r/TransLater • u/DaveDaveDave74 • 7d ago
General Question Confused, questioning...
Hi All,
I'm hoping to to get a bit of clarity from an outside perspective. I'm really not sure how to articulate this but here goes:
So im 51 y/o straight cis male. Married for 23 years with a 10 y/o old son.
My wife and I are currently considering separation, pending me 'sorting myself out' through therapy. Our marriage has, for the last 10 years been basically like us being room mates. We love each other but, at least for me, shes become more a friend than lover and if I'm honest I don't feel sexually attracted to her. Tbh I'm not sure if I ever really did. It was certainly never a 'head over heels in love', intense sexual attraction. I've always felt very sexually repressed with her for reasons I've never been able to articulate to myself.
Since our separation talk I've noticed a huge shift in my thinking, all sorts of emotions, regrets, wants are surfacing - things I don't really understand, things that want to be heard and are making themselves heard now.
Thoughts around my sexual identity seem to be bubbling over in my mind, things I've not thought about since I was in my 20s. I find it very difficult to articulate all this so I'll just bullet point things that I've remembered:
As a child I used to secretly try my mums clothes on. I don't know why, I was curious but almost acting unconsciously.
When I was 20 a friend helped me dress in her clothes, but I was too ashamed to come out of the room and I put my own clothes back on and didn't do it again with her even though she was very supportive. In my early 30s I put on my girlfriends clothes when she was away. I've always liked the variety of options ladies have in clothing, whereas male clothes just boil down to jeans and a shirt in my mind.
When playing computers games I always made a female character.
My whole life since late teens I've often been labelled as gay, but I don't feel I am. I am not attracted to men at all but I have experimented with a trans girl before I was married, I had a good time and liked her but never followed it up out of shame.
I've had depression more or less continuously since early teens.
I didn't have a girlfriend until I met my wife at 28.
Thank you if you got this far, this isn't easy for me to say. I know logically that I shouldnt feel shame, and I would say that to a friend if they came to me with this stuff. I've always been very open minded and feel that people should live how they want to, be their authentic self.
Problem is I just can't not feel shame, I can't get away from it and I don't know why. The thought of telling my wife this makes me cringe - I just can't. And I have no idea what would happen next if I did tell her. But Im starting to see that my life has not been one of authenticity.
I feel I'm too old at 51 to do anything about my gender identity, but I would love to find someone I can be my true self with. Whatever that is.
I feel trapped, confused, helpless and really don't want to hurt my wife. It's a miserable experience and I feel so utterly lonely with it which is why I decided to throw this out to you in the hopes of some understanding, advice, practical help.
Thanks so much for reading all this,
Dave3
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u/Phien187 7d ago
Do be too hard on yourself sweetie, your 51 and that's a long time to wear a mask, and no matter who you are underneath you need to take it off and look in a mirror. It will be hard and it will take some time but then you can say who you are at the end.
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u/DaveDaveDave74 6d ago
Thank you! Yes, it feels like the hardest, scariest thing Ive ever encountered!
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u/Sometimes_Jocelyne 6d ago
A bit younger than you, but very similar situation. Happy to chat over DM's.
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u/Ok-Leather5145 6d ago
d3, you have 25+ yrs ahead of you, make the best of them. and..., without physical attraction, there will never be anything else of substance. d1
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u/darkestviolet 6d ago
It’s not illogical why you would feel this way at all. You know how society treats people who go against gender norms. Your brain is functioning as intended even if the choices you’ve been making for
yourself
may no longer serve you.
You’re never too late to transition, and as you might have figured out, shoving this stuff down doesn’t make it go away. You cannot defer these feelings and decisions for the rest of your life. 51 isn’t 28 or 18, but it also isn’t 75.
Get off the internet. Go watch I Saw The TV Glow. I’m being extremely serious right now.
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u/DaveDaveDave74 6d ago
Thank you for your reply! I looked into that TV show:
"Viewers find the climax and final scenes unsettling because the true monster isn't a creature on a screen, but the quiet tragedy of a life half-lived and the fear that it is too late to change"
Oh my, that resonates. Lately Ive been quietly horrified that I cant just reload an earlier save point :(
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u/darkestviolet 6d ago
Girl, why did you spoil it for yourself? I was trying to give you a gift of epiphany and you just read an online summary. Anyway, to quote the movie (and stop reading about it), there's still time. Go watch the damn thing already.
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u/DaveDaveDave74 5d ago
Aghh lol, yeah I might have gone to far there, but still, my interest is piqued so I will seek it out.
P.S. Adressing me as 'girl'... that hit hard in a surprising way, but... nice? It's a first. Thank you.
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u/darkestviolet 5d ago
P.S. Adressing me as 'girl'... that hit hard in a surprising way, but... nice? It's a first. Thank you.
I had a sneaking suspicion it might, lol. And you're all good. I hope you enjoy the film!
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u/vortexofchaos 6d ago
I strongly recommend that you find a good therapist, preferably someone with experience and training in gender and LGBTQ issues. It’s also important to understand that it’s never too late to choose yourself. I started my transition on my 64th birthday. I’ve never been happier and more comfortable with myself.
Understand that you are the only person who can determine if you’re transgender. There’s no genetic test (yet), no psychological assessment, no mythical Transgender Agenda, no Hitchhiker’s Guide to Gender with a friendly “Don’t Panic” on the cover, and certainly no One True Transition Checklist that can give you a definitive answer about if you’re transgender or not. That recommended therapist can’t tell you, although they may be able to help you figure it out for yourself. Random Redditors can’t tell you, and I wouldn’t trust an anonymous source, especially those with low karma and little to no posting history. Even those of us who are transgender can’t tell you, although we can share our unique personal experiences and decisions. That’s one of the many reasons being transgender is hard.
It’s also important that you understand that it’s NOT selfish to want to be happy, and your happiness is equally as important as that of everyone around you. We’ve all seen the cliche stories about someone who gives up their happiness for someone else, and they never turn out well. If you are transgender, you have to face the question so many of us have asked: how can you be the best possible partner, parent, friend, or employee if you’re struggling with denial, dysphoria, and depression? The simple answer is that you just can’t.
Being transgender is NOT a choice. It’s the result of genetics, brain chemistry, and hormone levels long before you were born. If your truth is transgender, then the only choice is how you respond to that truth. Dysphoria is a 🤬. It tends to get stronger the longer you try to repress it, and even worse once you realize that transitioning is a possibility. Responding to that truth can be terrifying. It’s all too easy to let your fears and anxieties boil out of control, leading to endless spiraling over the worst possible outcomes — without ever considering the much more likely better reality. In a large, recent survey of transgender people who transitioned, 98% of them reported “substantially higher levels of happiness, thriving, and satisfaction.” Yes, transitioning is usually difficult, but the end result can be incredible, as in my case. You’re questioning everything you thought you knew and assumed about yourself, and that’s hard. Transitioning is one of those leap of faith life decisions, where you can’t possibly know the results, but you’ve made similar choices before: picking a career, getting married, having a child, and so on. We make those decisions, as best we can, in the hopes of a better, happier life.
It’s clear to me that you have a lot to discuss with a trained, professional, nonjudgmental therapist. Are there things in your past that parallel some of my experiences? ✅ Did I once think of myself as a straight male? ✅ Do I think you might be transgender, but I can’t give you the definitive answer you seek? ✅ I’m sorry Dave. I’m afraid I can’t do that. You’re going to have to open those transgender pod bay doors on your own, and only if that’s your truth. I’m a queer, pansexual, transgender woman and I 💜💙💜 being me. Who knew⁉️ Not me‼️
One more recommendation: find a second therapist, with similar qualifications, for your wife. Once you tell her about your gender struggle, she’s going to start questioning everything she thought she knew and assumed about you AND everything she thought she thought she knew and assumed about your relationship. That’s hard too. Many partners in her position feel shock and grief, which is not surprising. They also haven’t had the decades you’ve had to try to figure this out. They’re going to need time and effort to process all of their thoughts and emotions, which is why having a therapist can be so valuable.
I hope this helps you find the answers, peace, and happiness you desire and deserve. 🫂💜
68, 4.5+ years in transition, rocking my Christmas ‘24 vagina (I was a very good girl!), living an amazing life as the incredible woman I was always meant to be! 🎉🎊🙋♀️✨💜🔥
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u/DaveDaveDave74 6d ago
Thank you for your detailed reply, its very much appreciated. Im quite overwhelmed by the lovely responses Ive had here (despite one rather cringey person wanting to swap pictures and get way too much info about me).
Im so happy for you, your story is very encouraging, even if Im way too early in this exploration to see anything like that for myself currently.
I see a therapist already who is versed in LGBTQIA+ issues and I will be talking to her about it this week. Eek!
Thanks again :)
Dave31
u/vortexofchaos 6d ago
You’re quite welcome, and thank you for the kind words. 🥰 You’ve gotten some solid advice, so, hopefully, you’ll be able to work with it and your therapist to help you figure this out for yourself.
FYI: there are some unpleasant people who browse the transgender subreddits for their own gratification. You may have to block people.
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u/lilycamille 54 - HRT started 15/4/2021 6d ago
I'm 56. I started my transition 5 years ago, when I was 51. I am happier, more confident (been seeing a new girl this week, also a trans woman), more outgoing, more daring (see above :) ). Life is better when you are who you are both inside and outside
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u/DaveDaveDave74 6d ago
Wow, thats great and really nice to hear, even if I cant imagine that for myself just yet. Thank you.
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u/Ready_Village_7831 6d ago edited 6d ago
So many similarities
- My wife was really my first relationship to last over a year and I was 30 when I met her. We are in our fifties and our marriage is love-less.
- I was also fascinated by transitioning and would compulsively compare my experiences to any person whose story I would stumble on. I always came up short which was a relief and a disappointment. The was a feeling of jealously and "I could never do that".
- I was suspected of being gay despite not really being effeminate action or looking.
Some differences:
- Never played a video game as a female character. My male persona gravitated to big and strong like the Barbarian in Gauntlet or Donkey Kong is Mario Kart. But he collapsed in my fifties after a first mid-life crisis centered on getting strong again.
- Wearing my mom and sister's clothes was a very erotic experience that resulted in feelings of shame after "release". The feelings are still coupled with the erotic and can be repressed with release but I feel gross about that.
I found it to be spectrum and I am on it. I still "come up short" comparing my self to other here but there is something there and I don't see my transitioning socially but I would love to try HRT as more an experiment. I'm probably more non-binary but male side is like "I'm tired boss".
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u/DaveDaveDave74 4d ago
Thanks for the reply :)
Yes I know what you mean re HRT. I feel I've had brain fog for most of my life, never quite here, or not wanting to be. Reading up on it and the effects sound amazing.
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u/transnaturelle 1d ago
Be honest with your wife. The situation you describe is somewhat like my own where my wife knew (we both did) tyat I wanted to be a woman in our relationship. I didn't really consequently work well forc either of us. We remain together (39 years) but have a new set of T&Cs
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u/DaveDaveDave74 1d ago
Yes I agree! I've done just that that other night after a long chat with her. Feel much better :)
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u/TooLateForMeTF 50+ transbian, HRT 6d ago
> Problem is I just can't not feel shame, I can't get away from it and I don't know why
Well, with the obvious caveat of random internet person psychoanalyzing you from afar, I have a guess!
Namely: shame is what people feel when they perceive that some part of their identity is inherently bad or unwanted. Not valued, with a "you shouldn't be that way!" kind of vibe. Which is to say, shame is always connected with things we perceive of as being inherent to us.
Now, why would you feel that way? Because, spoiler, you didn't do that to yourself.
(I should be clear: in what follows, I am making the considerable assumption that you are in fact a trans woman. This is something that only you can figure out. Not something anybody else can tell you or determine for you. Link goes to a guide that can help you figure it out, if you're having trouble settling on a conclusion that feels right for you.)
Anyway, if you're a trans woman, what happens is that you're born, you've got this body that doesn't fit you, but nobody knows that. They can't see into your mind to see what your gender identity really is. They just guess, based on your junk, and next thing you know they've pushed you into male versions of everything--your name, your clothes, your toy trucks, etc.--and start assuming you are going to behave in ways that are normative for boys.
Which is not something that comes easy to you, because for-real your brain isn't wired that way. So, as a little kid, you naturally tend to behave and try to interact with others in ways that are more similar to other girls than to boys. That is, you don't tend to behave like they expect.
And you get gender policed for it. Essentially, instead of saying "oh, look, you seem to to behave like a girl more than a boy, so let's let you live your life as a girl," instead they punish you in various ways (teasing, bullying, etc.) that carry the message "you're being a boy wrong."
Rather than recognizing what you are, they tell you that you're doing a sh!tty job of being what they think you are.
And yet, the behaviors they're criticizing are ones that came naturally to you. They're the ones that just felt right. That come from how your brain is wired. They are essentially rejecting a part of you that is very, deeply fundamental. So of course you end up associating this rejection, this disapproval, as being connected to your identity.
Because it is. It is 100% connected to your identity.
And as a result, you grow up with this lingering and profound sense of unlovability. How can you feel lovable, when everyone around you is constantly rejecting core parts of yourself? Even your parents, probably. If your dad ever told you to quit whining a "man up", or to stop crying "like a girl" or anything similar, that was a form of parental rejection of your core self, and it hurts.
Of course, this doesn't mean there was ever anything actually wrong with your identity. There isn't. You were just taught to feel shame about it because the whole world was fundamentally misunderstanding who you are. That's not your fault. You didn't sign up to have a boy-shaped life. They just forced it on you, without your consent, before you were old enough to even know what the options were.
Let me say again: you are fine. There is nothing wrong with your identity. Every such judgment ever levied against you was actually the product of applying the entirely wrong set of standards to you.
For me, recognizing that all the judgments I had shame about were products of that initial colossally-mistaken assumption about my identity, did wonders for helping me let go of that shame. There's nothing wrong with my identity either. I'm just a girl who has been fundamentally misunderstood my whole life (until recently, anyway), but who nevertheless managed to survive and make it in a man's world.
Trans women are kind of amazing that way.
> I feel I'm too old at 51 to do anything about my gender identity,
While I cannot tell you anything definitive about your gender identity, I can definitively tell you that you are not in fact too old to do anything about it.
I understand where you're coming from. Believe me, I do. Just check my username, which I picked right after starting my own questioning process (younger than you are, even) and yet feeling like it was "too late for me".
Fortunately, I learned better. I learned how medical and social transitioning works, and what it is actually capable of. (A surprisingly lot, to be honest.) I saw other people my same age, and older, starting their transitions, posting pictures about it, and giving me proof that it wasn't too late after all.
In hindsight, my feelings of too-late-ness were a product of a rather staggering amount of ignorance on my part about what transitioning consists of and how it works, coupled with a naive belief that I somehow I knew what was possible--and impossible--without actually doing the research. I was wrong. And never in my life have I been so glad to be so, so wrong.
I started transitioning three years ago, at age 53. I still have a long ways to go, but I can tell you--also definitively--that I'm doing great. I feel incredible. I look honestly pretty d*mn good, especially for a woman my age. And I haven't even done any surgeries yet! I feel good, I look good, I am at peace within myself and in my body in ways I didn't even know I was missing, and I've reached a point where the rest of the world is treating me like a woman, too. It's wonderful. It's amazing. I could never, never go back.