Need help – about to ruin my second marriage

[Anonymous]

Hi Angela,
The base cause of the depression especially if it is connected with crossdressing can be complex……very complex indeed. If you can afford it it may be time to approach a counsellor skilled in gender and related issues. Not for your crossdressing BTW which around here would be regarded as entirely normal and healthy but because of the depression. Your doctor may be able to arrange a care plan making it a bit cheaper.

To answer your question, yes there are women who are ok with crossdressing but many more simply tolerate it and don’t really want to know.

If you still love your wife perhaps both of you could go to counselling. No one likes to lose a partner over this.

Hope things look up for you.
Gwen

[Anonymous]

Hi Angela

Depression can be caused by many things and you need to identify the source of the depression. You stated that since you have been off work due to depression Angela has come out more often but what was the cause of the depression to start with. Under Medicare you can get 12 sessions with a psychologist a year. Maybe it would be an idea to start on these sessions to identify the cause of the depression. Also speak to your GP about changing the meds you are on if they are causing aggression as there are many different antidepressants out there.

As someone who just over 2 months ago had depression so bad I could no longer see a reason for living getting my meds changed and seeing a psychologist has me back to enjoying life and going out socially. Even though your sex drive may be reduced you can still kiss and cuddle your wife and let her know you love her. Another thing to remember also it may not be the meds reducing your sex drive but the depression itself. I myself found as I started feeling better in myself I became more affectionate even though my medication had not changed.

If you wish to talk to someone privately who has been to the brink PM me.

[Anonymous]

Thanks girls,

Yes i am seeing a therspist, but i am sure now that due to my attitude due to the depression and that i just could not see what was right or wrong we are finished. Maybe it is for the best before it goes to far and we hate each other. Now i can be far more me and not a pretender and hope in the future there is a person out there who understands that i,m not a freak just a normal person who likes to dress up every now and then and express another side of themselves and to not allow it to get out of control.

Angela

[Anonymous]

Hi Angela, when I first started HRT I went through three weeks of hell as I call it. A lot of people said that it was probably due to the hormones in that my body was adjusting to the “new stuff” but I don’t know anything concrete however in that regard. In any case I had to do something because I had started to go downhill at work too and so I worked things out on my own. Although I’m a human and still get upset which is natural I don’t get the depressive state back like what happened way back when. If you want some ideas I’m happy to share emails no problem at all, maybe things might just work if you talk it out a bit. In any case I’ll ask you this right here and now…..”Do you want to save your marriage and if so, what do you need to do to achieve that result?” That question can also be applied to your job.

Three weeks may not be much but only you can know what you feel just as I know my feelings and thoughts. I got stuck in and worked out (quickly) that something wasn’t right and I still apply that line of thinking today.

Peta A.

[Anonymous]

Hi Angela, i have recently been through the same senario, my advice is to think long and hard about it before doing anything that might jeopardise your future. Your partner sounds like a caring and supportive person, maybe you need to have a honest talk with her and see if you can live together on a new level of understanding, walking away could cause you more lonelyness and depression, apart from huge financial implications.
Try to work something out with her honey. x x x

[Anonymous]

Dear Angela,

Of the the three topics you touch upon; marriage, depression and the need for being a sensitive part of humanity … I feel I am regrettably only too experienced here… yet without any clear solution. I suspect that there is no real solution and for those of us who experience depression and the isuues/side effects that accompany it (here I confess I am crying as I write this though I don’t know why beyond the need for some release within the mutual conundrums we experience) it is a difficult and isolating road to travel.

I have been married twice with the last episode only just concluding recently after two sons and 23 years. While marital issues are sometimes too conveniently reduced to gender causes I feel that for those of us whose only outlet or perhaps defence is to immerse ourselves in our femininity as focus and consolation often only irrationally serves to makes us feel more responsible and inadequate, if not unworthy of human touch and with it a sense of compassion that inspires the desire to preserve. It is this very alienating and self-destructive sense of guilt that places us upon the the brink of loneliness and desperation as individuals. ( I regularly stand upon this precipice as well) As a mature person I have struggled through a number of therapists and periodic traumas to find that ultimately I am alone and must make peace with myself. This is not to say that compassion and the warmth of being understood as an essentially feminine sensibility is impossible (I continue in blind faith here) yet reality counsels that it is not, will not be attainable, in a conventional way. Perhaps all of us here have to some degree confronted this.

Having accepted my femininity as a person (and I should make it clear that I reply with only my own experience) I have found, or tried to find some solace and meaning in my own integrity as a person. Again it is a hard and lonely road, but I know not where else to turn. Yes, i am often lonely and feel isolated but I must console myself that all the other options are so much worse.

I sometimes wish, think that, if only I could assume some semblance of normality ( and why is it this has it been denied to me?) I would be able to enjoy the very simple joys of feeling human… to feel someone touch me and make me feel important -I would easily be able to bear all the other trials. I suppose the point here is to find ways in which we can value ourselves within circumstances of stress and adversity -even if it is difficult/elusive to assume/admit that that if one one was ‘normal’ that others also struggle within in ‘normal’ terms of reference. -The traumas of human nature extend beyond gender orientations. But I suspect that normality in itself is no defence/consolation for anyone, for the loneliness or the prospect there of, of being deprived of companionship which seems in every respect to be the loss of our humanity- and this is what troubles us in the final hours of the night.

It is ostensibly within this assumption/expectation of human communication and warmth that we seek to find/know ourselves regardless of our orientation; our femininity as an adjunct. But my feeling is (and consolation) that normalcy affords neither a protective umbrella, nor particular insight but only another parallel platitude. The struggle for understanding is a human endeavour; indeed it is what makes us human and alive… thank goodness for this seemingly small but pivotal delineation that begs reflection and insight from each of us.

I am sorry I can’t offer a path to a solution more than my understanding and support from my own experience.

sensitively yours,
Sonya