The Next Day

I’m going to start this post with a caveat. It has been 2 years and 4 months since the evening Nic told me she was questioning her gender identity. One and a half of those years were extremely rough, and we are going to share that journey here. But we are also going to share the time from about March of 2021. In that time, things changed. Things began to fall into place for us. They started to work. There were some rough patches–basically, all of August 2021 was a mess–but here we are, writing in early 2022 and we are still together. Nic is in the kitchen making herself lunch before she’s off to class. I’m on the sofa working on a paper and, obviously, writing this post. Throughout these posts, we will share things that are happening now. We’ll share resources we’ve found helpful. We’ll share responses to direct questions friends and family and readers pose. We will post about the process of getting through something like this as a family, as a couple, so late in life. So while the going is rough, know there will be moments of light. And a current end result that isn’t so dramatic. With that, onto the show…

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The portrait of Nick and I just kept staring at me from our kitchen wall. I love this photo. But now I was unsure what I was looking at.

Who is this person?

After 20 years, I thought I knew.

I’m almost sure the day after he came out as “gender questioning” was pretty normal. I can’t recall. I can’t recall a lot from this time. There are black holes in my memory interspersed with certain events or conversations that are so clear. Over the course of that first 1.5 years, I can recall only some things. I think I may have blocked them out to let that part of my life go, to move on and not think about it given we’re in such a better place now. But I can often recall less than kind or PC things I said while getting my feelings out, and not being as diplomatic as Nic would have liked/deserved. I’m spicy. It has its downsides.

Day 2: Now I’ve had some time to process. After a numb day doing whatever it was I did, I gathered a battery of questions for Nic. I needed details.

We ended up sitting back on the sofa after Silas was happily, obliviously, tucked into bed. There may have been cats. There are often cats.

The conversation began. Or maybe we should call this an interrogation. I mentioned in my last post that I knew a little bit about this. I knew gender non-binary/genderqueer students. I’ve used they/them pronouns for people. But I’ve never actually met a fully self-identifying and presenting transgender person before. And honestly, I definitely didn’t want the first one I met to be my husband. Trigger warning: As I mentioned, I’ve had some not-so-trans-friendly thoughts throughout this process. I’m not trying to offend, but I will be honest.

Here’s a short list of the questions I started asking in no particular order. I couldn’t order them anyway because it’s all quite a blur.

1. Are you attracted to men (asking just one more time, that may make any future decisions much easier)? Answer: Definitely not (though I was not at a point to fully believe this yet).

2. Are you saying you want to transition medically? Answer: “No. I don’t think so.”

I was mildly reassured. I’d rather be reassured than think about whether he was lying.

3. What are your pronouns? Answer: “He/him. I’m not changing anything. I don’t think.” Ok. That’s easy for the rest of us for now.

4. Are you SURE? What are you exactly? Were there signs? WHO are you? Where did this come from? WHAT THE HELL IS GOING ON?

Various answers, none of them particularly sticky in my brain, and none of them were super reassuring.

The gist was, at least from my understanding which is totally clouded by emotion, worry, fear, confusion, and frankly feelings of betrayal, that Nick did not know the answers to all of these questions. It was so unsatisfying. So confusing. What the hell did this mean? What was going to change? Anything?

There was some discussion of first steps. Maybe Nic just needed to express a more feminine side for a while? What could this look like? Maybe some basic women’s clothes: t-shirts, jeans, nothing too girly, just day-to-day things people won’t really notice. OK, I thought. I can live with that I think.

“What about make-up?”

Nic knows nothing about make-up but may have watched a few YouTube tutorials. Wow, was I oddly offended? You want to know about make-up, just ask me! I both was terrified and uncomfortable, but also felt like my 38 years of womanly knowledge was not being put to good use. Wasn’t I a woman? I have so much to impart! And SO MANY OPINIONS.

Thus began the ride. I hated it. I wanted nothing to do with it. BUT I wanted to help Nic and most of this stuff seemed innocuous. And jeez, if he wants to do femme stuff, he better come to the font of all knowledge, namely me, so I can make sure he doesn’t do anything weird, right? I mean, I’m putting the kabbash on some stuff. No rainbow leggings. No raver makeup. So as my supportive/angry/loving/betrayed life began, so too did I build some pretty high gates around Nick and what I decided was “acceptable” behavior. Control is my middle name. Here comes the Gatekeeper. No Keymasters welcome.

I’ve always wanted to look like this.