There seems to be one obvious jumping off point to this story and it starts here: After realizing I was gay, I left my husband of many years so I could be with women. Several years later, I married a woman, only to have her realize that she was transgender. She transitioned, and is now my husband. So…I'm back where I started, gay and married to a man. Oh life, you think you are so fucking funny, don't you?

Let me back up. My move from hetero to homo involved a visceral need to connect to my rainbow tribe. Accepting my sexuality felt like a bold but difficult move that had shaken my sense of belonging and made me vulnerable. I felt judged by the world and ultimately, by myself, for divorcing a perfectly wonderful human being and for discovering my sexuality so late in the game.

The author and her partner at the San Francisco pride parade in 2009

But having made the dramatic decision to leave my marriage, I wanted to be seen by the world as gay. I put the sticker on my car. I went to parades. I waved the flags. I subscribed to Curve magazine and joined the top gay dating sites. I came out of the closet so hard and fast that I wondered if I had ever been in there at all. I needed that identity. In some way, I think I believed that it validated my divorce. It served as proof (to myself, if not to anyone else) that I was not a bad person, only confused for a bit. It was evidence for my family, friends, and colleagues that I was not making a huge mistake with my life. In fact, I had found my one absolute truth: I was meant to be with women, specifically one woman. A hot dyke on a motorcycle! She was intelligent, shy, successful, and funny. Four months later, we moved in together. A year and a half after that, we married.

There I was, smug and justified. I had painfully rearranged my life to honor my truth, and as my reward, I had a beautiful bride. We were already talking about motherhood and babies. Little did I know, my lovely lady, complete with her short hair, muscle shirts, and complete distain for anything feminine, had her own painful truth to face.

The author and her partner on their wedding day Courtesy of the author

She picked me up from work for lunch. The chips and salsa had been delivered to our table. Waters poured. Our waitress scratched our orders onto a pad of paper and set off for the kitchen. Looking back, I should have known that she was on the brink of telling me something big. The skin around her fingernails was picked raw. She ordered one small taco rather then her usual, brick-sized burrito and slammed her water back as though she wished it was whiskey.

She didn't mince words or waste time. She just came out and said it, "I'm transgender and I need to figure out what that means for me and for us."

I felt fooled, tricked—the butt of a cruel joke. I'm a lesbian, I told myself, I can't be with a man. I had believed that if I lived an honest life and was an overall good person, karma would pat me on the back. Instead, I felt like karma was punching me in the face. Shame, vulnerability, and fear of judgment came rushing back to me—denial too. This shit was not going to happen.

Months passed, slowly and excruciatingly. We would go weeks without addressing the issue. During this time, I assumed she was changing her mind. Meanwhile, she assumed I was adjusting to the idea. When one of us brought it up, we would realize we were as polarized as ever. All talk of having kids ceased.

But one quiet morning while I was home alone, something became clear. I had been fighting to keep my wife, but she was already gone. And in her place stood this human being, desperately trying to live an authentic life.

After that, there seemed to be only one thing to decide: Do I stay or do I go? My partner would transition. But would I stay?

One day, several weeks later, while he wasn't aware, I watched my spouse as he walked along the beach just outside our window. I watched how his body moved as he positioned himself to skip stones across the still water. All of the persistent, nagging logistical questions left me momentarily. I saw a wonderful, kind, generous being, and love simply poured over me. In that moment, I knew I would stay. I loved this human being and to me, that was all that mattered.

The next six months were a blur. My husband—as I began to think of him—started hormone treatments. We did endless local, state, and federal paperwork. We scheduled surgeries. We told people. Mostly, we felt supported. The response from friends and family followed a pattern: short-lived silence and then an avalanche of questions. What does it mean? Are you straight now? Will he grow a beard? Does he have a penis? Will he go bald? Telling the rest of the world (confused business partners, exhausted DMV employees, the absolutely unhelpful county office worker) was excruciating. There were the eye rolls and deep sighs of exasperation, and then there were more overt refusals to help with an already complicated legal process.

The author, 9 months pregnant, and her husband, 11 months into his transition. Courtesy of the author

During this same time period, we decided we would go ahead with our long-term plan of having children. We registered with a spermbank and shopped on-line for suitable sperm donors. Within months, we were pregnant and remarried as husband and wife. (At the time, Oregon did not acknowledge same-sex marriage, so our prior union had technically been a legal domestic partnership.).

Time marched on and so did our metamorphoses. As my body expanded for our growing baby, I witnessed my spouse's body transform, as well. As my breasts doubled in size, his withered from weekly testosterone shots, and were finally cut away completely. As my body softened, his hardened and became covered in hair. As I sang lullabies to our brand new baby girl, his voiced cracked until it finally fell drastically into low octaves. We were, each of us, in such a delicate form—growing, stretching, shrinking, changing—all within the context of sleepless nights and fluctuating hormones. I recall one night we were all awake in different states of misery at 3 a.m. Our daughter was crying from sore gums due to teething. I was suffering from inflamed milk ducts and cracked nipples. My husband was healing from internal and external hysterectomy stitches.

Two years after our decision to stay together, we stood in front of each other—figuratively and literally naked. It was an average day—a Tuesday, I think. I had just gotten our toddler down for a morning nap and we decided to take a quick shower together. There stood my naked husband, his tight muscular chest and strong arms. A penis—there he stood with a penis! It all looked "right" to me.

Naked and vulnerable, we also realized our work had only just begun. During the past two years, we had been focused and determined, checking items off our list. Hormones, check. Surgery, check. Baby, check. We had made it out of the trenches. We'd emerged together—entirely different beings but together. But we had not really connected physically, spiritually, or sexually since the transition had begun. We had yet more work to do.

Newborn babies and multiple surgeries simply don't bode well for an active sex life and deep intimacy. More importantly, I was still attracted to women. It felt so messy and confusing. There weren't exactly heaps of self-help books written on the topic. I felt deep love for this man, but I also felt I was sacrificing a fulfilling sex life. You are married to a man and you are a lesbian, I told myself. These two things do not compute. Meanwhile, my husband felt guilty about "taking" something from me that I loved (his female body), and in my lower moments, I would remind him of that fact.

The author and her husband in 2017 courtesy of the author

For the second time in our marriage, I had a moment of acute awareness. It became very clear to me that being a lesbian married to a man was in fact not the actual problem. My problem was I could only see in black and white, yes and no. I had entwined my ego, my sense of self, with my lesbian identity. A lesbian shall not be married to a man. A lesbian shall not enjoy sex with a man.

But then I started asking instead of telling myself how to feel. What would happen if you stopped checking boxes? What would happen if you stopped convincing yourself that there was a right and wrong way? More therapy, more wine, and the answers became quite clear. Love has no limitations. When I began to love with my heart, not with my head, I let go of all the labels.

This year, my husband and I will be celebrating his sixth "maniversery" and our seventh wedding anniversary. His ability to realize a life that is true and his courage to actually live it serves as an endless source of inspiration for me. I lean on that inspiration when I'm asked, "So, what does his transition mean for you? Are you straight now?" I just answer, "I'm in love." That's the box I check. That's the flag I fly.

Tiffany Grimes is a life coach and consultant based in Oregon.

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