Three months today!

Sunday Routine

Hurray for sleeping pills! A second decent night’s sleep, although it’s taking a while to come around today.

Today is three months since my surgery! Down below I am fully healed. I can run, exercise, have sex, cum … but all of them are a struggle without hormones. I’ll not whine on about that now. The day of my surgery and the dates immediately afterwards remain golden in my mind – I wish I could do it all again.

Diary at the Mexico Transgender Centre

I went for a run, but ended up with a very painful cramp after only 1.4km. I am now wondering whether muscle cramps are another symptom of low testosterone.

I had my usual Sunday call with my dad. We don’t really talk about feelings, but I am aware that I am holding back a lot more even than usual: there is a big unsaid something between us. I don’t think dad is aware of it, but I am. I am really thinking about telling him who I really am. Dad isn’t great at listening and understanding, but without saying something about my situation, I cannot tell him about my health concerns and difficulties. I would have told mum even before my surgery. I can imagine that she would have been present for the recovery afterwards.

Sunday Lunch at the London

My husband and I went out for lunch today at the London in town. During our lunch, I talked about how I was feeling about my dad. My husband understood that I don’t feel fully authentic with him and gets why I am feeling a need to tell him something. He had previously asked me why I didn’t feel the need to be open with my dad. He’s also said that I don’t actually need to tell anybody.

My husband said that I could start with something like “Dad, there’s something I’d like to tell you but I am afraid of how you will react”. I feel that I must give my dad a chance with this because I didn’t trust him when I came out as gay; I waited until I’d left home a year or two after I told mum (whom I told while I was still in the family home), before I told him that I was gay. I now have my own home and life and no reliance on him – a bad reaction wouldn’t see me on the streets. I think I need to see what dad understands of “non-binary” and the surgical procedures to correct it. I am not responsible for his reaction, unless I really botch it. I also don’t feel that he is responsible for his immediate reactions (nobody truly knows how they will feel about something until they are faced with the reality). How things pan out after the initial coming out are down to him. I will need to be open to him asking questions – I think I’ll be OK with that now (I enjoy answering questions).

During a conversation with my husband recently he asked how I felt about the possibility of him having sex with another man. I realised that I had been avoiding thinking about that because it made me feel uncomfortable. I do know that I want him to be happy and to explore himself. I honestly also have to own that I want to explore myself, and am afraid that I won’t be able to do that within a closed relationship. However, we’ve not talked about our fantasies with each other to know what cross over may be; what only one partner likes that the other can nevertheless provide, even if it’s not too their taste; and what we cannot do for each other.

So there’s a conversation that we have to have sometime – probably when I am on hormones and I have some kind of sex drive: right now my sex drive and sexually fantasies are somewhat dehydrated and I don’t know which ones will not come back and which ones will. One that hasn’t gone away is being tied up and left – that one is still with me.

I said that I felt nervous about sharing my current feelings with him because I was afraid of his reaction and how my feelings might make him feel. I then said that I felt perfectly OK with him flirting via text, or phone, or even in person.

I feel a bit uncomfortable with him kissing and being intimate with somebody else; partially because I am afraid of him catching feelings; however, I also have some polyamorous friends and from them I have learnt about not demanding exclusivity and owning and dispensing with jealously. I suppose I want to learn this ability. Polyamorous relationships show that complex multi-partner loving relationships are possible and can be very successful.

I said that I felt OK with cock-sucking, but penetration felt uncomfortable to me: its a physical intimacy that unites two bodies and I feel a degree of possessiveness over it. I am particularly troubled about the idea of my husband being penetrated … when I am penetrated I feel less manly and the one I am with feels more masculine. I like and enjoy and am aroused and excited by these thoughts. I feel that I surrender something to my “top”. Of course, if you’re into it, being penetrated is enormously physically pleasurable with or without these thoughts and feelings. But these are my thoughts and my feelings. Others will feel differently. Of course, if I allow myself to project my feelings on penetration onto my husband and then he is penetrated, then (in my mind) he is less masculine than I would like. This is my problem and one to get past.

Of course, I really do want him to have fun and be happy and we’ll talk about and work through the thoughts and feelings that get brought up when they happen.

I was saddened that he no longer felt anything much about me having sex with other men. That’s how he felt at that moment. That lack of regard/feeling about it – neither upset nor happy – is the harshest thing. The idea that it doesn’t matter to him any more. That’s my fault, my doing, for being so cavalier with his feelings. The indifference is a gut punch.

And there’s us two, in the London in town, talking about life as a eunuch and our sexual relationship, while the staff are bringing us our coffees and Sunday lunch and puddings!