I want to start with a very famous quote that has always has a lot of meaning for me.
I have always believed this was true. I had a draftsman plot it for me to poster size and it used to hang on the wall of my office at work. I have always beleived and continue to beleive in this fundemental principle of life. I used to promote it to my coworkers, those who worked for me, and always let those above me know it was my beleif. I also impressed it upon my children to the best of my ability.Charles Swindle wrote:
Attitudes
“The longer I live, the more I realize the impact of attitude on life. Attitude to me is more important than facts. It is more important than past. Than education, than money, than circumstances, than failures, than successes, than what other people think, say or do.
It is more important than appearance, giftedness, or skill, it will make or break a company…a church…a home. The remarkable thing is we have a choice to make ever day regarding the attitude we will embrace for the day. We cannot change our past…we cannot change the inevitable. The only thing that we can do is play the one string we have, and that is our attitude.
…I am convinced that life is 10% what happens to me and 90% of how I react to it. And so it is with you…we are in charge of our attitudes.”
-Charles Swindle-
Not so long ago my life was very different than it is today. I was general forman for a large electrical contracting company. I made a lot of money, in excess of $90k a year. I had nice cars, I lived in a big house. Had lots of nice things. I was married, had four kids, and everthing seemed to going just great. And I am sure on the outside we looked like the picture of happiness.
But the truth was far different. The truth was that me and my exwife were living separate lives already and had been for many years already. Her on her computer in her own little internet world, and me on my computer in my little internet world. I also had my own world at work that did not involve her. We vacationed separately, and really rarely talked. When we did try to do things together, like vacation, or camping, or holidays, we always ended up in huge fights.
We had a nice fake life. We had a pretend sex life that was totally unfulfilling. My exwife had already admitted that she had been faking it for quite some time, and I pretended that my inablity to stay aroused was because I was tired, not because I was turned off by the fact that my exwife was not really interested me, and only having sex with me to gratify me. It was not a loving sexual relationship, and I was in total denial about it.
We had already had several confrontations about it, but I always just glossed them over. It was very much a "Catch 22". My exwife was disgusted by my crossdressing and looking at pornography for sexual release. and my wife's disgust for me made pornography my only sexual release. I had tried to quit wearing girls underwear and had already not been fully dressed in 10 years. I would take the underwear off before we were intimate at her instistance. However for me, this was very demeaning, and made me feel very unloved.
All the while we were growing apart, I was becoming very ill. Everyone who worked with me knew about my chronic pain, and inability to sleep. If anyone was ever hurting they were sent to me, because I always had a 500 pill bottle of ibuprophen either in my lunch box or in my truck. I knew I was getting worse, and blamed it on my weight, and stress, and cold weather.
I was on a collision course with fate on both of these issues and remained in total denial about it. Several times my ex wanted to leave and get divorced, but I would become dispondent and start having suicidal thoughts more prevalent than normal. When I say more prevalent than normal, I mean that I thought about killing myself daily, but the thoughts were usually just generic. At times of great stress I would become dispondent and move into planning stage. To me losing everything that I had worked for, my marriage, my children, just made life not worth living. You see, I also suffered from depression, something else I knew about, but was in denial about.
Eventually my illness, my anger, and my marriage would all come to a head, and the bubble burst. It was time to face the music. First was my job. As my illness increased I became so physically weak, and was having severe anxiety attacks I was unable to do my job. I am one of the few people to go from General Forman to "one man layoff" which is a nice way of firing someone. I got another job as a forman but in less than 6 months I was physically unable to continue and had to go on disability.
During this time I had been building increasing anger, and had several completely irrational emotional outburts. I remember during one of them actually feeling like I was losing my mind, and saying so. Unknown to me these were classic symptoms of my illness. But more than that, my marriage was just a sham that was glossed over. The real love and closeness had long since left, and it was more of a business arrangment with occaisional bad sex.
However, as soon as I went on disablity my exwife had to go to work full time. So as soon as I quit working, she quit having sex with me. We were still a year and a half from divorce, but would only attempt sex three more times. All were bad experiences.
I was still in denial about my illness and was proudly proclaiming I would be back to work in six months and everything would be fine. But my condition got worse, not better. I barely had the energy to do anything, but my exwife expected me to take care of everything that she used to when I was working. It was impossible, and I had to delegate much of the work to the children, which enraged her. She would continually accuse me of faking.
So, we had to give up the house and move into an apartment. And the next year was one huge nonstop fight. There was no kindness. She was always hostile. She made it perfectly clear that she hated her life, and wanted to make sure I knew too. Soon she started leaving on her days off, and spending the night with "her girlfriends". Eventually the fighting turned into her starting to say she wanted a divorce. At this point my speculation she had a boyfriend turned into a certainty. But still, my pride made me want to try to fix it. By the time I joined this forum in May of last year (2004) I was pretty certain my marriage was over and was really starting to consider the idea of expressing my feminine side, which had been so firmly repressed because of my exwife and my employment. Neither of which were going to be much of a concern to me for long.
I was at an all time low. I had lost my business in the recession. I had lost my health to an uncurable illness. I had lost my house. I had lost the only relationship I had with any of my family members after my exwife outted me to my brother. I had lost my high paying job and ability to make big money. I had lost my health insurance. And as the divorce process started I would lose my marriage, my family as I knew it, and my car. I had lost just about everything that society tells us to value.
I was suffering from my illness, loss of self esteem, and loss of my material wealth. It seemed clear to me that this was definitely the time to kill myself. But I even messed this up. I didn't take enough drugs to kill me and had to suffer the indignation of being a person who "wants attention". After two more very serious suicidal "episodes" it was clear to me that what I needed was a way to "turn disadvantage to advantage".
I stole that phrase from an episode of Star Trek The Next Generation. But I always liked the thinking behind it. It was a lot like Charles Swindle's "Attitudes". I could not change my illness. I could not change the end of my marriage. I could not change losing my material things. I could not change losing my ability to work. But what I could do was to change how I was thinking about it.
Maybe I could turn disadvantage to advantage? What could be postive things about what happened? Well, the most obvious to me was that Elizabeth could be free. As many of you remember it was a very short time between buying my first pair of sandles, to doing my nails, to putting on makeup, to dressing full time. Less than a month. I did not work. I did not have to worry about it. There was no consequence, except feeling great. I gave up my pride and forced a confontation that led my exwife to leaving, something she had been resistant to, and filed for divorce. It was time to move on.
So what was good about that? Well, that meant I could open my heart to someone else. Someone who could love and accept who I was. And sure enough. I met Raven. She totally accepts and loves who I am. For the first time, I feel truly loved. Something that I did not even realize had been missing. And the way she cares about is so different than anything I have ever felt before. She actually cares if I am happy. For her, not accepting me could cause me to be unhappy, something she does not want. I am not used to this. I feel totally in love with her. Her desire to want me to live a happy life, makes me want her to have a happy life. So instead of a relationship of demands, we have a relationship of needs being met, in a loving and caring way.
And yes, I lost my material wealth. But I paid a lot into Social Security, so I get a lot back. About $ 2600 a month. Which is not a fortune, but it is enough to live pretty comfortably.
My children are all very suportive of me, and it seems the hate and anger are starting to subside for everyone. I don't speak bad about my exwife, and have encouraged my children to try to repair thier relationship with thier mother. While they may have thier disagreements with her, everyone needs both parents. We have a very civil relationship now, and have stopped the petty fighting that hurts the children so much. The divorce is almost done, and we have reached agreement on all issues in a very adult manner that is very fair to each of us.
So here I am? I have told you the negatives, but looking at my life, things are pretty good. Let's look at the positives. First, I don't have to work. I can sleep as late as I want, and I am free to do as I please within the constraints of my childrens needs. I get to dress as a girl full time, which has brought more happiness to my life than I could possibly describe here. And I have a new love interest that has totally changed everything for me. It is so great to be in love again. I really forgot what it was like. I can't wait for Raven to get here. I know we are going to be so happy, I really do love her so much.
So it turns out that once again Charles Swindle was right. When I look at my life with the correct attitude, there are a lot of people who might say I have it made. And you know what? They would be right. The future looks bright for me. I am going to find my way back to the work force. I am going to continue to guide my childrens lives. I am going to be with a woman who I love and loves and accepts me for who I really am. And I get to be Elizabeth, something that could have never happened in my former life.
And I would be remiss if I did not take the time to thank each one of you, who have helped me on my journey so far, to open my eyes, and to walk on my own to feet. And to tell you all that you have and continue to be a huge positive in my life. I really do love all of you, and I love being alive again.
Love always,
Elizabeth
I can't really say more than those who preceded me, but I can add to how much respect I have for what you survived and how open you've been.