Intro Post and Question

[thaddeusdagan]

Hi, all! I'm Tad. I'm 33 years old, born female and married to a straight man. I've only very recently admitted to and started to deal with a gender dysphoria that's been present at least since I was a teenager and which has been much worse for the past three years or so. I'm not sure if I'm genderqueer, bigendered or FtM, and am in the process of trying to figure that out. Because I love my husband and my marriage is very important to me, navigating the waters of a trans identity is especially difficult. He knows about what's going on and is doing his best to be supportive but, as you can imagine, the loss of the woman he loves is a big fear of his. He wants me to be happy, but he also wants to see if that's possible without transitioning. As for me, I think that if it weren't for him I would definitely want to transition, at least hormonally. Right now I'm only out to a couple of very close friends. I don't pass very well and I really don't like having to be exaggeratedly masculine in order to try, but I've only been attempting it for a very short period of time.

So my question is, for those of you who have chosen not to medically transition at all, how do you do it without being miserable? What about those who have chosen not to transition socially? Is it possible to be happy while still appearing as your assigned sex? What coping mechanisms do you use to make it more successful?

Any advice you have is greatly appreciated.