u/Worried_Cat_22

Hi everyone,
I’m a cisgender heterosexual woman and my partner is a transgender person assigned male at birth who identifies as female and plans to begin hormone replacement therapy very soon.

For the sake of honesty and clarity, I will refer to my partner as “he” in this post, not out of disrespect for his identity, but because part of my struggle is that I still experience and love him as the man I originally fell in love with. That conflict itself is a significant part of what I am trying to understand.

Before we started dating, I already knew that he wore makeup, enjoyed crossdressing, loved cute things, and experienced gender dysphoria. I knew he was probably somewhere close to being transgender. However, I only learned about his plans for hormone therapy after we had already entered the relationship.

I love him deeply, not only as a man but as a person.
However, I am also undeniably heterosexual.
Because of that, I am struggling immensely with the reality that he may gradually become more physically female over time, whatever that eventually looks like for him.
I feel as though my own identity and role as a woman are somehow being threatened. I find myself unconsciously comparing myself to him and feeling inferior. Sometimes it feels as though the person I fell in love with is slowly disappearing in front of me, even though he is still right here beside me.
Perhaps the most painful part is that the person I most want to support is also the person I feel least able to support.

The stress has become so intense that I’ve experienced panic attacks, crying spells, insomnia, and overwhelming anxiety.

Until now, he wore women’s clothing outside the house, but at home he usually wore ordinary men’s clothes.
Tonight he happily showed me a new frilly nightgown-style loungewear dress and said, “Look! I bought this new roomwear! Isn’t it cute?”
It seems like such a small thing.
But in that moment something inside me broke.
My heart immediately started screaming in a way I cannot fully explain.

I love him very much.
I genuinely believe that, given enough time, it is possible that I may gradually come to accept parts of this journey. I want to stay with him because I love him deeply as a human being.

But tonight made me realize how exhausted I already am.
Hormone therapy hasn’t even started yet, and I know there will likely be many more moments like this as his body and presentation become more feminine over time.
The thought of having to survive this grief over and over again is terrifying.

What makes this even harder is that I don’t think transgender people themselves can easily understand this feeling.
And because of that, I don’t feel safe talking about it.
Sometimes it feels as though partners like me are expected to either celebrate every step enthusiastically or leave the relationship entirely, and that any grief, jealousy, loss, insecurity, or fear we experience is treated as something ugly or morally wrong.

I don’t want to invalidate transgender people.
I don’t want to stop his transition.
I don’t even want him to change who he is for me.
I’m simply grieving.

Has anyone else experienced this as the cis partner of a transgender person?
How did you survive the guilt of loving someone so deeply while simultaneously grieving the changes that made them happier?

Thank you for reading.

Hi everyone.

I’m a Japanese cis woman, and my partner is MTF and preparing to start HRT.

I am a few years older than my partner, which sometimes makes me think more deeply about the future and adds another layer to my worries.

I love him deeply as a person, and I don’t want to lose him. I want to support him, and I don’t want to invalidate who he is.
But I’m straight, and I have so many complicated feelings.

I’m scared that as he becomes more feminine, my feelings might change. I’m scared that his feelings toward me might change. I’m scared of feeling left behind while he is finally becoming their authentic self.

I also struggle with feelings of jealousy and inferiority, which makes me feel ashamed.
When I imagine him becoming happier, more confident, and closer to the person he has always wanted to be, I sometimes find myself comparing my own life to him.

I know he has suffered for a very long time, and I genuinely want him to be happy. But I can’t always celebrate these changes wholeheartedly, and that hurts.

I imagine that many people around him will celebrate his transition and tell him how beautiful and brave he is. And I think he deserves that.
But because I’m his partner and the person closest to him, I feel like I’m the only one who can’t simply rejoice.

And sometimes I feel like nobody will see or acknowledge my grief, fear, jealousy, and confusion.
There is a painful contrast that I struggle with.

He is making a brave decision, becoming more and more like his true self, and may be surrounded by support and congratulations.
Meanwhile, I feel like I’m left alone with emotions that I never chose, trying to process everything by myself.

I know he didn’t choose this to hurt me.
And I know this isn’t a competition over who suffers more.But sometimes I feel invisible.

Another thing that makes this especially hard is the uncertainty.
Right now, my partner says he is certain about starting HRT, and he will probably has an orchiectomy in the future. But beyond that, we don’t really know.
He isn’t sure whether he will eventually pursue legal transition or how far he will go, although he says it’s possible.
So I feel like I’m trying to emotionally prepare for something when even the person going through it doesn’t yet know what the future will look like.
And that uncertainty is exhausting.

Ideally, I wish he could stay as he is and not go through hormone therapy. But I know that asking that of him would mean asking him to continue living with pain, and I don’t want to force that on him. I have no intention of doing so.
He has already made a firm decision to start HRT, and I know this is not something that would be changed by my words. So I understand that the conclusion itself is not going to change.

What hurts me is the thought that, from this point on, I may have to continue this relationship while carrying these feelings of uncertainty and inner conflict. That is incredibly painful.
But at the same time, I love him deeply. I love him more than I can put into words, and even with all this pain and fear, I still want to be with him.
Even so, there are times when it becomes so overwhelming that I feel like my heart is breaking.

The truth is, I don’t want to break up.
I love them deeply, not just as a man, but as a human being.
More than anything, I would hate for us to lose each other because of my fears, grief, and complicated emotions.
I don’t want these feelings to become the reason our relationship ends.
I want to find a way through this together, because I still love him so much.

I just wish someone could see that partners can grieve too.

Has anyone else felt this way?