Divorce, Transgender Style

I’ll never fall in love again

Two years ago, I left the place I had lived and relocated across the country. It was the end of my previous life and the beginning of my life as a transgender woman alone. In three days, I undertook a long, brutal drive from Utah to New Hampshire. That journey reflects my life in so many ways.

I was told to leave and dutifully obeyed, as always. Throughout the relationship, my job was to cook and clean, pick up the kids, and be there when they got home. I was the support staff. Ultimately, I fulfilled my life’s purpose; I raised two beautiful children.

It may be what I needed to do, what I had to do. I was pushed out the door, the locks were changed, and I will never return to the place I called home. I want to think of it as something heroic. It wasn’t. A door opened, I walked through it, and I was cast adrift. Like being in a car accident, I was so stunned by it; a year had to pass before I could figure out how badly I had been hurt. I still am processing the loss.

It was the day my divorce became real. I wish I had Kasey Sparks’ sanguine response to it. The divorce was the hardest, worst, and most traumatic thing I have ever done and the best, most freeing, sweetest, most tender thing I have ever done. It burnt me to the core. I never want to be in a relationship with anyone, ever again.

I will never trust anyone else like that. I will never be that person again. I cannot understand how someone could marry more than once. After all this, the notion of going out there and finding someone, of being in love again, defies every fiber in my being.

My life has grown around my grief, but it persists. This grief, like being transgender, is something that I will never step away from.

Long ago, when I was young and judgmental, my parents divorced. Even though I was an adult when it happened, it was ugly, traumatic, and scary. My parents would get drunk, chase each other around the house, scream at each other, and break things. I was traumatized by it. Maybe that’s why I was happy to drive away. I didn’t want my kids to be exposed to something like that.

In the aftermath, my mother never married, dated, or gave any relationship a try. Of course, I foolishly thought she needed to get back out there. Now, I understand.

I had always wanted to be in love. I was permanently wired to subsume myself in someone else, to let myself go and be the support system. And then I made the mistake of wanting to come to terms with the monster in my closet.

Early on, after I said those three little words, there was some money in the HSA account, and I used it to meet with my first therapist. The therapist encouraged me to transition. Eventually, as a couple, we went one time. It did not go well; my partner wanted me to find a different therapist who would discourage transition and convince me that this was stupidity. You have heard the term: When an unstoppable force meets an immovable object, that was us. I am not without blame for the failure of my marriage. There were three people in the relationship: my masculine self, my feminine self and my ex; something had to give.

Ultimately, I would not accept the blanket no; you cannot transition. I have always pushed my luck; I had always been a rebel, and here was the ultimate rebellion; remaking myself and my life. Deep down, I needed change, radical change. I don’t do stability very well. I occasionally need some upheaval to knock myself out of complacency.

It wasn’t just my marriage; my job was another source of unhappiness. I was working part-time at a software company, and it was run by miserable people who criticized their employees at every turn. I was making the best of the situation I was stuck in, which made it much worse. I understood I had to leave to move my career forward. And I needed to find out if I could be employed as a transgender woman.

Life is full of being alone, and my marriage was just an aberration. I was alone for the decade before, and now, after, I am alone again. For the longest time, I avoided relationships because I felt that I was unworthy of happiness. It’s all tied back to the inherent belief that this transgender thing I am will always be unlovable. I needed to hide my transgender truth to be loved, and once it came out, it was over. (I know that is a massive simplification, but it feels that way.)

I will always be a freak. My life will always be spent alone. Part of it is my feeling of being an imposter, a fake. I was a fake man, and now I am a fake woman. I don’t fit in anywhere.

I understand that being trans is deeply wrong in the eyes of the world. I know that I am something to be “eradicated” because I might spread the idea that this is acceptable. There is nothing wrong with being alone; there is nothing wrong with being transgender, yet, both are viewed by society as being less than.

I have always sensed that this world was not where I could fit in and would never belong. I have lovely friends, but that’s all they are. And thank god they tolerate me and keep me mostly sane. I am sure I would not be as stable without them.

I live, persist, and keep extremely busy, hoping to move past this someday. I don’t think that I will. It was the ultimate rejection, and I still feel it. I don’t foresee a warm and lovely retirement on a beach somewhere. I don’t foresee much of anything, really.

I have always been a survivor. I have always been so very soft and so very hard. I will endure and not let this divorce be the last word.