in us being in separate places made it feel like the path to never being in the same place again. I didn’t want that, even after all the shouting, I still wanted my soul mate.

The next few days were really unhappy. We just didn’t seem to be able to get more than a few sentences into a discussion before both of us ended up shouting or weeping. Neither of us could leave it alone, I don’t know if it was deep love or deep stubbornness, but we just couldn’t stop. The power of Vicky’s distress felt like a physical attack and she seemed to find my tears equally aggressive as though I wept them to control her. I was relieved that Ellie was still staying with friends. What they must have thought was going on I don’t know. Being away from it all though, I think she found herself in the same position I had been in months earlier. As long as she didn’t tell anyone, this wasn’t happening, and maybe if she didn’t tell anyone for long enough, it wouldn’t happen at all. She stayed away for a week, but then she came back and tried, as much as possible, to stay out of Vicky’s way.

I found myself spending more time at my sisters as I tried to avoid the worst of the storm, mostly in tears and always utterly lost as to what to do. One evening my mother, with her typical gallows wit, even managed to make me laugh by saying, “Really Vicky this is no time to start behaving like a man”.

Both Vicky and I used the online support group as a way not only to off-load our pain, but also to communicate with each other when talking was just impossible.

I don’t know why Vicky hasn’t posted here yet. She is very unhappy today and we are not in the same space.

She tried to have a normal conversation with Ellie this morning and Ellie was typical monosyllabic teenager - still she did talk, so yay.

It seems that any perceived slight at the moment unleashes the torrent of misery inside Vicky. Luckily not at Ellie but at me. Things like ‘am I a monster or a leper?’ Should I be invisible now? Is Ellie allowed to be a brat and I just have to take it?’ etc etc etc.

I understand these are Vicky’s big fears. But she’s dumping them all on Ellie saying Ellie doesn’t care about her because she’s not behaving as Vicky would like.

I just sent her a text saying - ‘you are on the Titanic arguing about who gets to steer. We are sinking do something.’

And why I am saying this Vicky you doughnut, is because I LOVE YOU. Time to move forward.

Everyone else, wish us luck, I think we need it

Vicky also posted, but of course I could read what she was saying. I felt annoyed that private arguments had suddenly become the subject of an online discussion, but we were both posting things and both just trying to get heard and understood. I have to say, many of the trans-women on the site spent a lot of time telling Vicky how lucky she was to have a partner at all and, to put it politely, not to blow it. There’s no question though that they understood far better than I or any other non-transgendered person could, what she was going through, and their posts were generally kind and supportive.

It was at this point that the partner of another transgendered woman offered Vicky a much needed outside perspective. She had so far been an enormous help to me in coming to terms with the truth of what had happened, now she firmly but kindly told Vicky the view from there.

Vicky

How long have you had to come to terms with your situation? How long has Emma had? Ellie is still coming to terms and until she does (and that may not be a good outcome for you but it sure as hell won’t be if you don’t back off) she is struggling to maintain being her version of civil to you.

Other significant others log onto sites and electronic scream and shout and do the woe is me line to each other and then realise that the other SOs are saying ‘hang on - think about this’. Your step-Ellie does not have that facility and in caring for you she is not wanting to engage in a discussion with you that might hurt your feelings when in the fullness of time (there’s that word again) she could actually have a conversation with you where she talks of ordinary everyday life and things pertinent to your transition without any heat or pain but just talks and you say where you are, Emma says where she is and Ellie finds her place within that.

You cannot say I did not warn you that teenagers are a breed apart and there way of dealing is not always conducive to happy family life (this is not solely related to trans issues either) and I would also remind you of all the things she has not done or said but you seem hell bent on deciding that is what she is thinking. I am beginning to see why my partner gets so cross with me when I tell her I know why she is doing something when it is not her intention at all.

Please take a moment to realize that although Emma would not have taken this behaviour from her Ellie on other occasions this is not like other occasions at all - My partner had got to the stage where she HAD to transition whatever the cost - this meant she knew what it could cost her and realized what she was asking from her family. I have asked you before to consider your step-Ellie’s lack of male role models and I would ask you again - she is in turmoil and in not wanting to cause you any pain (through love!!) she is choosing to not discuss anything until she has it in perspective from all angles - which is why she has talked to her peers and close family. She is probably feeling guilty too that she cannot come to terms with it straight away as she thinks her mother and those close family members have done.

You made me so happy that you were able to take it one day at a time and now you going back on that and cannot even take it one hour at a time.

Your mention of finances is particularly cruel btw - so you would want your family’s love and support in exchange for the comforts you provide? What does that sound like?

Please read back what you have written in recent posts and realize you are close to meltdown and for your own sake seek help?

I said before blast at me if you think it will help not at your family.

That evening I tried again

Sweetheart. You lied to yourself and us that you didn’t need to be a woman. That’s ok. I understand why. Ellie doesn’t YET. Give her time. She loves you, she is trying to work this out. Is she worth it? I think so.

Cross dressing is not being transexual - this site testifies to the number of people who love to show off their feminine side but happily identify their gender as male. It’s a different thing. Nothing to be ashamed of, but different.

So, in order to move forward, WAIT. I know it’s painful and difficult, but you are strong,and at the end of this you will get to be a transgendered woman with a loving wife and daughter. Lucky you! Hands up all those who would like to be in Vicky’s position?

You said, “Years ago... I sometimes used to say to my dad “I love you”. Sometimes he would reply “Hmmmm. That’s just mouth. Don’t tell me, show me.”

Wow - and yet you have managed to be a loving and gentle parent to your step-daughter. Well done darling, the odds were stacked against you but you didn’t become your father.

At the end of each traumatic day, we still ended up in the same bed, arms wrapped round each other saying ‘I love you’. I kept thinking, ‘Look how bad it got, look how hard it was’. It had been for both Vicky and for me, but we were working it out. We both got very very upset, but we just kept talking or texting or even just posting online until we were ready to be in the same space and listen to each other.

It was painful stuff, but the rule we tried to stick to was, NEVER go to sleep on a quarrel. We were both trying to keep to that rule. Sometimes it was hard, near impossible to go back to the fray and try again to have a conversation, but at some point the love would win through because it’s stronger than all the rest.

This was base camp, level one. We had stopped shouting, for the moment. There was still a lot of pain but both of us were trying to remember why we wanted to be together, rather than what was blowing us apart. I couldn’t even begin to imagine the future stages of transition, what trauma was heading our way, but we had got through part one and whatever else might happen, we never had to do that bit again. It was a shock to look back over the last six months and compare it to the years before that, when everything had seemed so easy. I remembered my maisonette with the rotting shag pile carpet. Yes we were a mess and would need a lot of work to make us a family again, but we, got to be ourselves, all the time. It would be better to pull the wallpaper off if there was mould underneath, it was the only way it would ever get better.

A few weeks after the initial explosion, when I had told Ellie about Vicky, Vicky wrote a letter to Ellie and left it in her room for her to read. Despite her desperate desire to talk to Ellie face to face, she could see this might be a gentler way to start a conversation.

Dear Ellie,

I thought I would write you a letter because it might be easier to share with you some of the answers to the questions I imagine you have. I am guessing you have lots of questions about this, if someone told me what you were told on Monday then I would have a lot of questions.

It actually has occurred to me that you have experienced an event that has major implications on your life and I want to help you understand that even though this event is happening, I still want to keep life as normal for you as I can.

You are a beautiful, intelligent, smart, feisty independent young woman and I am more proud than you can imagine of you. I love you very much.

Maybe because of that, this letter still feels like a scary thing for me to write. Anyway, I’m not getting to explain myself... so onward. I can guess some of the questions you might have but even then I don’t know what order those questions are in inside your head, so I just want to share with you some of my story and I hope that that answers some of your questions and that you might then feel you are able to ask me others. If you don’t want to ask me questions then that’s OK but I will do my best to answer any question you think of that you feel able to ask.

One of the things I thought you might wonder was how did I come to think or know I was a female in a man’s body.

Well done if you are still reading at this potentially embarrassing moment.

I first got an idea that I might be wrong when I was a child (about 5, 6, 7 years old) and I did not look like the girls I was playing with - I was surrounded by girls as a child. Aside from my two friends, the neighbours I had on each side of my house and opposite (and I used to play with all of them) were all girls and it confused me that I seemed to be quite different from them.

I kept my wonderings secret apart from telling one best friend from primary school, it wasn’t a big deal to him but he knew. When he moved when I was about 14, it just became my secret until I started going out with my first girlfriend when I was 17.

...I guess that was one of my problems. Back then (like now) I wanted to tell the person I “fell in love with” and that was my first experience of how much I could get hurt by sharing a secret. Its been one of my big sufferings - people that I felt close to getting to know about this part of me and then deciding that they did not want to have anything to do with me once they knew. Even my Dad, when he learnt about the feelings I had (when I was 21) told me he thought I was a freak.

But the questions and fear I felt about myself never went away.

Another thing I was not sure about, in fact made me think that I was completely wrong about my inner feelings was that I have always been attracted to women and so I thought IF I like women and not men, then surely I must BE a man and not a woman.

All the same even though I have constantly wondered if I am a woman with the wrong body, I never got to the point till now where I was brave enough to ask for medical help.

One of the things I have learnt about myself is that whatever I look like on the outside, the inner me has always been the same person and will pretty much stay that way even after changing the outside appearance. The person you already know me as, may change a bit but only because I will be more relaxed and comfortable in who I am. Hopefully you will find me easier to get along with!

I understand that you might look at my denial or fear to speak up as me lying - I get that. I am sorry I did not have the courage to talk to you sooner about this or get the medical help I need and I am now being offered.

I am sorry for the hurt I have caused you.

This is a long process and at the moment all I have actually done is speak to two Doctors one of which is a specialist in gender issues and I have also had about 6 hours of therapy sessions with two different Therapists - both specialists in gender issues.

For the time being, I am continuing to see those same Doctors and Therapists.

I understand how important fitting in with your peer group is at your age and I am not seeking to cause you unnecessary embarrassment.

Also I understand if you prefer that I do not come in person to your school, but try and remember this is a diagnosed medical condition and I cannot choose not to have it.

Well I guess I have said all I can think of at this moment.

All my love

Vicky so wanted her step-daughter to understand her, to know that even if Vicky looked really different from Anthony, that person who wanted to hear what she had to say, who cared what she thought and wanted every wonderful thing that life had to offer for her, was still there. He hadn’t gone, he was just female. Vicky wanted to give everything to her step-child, except time. She had no patience to wait while there was a journey towards understanding, and the longer she waited the less she trusted that journey was even going on. Her fear that maybe their relationship was lost was the most destructive emotion she possessed.

I had, at the end of that most difficult week, the week I told Ellie and everything fell apart, found myself offering advice to a transgendered woman who was struggling to understand her wife’s ‘lack of support’. As I wrote I began to make sense of my own feelings :

A thought struck me - when Vicky first told me about her true self, my reaction was very like your wife’s. I effectively said, ok, this is who you are but the children must never know, or at least not until they’re adult. In other words I bargained. You may be this only if you do it my way.

As we went on, Vicky became more and more unhappy because what I was saying was - what you are is shameful and will hurt the children - you must hide away. Not fair and not do-able.

I think this bargaining is part of that well known process (which I will now doubtless quote incorrectly!):

Shock. Denial. Anger. Bargaining. Depression. Acceptance. It applies to bereavement but I have found myself going through that same process with Vicky’s transition. My first reaction was a sort of disbelief, followed by the feeling that I could demand how it would pan out. My ‘bargaining’ You can be you but only when I say so. which leads of course, to anger and depression, except I’ve never been one for depression - (both parent’s and a son who have at one time or another suffered with that I somehow dodged that particular bullet)

So now I am at acceptance, which is a jolly nice place to be if you can get there. I would want to say to anyone who thought they could control another person’s self expression, even to protect their children - and as one who tried - it can’t be done, and in the end it shouldn’t be done. That way madness lies.

“Now I am at acceptance”. You’ve got to admire my optimism really. I think I may have genuinely believed I was now the ‘done deal’. I had come to terms with my partner being a transgendered woman and could at last move smoothly on with the rest of our life together. There were no more emotional skeletons in my cupboard and no ghosts in the machine of my reconstruction. She hadn’t even started hormone treatment yet, and I thought I had the whole thing under control. Altogether now, ‘Ha’.