Goodbye To My Wife

A Queerly Trans “Logan’s Corner” writing prompt reply

This article is in response to Logan Silkwood’s writing prompt related to coming out letters. I chose to write a letter to my wife, to explain a bit more about who I am and why I am choosing this path of transition…

Poetry

I recently started writing poetry and it's been a cathartic experience. It seems my heart loves the language of words, how they interplay, weave a story, and invite people to become part of the journey. Poetry has turned out to be one of my love languages, although I couldn’t understand it when I was in school. It was a bunch of words in some special format with a bunch of incomplete sentences — a lazy writer’s paragraphs. Oh, if I only knew what Love had in store!!!

After I got married, to the girl I thought I would spend the rest of my life with, I wrote her a poem (the one pictured above). The words went like this:

The poem was an expansion on our vows and the love that we shared together. But love grows and changes over time. And some of the changes conflict with who we really are. Until one day, self-love and identity butt up against love for another. And then the sparks begin to fly.

I began to withdraw from my wife. Not in obvious ways; I still loved her, I was still kind. But in my secret heart, I was changing, finding who I was, and I knew in that place, that I would have to choose between myself and my wife…

I Would Have To Choose Between Myself And My Wife…

The Other Woman

After I came out to my wife that I was transgender, we started couples counseling, and in one of these sessions, my wife explained that what I was doing was having an affair with myself as the other woman. The problem with that interpretation is that I can’t “break off” my relationship with myself, with Jinny (my inner child), or any of the other parts that make me “me”.

So I will remain an obstacle in our relationship. We are now looking at legal separation because neither of us can support the other in the way that is needed. But I thought I might try writing her a letter, to see what that looked like.

The Letter

Dear <>,

I wanted to take a few minutes to express my feelings for what is happening with our relationship. You recently asked me if I loved you the way did. It took me a minute to answer you, and I said no, because, in your mind, he died the day I was introduced to you, perhaps sooner, based on when I realized I was trans. I believe that love evolves, grows, and changes over time, as its partners do. We just adapt and move forward, except when we can’t. I was angry when I first came out because of your reaction. After all the times I sat and comforted you; surgeries, fears, family trauma, telling you each time we would get through it, that I loved you, that everything would be okay because we were together. Not this time though. It took time with counseling to realize that I had changed, I wasn’t the same man you married, I was better.

Then you asked me if I still had secrets. Of course, I do. Knowing everything about my transition bothers you, so I chose not to share unless you ask, and even then it is filtered. I told you I was learning about presentation, but I didn’t tell you that I was scheduling my bottom surgery. I told you that I was meeting new trans people, beautiful souls who, like me, are learning how to love themselves and their circumstances too. I didn’t tell you that I was attracted to some of them, even though I’m not ready to start dating yet. You asked me if I still channeled, and I said no, but I do still channel Love, and she is more than enough when it comes to helping me on my spiritual walk. The others wait patiently for present circumstances to resolve.

And again tonight, you mentioned that you really missed . How did you want me to respond? Should I say I’m sorry (again) and continue to take all the blame for this? It is my condition, my “illness” as the medical community would say about gender dysphoria, something treatable with talk therapy, and hormones and surgeries (all needed in my case — but we each are all different, and that’s totally good)? If I tell you the truth again, that he is part of me and that she has loved you like that too, would you believe me? If I try to comfort you with a touch or a hug or a word, does that make it worse? Does it remind you of your husband? Of the me, I used to be?

Except I was never that man you saw in your mind, in your heart. I was a caterpillar, and now I’m becoming the butterfly I was always meant to be, pushing through the chrysalis of this life’s hardships to become something more, something beautiful. I am less because I cannot share my joy with you and you are less because you cannot watch my transformation, like a child eager to see what all the fuss is about. Can something so ugly become something so beautiful? Yes, it can my love. And yes it has…

And Yes It Has…

I wish I could choose not to do this. But it is who I am. I lived the first 50 years of my life as a woman in a man’s body, aware that something wasn’t right, but not knowing what exactly or how to fix it. The last few years I have tried to moderate my emotions by taking phytoestrogens but only in this past year have I had the words to speak my truth, that I am a woman, as beautiful and vibrant, caring and considerate, nerdy and loving, and all the things you saw as admirable when you thought I was a man. Now those things are seen in a new context. I know it’s not what you wanted, and I understand why you can’t support me, though it hurts. I know you are hurting too…

I wish you only the best in everything. My hope is that you will come to understand that all of the years of love and friendship, of raising children, working together in ministry, sharing joys and heartbreaks were worth it. Even if we didn’t get to enjoy the “retirement” we had planned. I hope I can help you realize that some girls make good friends too.

Your friend,

Jenny