What I wanted, I may never have

This image shared in a FB group has stuck with me.

When people ask what I wish had been different would be something along these lines last Halloween.

It's taken many years of not understanding myself, and while I had been raised by accepting supportive parents, I grew up in a time where constructive conversation about sex and gender was outlawed , but not the rampant queerphobic rhetoric of kids and adults in educational environments.

Humans are social creatures, to be alone outside of the tribe is a threat to life in more primitive stages of our evolution. We therefore have a survival instinct to confirm and mask, and have anxieties about being different which are often out of control at adolescent ages.

when trying to improve my anxieties I had started the process of letting people into the guarded part of my psyche that I hadn't even faced. My wife, who up to then had been THE CENTRE of everything I did for 10 years at that time was let into what i was going through as I was now prepared to talk constructively about it.

Part of that was encouraged by my amazing friend I met online, to be more open and involved.

Last march, one morning my wife asked what was in my head. I told her I was wondering how difficult it would be to dress as Elvira for halloween, (but a little more modestly as halloween for us is about handing out treats at the door).

She said it wouldn't be hard, and I told her that I knew this was difficult for her, so she will have absolute control.

For the next few months it was off and on. She found a dress, and even up to the last day had sent me shopping for cosmetics etc. There were days where it went badly also.

On the morning of halloween I saw her mood change again while watching a lovecraftian thriller, where there was a drag artist as a supporting role in the villainous plot, she exclaimed she can tell thats a.man, but I had honestly not realized that, as I was honest and said i was transfixed by the gown they wore (it was stunning full 1940s ball gown). Later when I started getting ready by preparing a very close shave she sternly put a halt and told me she was not comfortable. 

I told her I am stopping due to this. But it's hard not to be completely disappointed. So I went to go and finalize the bagging of treats and to quietly let out my dissapointed. My wife followed me to start an argument and it escalated quickly.

At one stage she tried to out me to my parents. I still believe this was to spite me, and I don't believe her latter explanation that this was to get support as she hadn't tried a neutral 3rd party, and I overheard the tone in her voice as I walked upstairs.

I'll be honest. I've been afraid to open up since, and not just about my struggles with dysphoria and depression.

So this is what I wanted out if our relationship at this stage. And at times I feel absolutely devestated that I cant even expeess myself openly as I was beginning to learn to do so. That part of me never wants to go back to fearing discovery now that those I have let know have been empathetic and havent turned away.

And on some days I just cant find a reason to want to hang around any more other than not letting down those that depend on me, which ironically includes my wife.