Feeling angry, helpless, and clueless (with trans boyfriend)

he has to be who he has to be. Its not fair to him or you for him to be anyone else.
at the same time, is it fair for you to be with him if what he is going to become is not what you will be happy with?
Really not as complicated as it sounds. You just have to sit down and talk it out and see if there is enough there to keep it going with both of you having what you want without giving up too much.

 

I don't personally know your boyfriend or his situation, but many trans people feel very uncomfortable with their bodies. For some, transitioning can be extremely important in order to be happy. Him transitioning or having restrictions on things during sex aren't because he's uninterested in the relationship, but more likely because of him being uncomfortable. I understand it might be frustrating, but if you're so dissatisfied with the state of the relationship then you might need to reconsider. Have you tried talking to him about it?

 

Zom,
Welcome to the forum.

And thank you for the thread and for your opinion. I think that it is clear that you care for your boyfriend and that you have done a lot of research trying to understand him.

The trouble is, you touched the nerve with the questions you brought up here. There is a thread elsewhere here about what makes a man/a woman. And you can clearly see how different and often lost the answers are even among trans* people.

The fact is that this whole issue with your body is often induced by stereotypical behavior of society - how the other people see you. No matter how it started though the question then boils down to Will I play along and changed everything about me, or do I want to fight with the crap all my life?
Your boyfriend perhaps realized that he is tired of fighting the society and even though he was more or less fine without hormones (if I understood you correctly) he wants to fit in.

Perhaps he didn't consider that the changes would be too big for you (perhaps he thought you loved him as a male, so after transition things would be even better for you).

 

it sounds to me like it's best if you confront him, Lying to spare his feelings wont fixanything, even if he is someone you deeply care for (if thats true you may remain close friends) his gender is obviously a dealbreaker for you but ultimately you face the question of whether or not his personality is more important to you, and if it's enough to carry the relationship without reciprocated physical attraction. It is definitely reasonable to want romantic and sexual compatibility with a partner... and I do feel your boyfriend is somewhat to blame for keeping his identity secret for at least a month. (maybe longer if you hadnt found out on your own) Still, I think you owe it to him to be honest and partially let him know your true feelings. You dont have to tell him he's repulsive or anything, something like "masculinity doesnt do it for me" should be enough. From there its up to you both to decide if the relationship is worth salvaging. Listen to his side of it, there could be things he hasnt been telling you either. Stay true to your feelings, and do consider your own best interests, but keep in mind that that those of us who are transgender experience a large amount of suffering and dysphoria regarding their identity and others' perception of it. Be tactful, and approach him with an open mind and ears. Things will turn out better for you both in the long run, if your honest with each other

 

I am not sure if I understand it correctly. He pass so well that you was not aware that he was born as a girl, is that right? So that goes for the rest of the society as well? Has he legally changed his name to male?
There can be a lot of social issues as well, depending on the country you live in. Perhaps he is tired of not being able to be stealth (maybe after showing his ID (which states he is a female) he needs to explain his situation to strangers - at work, at school, at doctors office, at bank etc?

 

OP, I don't get one thing. You mentioned that your partner was OK with your body before the therapy? If he don't get naked during sex or don't want to go swimming, he is hardly comfortable with his body.

I am also not sure if you can simply stop HRT when you start balding for example. I am not informed well about hormones but I thought that FAAB eventually needed to have a surgery for their body to stop produce estrogen because it is not healthy not to in the long term. Some changes that testosteron made possible would probably change back after stopping the therapy. Would he be OK with that??
Messing this way with hormones can be dangerous for the balance of your body and your health anyway.

 

Zom -

I'm not going to psychoanalyze your boyfriend and second guess his decisions. If he wants support, advice, or help, then I recommend he come here to get that in addition to speaking to his therapist.

From your posts it appears that you want someone who agrees with you, and is going to give you advice on how to convince your boyfriend to stop his transition. That would be extremely unethical, as that's a decision that he has to make, preferably without coercion.

My advice to you here is to be gentle but honest with him and then end the relationship. You pretty much laid it all out on the table. You're not attracted to him anymore. This is a problem for you. You are unhappy. You attempted to leave once already but came back.

You are, in essence, at a crossroads. Either he stops transitioning or you leave. Since there is no signs of him stopping the transition, and it would be unethical to give him an ultimatum like that, the choice has already been made for you. It's just a matter of you finding the courage to follow through.

There really is no other advice that you can be given. I'm not going to touch your inflammatory remarks, since this is the support section of the forum, and it is moot at this point since your relationship isn't going to work out anyway.

 

What about taking a break and staying friends for some time? He needs to think and explore the possibilities and his feelings. Apparently there are things about transition that he doesn't like and he needs to find out what to do now and how far to take it.

You entered the relationship under some circumstances that have changed a lot since then. Maybe you both need a break to find out what you want to do now.

It's also possible that he never stops transition because he decides that no matter of the downsides it is still what is better for him.

I don't know about the PTSD but I have noticed it gets sometimes mentioned as a reason to be gay or trans - again this is another controversial question, but PTSD is a big problem of its own so I would not belittle his desire to transition even if PTSD would be the reason for that.

I think that your partner needs a lot of time to think and to find out how transition makes him feel. You can't hurry it up, it could backfire for both of you.

 

You're asking for me to psychoanalyze your boyfriend and second guess his decisions, and I'm not going to do it. I don't know how your boyfriend feels, because he's not here to tell me. I know what he's telling you, and I know what you think he believes and is saying. However, I don't know what he is feeling or thinking. All of that is second hand through you, and you are not objective on the matter because you want him to stop transitioning. This means you are focusing on all the negative aspects that bother him.

Everything you write may be true, and yet despite all of this he is still going through transition. That tells me that he wants to transition more than he cares about the side effects, which he likely knew about prior to starting the transition. It's not as if he just began transitioning, and was suddenly shocked that his body was changing. That was the entire point. Obviously, there are some negative side effects associated with that--such as the acne, which is temporary and the result of a second puberty. But I'm sure he did his research, and these were things discussed with him by his doctor and therapist. You can't get access to the hormones until after you've been approved. So, I know he's had these conversations, and likely walked into the office already knowing what he was getting into.

You don't know that. You can't predict the future. You are hoping that he will stop transitioning at some point in the future, but you don't know that. Hoping for him to stop his transition is wrong.

I can't tell you whether or not transitioning is the right decision or the wrong decision for him. This is something only he can decide for himself. I can tell you that hoping for him to stop is wrong, because it is not out of concern for what is best for him. It is out of a selfish desire to prevent him from further travelling down a path which you don't want him to travel.

The problem here is that it's about what you want, and what will make you happy. It's not about what he wants, and what will make him happy. Right now, he's doing what he wants, and what is making him happy--he's transitioning. You are looking for a way to put a stop to that, you are looking for a roadblock to throw into his path.

His choices may be good choices or they may be bad choices. Whether they are good or bad is not relevant, because they are his choices. It is important for you to respect them, and to put his feelings before your own.

If you do that, and you were honest about your feelings toward your attraction toward him, then the next step is to recognize and accept your own feelings on the matter. The next step is to make the appropriate decision, based on what is going to make you happy.

That's not relevant. People say stuff like that all the time, and they leave anyway. I am confident your boyfriend is aware of this fact.

You've more or less answered this question yourself with your first couple of posts in this thread.

I think here that you are assuming that he is going to stop transitioning at some point. See what I wrote above.

No. You should not stay. You have to put his feelings before your own in a sense, but you also have to consider what will make you happy as well.

You obviously think he is transitioning for the wrong reasons. He obviously doesn't share your opinion or otherwise he would stop transitioning. He's not transitioning to spite or hurt you, obviously. He is doing it for himself. Regardless of whether or not you think his reasons are the right or wrong reasons, it is important that you respect his right to make that choice. Then, at that point, you need to make your choice.

Yes, and things are not going to change. He's likely going to continue with his transition. He's going to continue on the path he is on, unless you try and find a way to give him an ultimatum such as, "stop transitioning or I leave." You and I both know that is a horrible thing to do, and would cause huge amounts of damage to your relationship--assuming he agreed.

You have to look at this through practical eyes. He's going to continue transitioning. He may not stop. Either you find a way to get over that bitterness and anger, and grow to accept him for the man he is becoming, this includes accepting his physical changes as well as the situation. Or you make the decision to have a conversation with him in which you are honest about your feelings, and explain that you love him, but you can't travel this path with him. At that point, you end the relationship and move on with your life.

The truth of the matter is, you are in a shit situation in which there is no good solution. You have no control over him and his choices. You only have control over you and your choices. So, this means you either have to make the decision to stay or to leave.

 

A lot of what you described as being unattractive to you (facial hair, voice, etc.) are permanent effects that will not change if your boyfriend stops T. The changes that will reverse are mostly insignificant. His fat distribution will change back to the patterns of a female. His period will return. His scent should change, which will please you, but that doesn't change the fact that much of the masculinity that you are not enjoying will remain.

It would be selfish of you to ask him to stop transitioning for you and regardless, it would not help you that much because you object to the permanent effects that will not be undone just because he stops T. I am sorry his transition makes him unattractive to you, but transition is his decision, not yours. You need to talk with him about how this makes you feel and work this out together. Honestly, to me it sounds like an incompatible relationship, but that's not for me to decide. That's for you two to decide together.

Your opinions on whether HRT is the right answer and whether that is the proper way to treat dysphoria are entirely irrelevant right now. It doesn't matter what you think. This is a decision that your boyfriend made for himself. It is his body. He is in control over what happens to it. It has put a strain on your relationship, which is unfortunate. I am sympathetic to your feelings. It can be hard when your partner's decision to transition makes it difficult for you to feel attracted to them. But that doesn't make it your choice whether he transitions or not. The most you can do is respectfully give your opinion. Tell him that you're not attracted to masculinity and that his transition makes you not attracted to him. If he wants to stop transitioning and see if you can live with the changes that have occurred so far, that is his decision to make. In the likely situation that he does not want to stop transitioning, you and he need to figure out whether it is worth staying in the relationship.

I would also ask that you stop questioning your boyfriend's motivation and referring to his decisions as vain. It is frankly disrespectful to him. You call him vain for not wanting to go bald? Many men do not want to go bald. He has an easy way to avoid it. He can stop T without the most important effects (voice and facial hair are the main two that will help him be seen as male) being reversed. Most cis men would take such an easy opportunity if it were handed to them.