Pain is something we are all familiar with.  We hit our thumb with a hammer, that is pain.  Kidney stones produce pain.  We are told childbirth produces pain.  When I think of the experience of pain I think of my mother.  I do not mean that she was a pain, (well at times), but she experienced constant arthritic pain for all the sixty plus years I knew her.  I think she was heroic considering what she accomplished in spite of the pain she experienced.  She died a few years ago at age ninety-six.  However the constant pain did take its toll.  Looking back at our family life I have to say that in many ways it was dominated by her pain.  Our lives were conditioned by her disease.  Her life was conditioned by her pain and so was our relationship to her.  The result was that she became quite ego-centric.  Also she expected the rest of the family to be focussed on her and her health.  Looking back at her life I have come to the conclusion that her response to her pain was quite understandable.  Pain was the dominant reality of her life.  Pain has its effects.

Does this have any relevance to us as Transgendered persons?  I think so.  There are more types of pain than the purely physical.  When we have to live as a perceived oddity, or as an unacceptable misfit in our society we suffer.  If we feel we have to deny, or keep secret an essential aspect, or perhaps the dominant aspect, of our personalities, there is pain.  Call it "gender pain".  Like all constant pain it has its effect.  It saps our energy.  It begins to dominate our lives.  It can affect our sleep, our eating habits, our ability to work and our ability to relate to other people.  Through this pain, like my mother, we can become ego-centric.

Some of us get to the point where we can no longer cope.  No longer can we deny who are, no longer can we pretend.  Tragically some feel the only way out is to end our lives.  Some of us get to the point that we can no longer "play the game" and effectively, shout to the world "I AM A TRANSGENDERED/TRANSSEXUAL PERSON, YOU HAVE TO UNDERSTAND, ACCEPT AND LOVE ME".  And so the world should!  The trouble is there is yet another kind of pain.

The spouse of the TG/TS person was born as a very young infant, as are the rest of us, and she began her long experience of learning how to be a girl, woman, wife, mother etc.  She learns what men are supposed to be like, and what to expect from them.  Society, the great teacher, teaches her all of this and much more.  Then comes the time when her husband says, "Dear I have something to tell you. Even though you have always known me as a man, even though I look like a man, in fact I am a woman".

The wife's world explodes.  Everything she has experienced denies the possibility of what she is hearing.  She can no longer trust anything about her world.  She feels like she has been kicked in the stomach. S he is in pain, a pain that overwhelms her.  It becomes the only reality in her life.  In a distorted way she hears words attempting to explain a new kind of reality she has never experienced and the words are meaningless.

We now have two desperate people, driven to being ego-centric by pain.  Both deserve compassion, neither are to blame.  Can these two people be helped?  I am certainly not qualified to speak in any authoritative manner.  However it is my sense that little can be done until their pain is recognized, and dealt with.  First I think their pain must be recognized in some manner.  They need to be allowed to feel and to have those feelings understood.  Eventually the mind can be released so that it can begin to do its essential work.  Depending on the individuals the relationship may or may not continue.  However it will never be the same.  It may become deeper with greater commitment.  It may change its course and become a significant friendship.  It may not be able to continue, but each person may go on a stronger, more aware, person.  In many cases the services of a competent, compassionate therapist may well be necessary.