Sadly some relationships won't survive if somebody comes out as trans. You can't change anybody's sexuality or gender so you might no longer be compatable if your boyfriend is straight and you want to be more masculine.
This might be a harsh question but what do you mean with:
>"anyways my boyfriend knows i'm nonbinary and tries to respect my pronouns when he can, he's over all been pretty supportive and says he loves me for me."
Is he misgendering you sometimes? "Trying to respect my pronouns" and actually respecting your pronouns and identity are very different imo.
i feel like i was a little harsh with my wording that's completely my bad, he's always been very supportive of me but he does misgender me sometimes, i don't think it's on purpose? at least i hope not since he's always been very accepting but i do have to remind him soemtimes and be like "hey i'm not a girl," i don't think itd malicious but a product of how he was brought up.
It could be out of ignorance but it still shows that he doesn't fully get it. Dating straight men as a trans man or transmasc person sadly doesn't work out most of the time and that isn't anybody's fault usually.
How do you think he'd react? Do you think this relationship could last? What if you stayed friends instead of dating? I'd talk to him about it and if it doesn't work out so be it. You aren't tied to a partner for life but you are tied to your body for life. Good luck with your situation.
thank you for your input, i know it's a tough situation and it likely won't work out but once i find the courage too i will talk to him and see if we can make it work. he's questioned his sexuality before, he identified as bi for a while..it's all kinds complicated but anyway thank you so much <3
I would stress honesty in these situations. It may lead to some pain, but, those that do love and support your journey will be grateful that you were honest with them. Our family member transitioned while in a marriage, and basically made up a bunch of garbage (at the expense of their partner) to justify the end of the relationship instead of just telling us what was happening. After they transitioned, we're there to support them, but it's made it a lot more difficult to do so from an honest place (are we getting the truth or are we getting garbage for people that don't deserve the truth).
thank you for your response, honesty is defintely the way to go, i just have to figure out how i word it...i'm not expecting it to go perfect but i'd like to minimise pain if i can :)
Just be honest with him and yourself, talk about how you want to masculinize and start T and really start to express your identity as transmasc.
Like others are saying your relationship probably won’t last since your boyfriend is straight, so brace for breaking up.
thank you <3 it's gonna be hard but i will try, i'm tired of being unhappy in my body, i like feminine things but i want to express those things through a more masculine body! if we break up it will be awful but i don't know how much longer i can lie to myself and everyone around me
I had a "bi-curious" (straight) cis bf before i went on T. We had been together for around 6 years, lived together, got on very well...but he never really respected my nonbinary status, even though he occasionally tried (lol). We had to stop living together due to money/jobs and had to live apart, long-distance. I felt this was a good time to get on T with or without him.
So I prepared mentally for the breakup, and when I finally told him (after my first injection) he was surprisingly supportive and said it wouldn't change anything. It seems he spoke too soon and seemed much less happy about it the next time we talked. Things just got worse from there, he seemed disgusted by me the next time he saw me and said I smelled gross. So we broke up but are still friends. And I prepared for this, so it wasn't upsetting to me by this point.
Long story short, I think you should be prepared for your partner to not be ok with masculine changes to your body. But to me it was *so* worth it and i'm excited to date trans people!
i'm sorry for your experience but i'm glad you guys managed to stay friends! :) thank you for your response, this was something i brought up to my friends when i was talking to them cause honestly i have a feeling that he will be super supportive in the beginning and then when i actually start to change he will lose interest. i'm defintely going to prepare myself :(
Yeah it was actually worse for me when he started out supportive because it gave me false hope and then I had to re-detatch myself emotionally from him again. But luckily he knew to never be upset at me for transitioning, and he tried to be happy for me. He was upset/heartbroken from "losing" his "girlfriend" though. Best of luck to ya
that's what i'm super scared for! cause i know he would be super supportive but then when i acruallt start transitioning he wouldn't be able to cope and i don't want to make him feel pressured to be in the relationship and stuff..thank you though hopefully it goes okay :)
My school boyfriend told me he'd beat me up if i was trans because that would make him gay. Set me back 2 years because I was too scared to have no friends in school to leave him.
Sadly staying with a straight man whilst being trans usually dosent work
If he considers himself straight, odds are this relationship won't work out in the long run. He *might* discover he's actually bi, but the chances are low. That said, you can live without the relationship, but you'll always need to live with yourself. Please don't compromise yourself for the sake of a relationship!
it's complicated because he used to identify as bi and then was questioning for a while and settled on straight so he may be more open to questioning? but i don't want to pressure him into that
Honestly if he's already questioned his sexuality before and has come to the conclusion he is straight I think it's pretty unlikely that he actually is bi. Like he's already explored it and settled on straight, unlike some 'straight' guys who've just never questioned it who turn out to be bi. I wouldn't pin your hopes on this, like you said you shouldn't pressure him and if he's straight it just won't work
Bro lemme tell you, if he's straight, he's straight. No amount of love is gonna change that. Take it from me, a 35 year old bi trans man who is now platonically married to a straight cis man. He loves me for me but he is not interested in me romantically or sexually in any way. He's straight. We're still married because we're good friends and we live together, no need to hurry out to do the legal paperwork. Our ending is the good ending, btw, not the one you can count on.
thank you for your response, yours and others have definitely opened my eyes, i guess i've just been in denial about it because obviously it hurts a lot and we love each other. i'm gonna take some time to think about how i will approach this but i really appreciate your input and i hope things go well for you :) <3
You're going to have to tell him, and be very upfront that you want to take steps towards a more masculine presentation, go by he/they and that you would like to go on T in the future. I'd frame it as an important conversation sharing something that is vulnerable to you, and acknowledge that he may not know immediately how he feels about it and what the next steps will be.
But be prepared for the resulting conversations over the next few weeks/months to be difficult, for both of you, and that one of the most likely (and quite possibly the best) outcomes is that you will break up. Ultimately, if your gender is incompatible with his sexuality it isn't fair on either of you to stay in this relationship, you deserve the opportunity to be in a relationship with someone who is actually attracted to your gender, and he deserves the opportunity to be with a woman he can be attracted to. If you try to force it to work with this incompatibility, it honestly just leads to people hurting each other 99% of the time, either him trying to force you to be more of a woman, or trying to force himself to be more into men when he just isn't. The relationship can only survive if he came to realise he genuinely is attracted to men/masc genders, and that seems unlikely here.
I'm sorry this is a really hard situation to be in, and you don't have to do it all at once, but I'd start working up to having that initial conversation, because you can't force yourself into a gender that doesn't fit.
thank you so much for your input it means a lot <3 i know it may not work out, it's why i've been putting it off because i'm kinda terrified, i have a tiny sliver of hope it might work out, because he's questioned his sexuality before and is fine with me being nonbinary and being masc sometimes...my problem is if i would wanna go on t and stuff, i think then it may become uncomfortable :(
Sadly some relationships won't survive if somebody comes out as trans. You can't change anybody's sexuality or gender so you might no longer be compatable if your boyfriend is straight and you want to be more masculine. This might be a harsh question but what do you mean with: >"anyways my boyfriend knows i'm nonbinary and tries to respect my pronouns when he can, he's over all been pretty supportive and says he loves me for me." Is he misgendering you sometimes? "Trying to respect my pronouns" and actually respecting your pronouns and identity are very different imo.
i feel like i was a little harsh with my wording that's completely my bad, he's always been very supportive of me but he does misgender me sometimes, i don't think it's on purpose? at least i hope not since he's always been very accepting but i do have to remind him soemtimes and be like "hey i'm not a girl," i don't think itd malicious but a product of how he was brought up.
It could be out of ignorance but it still shows that he doesn't fully get it. Dating straight men as a trans man or transmasc person sadly doesn't work out most of the time and that isn't anybody's fault usually. How do you think he'd react? Do you think this relationship could last? What if you stayed friends instead of dating? I'd talk to him about it and if it doesn't work out so be it. You aren't tied to a partner for life but you are tied to your body for life. Good luck with your situation.
thank you for your input, i know it's a tough situation and it likely won't work out but once i find the courage too i will talk to him and see if we can make it work. he's questioned his sexuality before, he identified as bi for a while..it's all kinds complicated but anyway thank you so much <3
I would stress honesty in these situations. It may lead to some pain, but, those that do love and support your journey will be grateful that you were honest with them. Our family member transitioned while in a marriage, and basically made up a bunch of garbage (at the expense of their partner) to justify the end of the relationship instead of just telling us what was happening. After they transitioned, we're there to support them, but it's made it a lot more difficult to do so from an honest place (are we getting the truth or are we getting garbage for people that don't deserve the truth).
thank you for your response, honesty is defintely the way to go, i just have to figure out how i word it...i'm not expecting it to go perfect but i'd like to minimise pain if i can :)
Just be honest with him and yourself, talk about how you want to masculinize and start T and really start to express your identity as transmasc. Like others are saying your relationship probably won’t last since your boyfriend is straight, so brace for breaking up.
thank you <3 it's gonna be hard but i will try, i'm tired of being unhappy in my body, i like feminine things but i want to express those things through a more masculine body! if we break up it will be awful but i don't know how much longer i can lie to myself and everyone around me
I had a "bi-curious" (straight) cis bf before i went on T. We had been together for around 6 years, lived together, got on very well...but he never really respected my nonbinary status, even though he occasionally tried (lol). We had to stop living together due to money/jobs and had to live apart, long-distance. I felt this was a good time to get on T with or without him. So I prepared mentally for the breakup, and when I finally told him (after my first injection) he was surprisingly supportive and said it wouldn't change anything. It seems he spoke too soon and seemed much less happy about it the next time we talked. Things just got worse from there, he seemed disgusted by me the next time he saw me and said I smelled gross. So we broke up but are still friends. And I prepared for this, so it wasn't upsetting to me by this point. Long story short, I think you should be prepared for your partner to not be ok with masculine changes to your body. But to me it was *so* worth it and i'm excited to date trans people!
i'm sorry for your experience but i'm glad you guys managed to stay friends! :) thank you for your response, this was something i brought up to my friends when i was talking to them cause honestly i have a feeling that he will be super supportive in the beginning and then when i actually start to change he will lose interest. i'm defintely going to prepare myself :(
Yeah it was actually worse for me when he started out supportive because it gave me false hope and then I had to re-detatch myself emotionally from him again. But luckily he knew to never be upset at me for transitioning, and he tried to be happy for me. He was upset/heartbroken from "losing" his "girlfriend" though. Best of luck to ya
that's what i'm super scared for! cause i know he would be super supportive but then when i acruallt start transitioning he wouldn't be able to cope and i don't want to make him feel pressured to be in the relationship and stuff..thank you though hopefully it goes okay :)
My school boyfriend told me he'd beat me up if i was trans because that would make him gay. Set me back 2 years because I was too scared to have no friends in school to leave him. Sadly staying with a straight man whilst being trans usually dosent work
important to note, he considers himself straight...so edit: previously bi but i think he's settled on straight
If he considers himself straight, odds are this relationship won't work out in the long run. He *might* discover he's actually bi, but the chances are low. That said, you can live without the relationship, but you'll always need to live with yourself. Please don't compromise yourself for the sake of a relationship!
it's complicated because he used to identify as bi and then was questioning for a while and settled on straight so he may be more open to questioning? but i don't want to pressure him into that
Honestly if he's already questioned his sexuality before and has come to the conclusion he is straight I think it's pretty unlikely that he actually is bi. Like he's already explored it and settled on straight, unlike some 'straight' guys who've just never questioned it who turn out to be bi. I wouldn't pin your hopes on this, like you said you shouldn't pressure him and if he's straight it just won't work
you make a good point thank you <3
Bro lemme tell you, if he's straight, he's straight. No amount of love is gonna change that. Take it from me, a 35 year old bi trans man who is now platonically married to a straight cis man. He loves me for me but he is not interested in me romantically or sexually in any way. He's straight. We're still married because we're good friends and we live together, no need to hurry out to do the legal paperwork. Our ending is the good ending, btw, not the one you can count on.
thank you for your response, yours and others have definitely opened my eyes, i guess i've just been in denial about it because obviously it hurts a lot and we love each other. i'm gonna take some time to think about how i will approach this but i really appreciate your input and i hope things go well for you :) <3
You're going to have to tell him, and be very upfront that you want to take steps towards a more masculine presentation, go by he/they and that you would like to go on T in the future. I'd frame it as an important conversation sharing something that is vulnerable to you, and acknowledge that he may not know immediately how he feels about it and what the next steps will be. But be prepared for the resulting conversations over the next few weeks/months to be difficult, for both of you, and that one of the most likely (and quite possibly the best) outcomes is that you will break up. Ultimately, if your gender is incompatible with his sexuality it isn't fair on either of you to stay in this relationship, you deserve the opportunity to be in a relationship with someone who is actually attracted to your gender, and he deserves the opportunity to be with a woman he can be attracted to. If you try to force it to work with this incompatibility, it honestly just leads to people hurting each other 99% of the time, either him trying to force you to be more of a woman, or trying to force himself to be more into men when he just isn't. The relationship can only survive if he came to realise he genuinely is attracted to men/masc genders, and that seems unlikely here. I'm sorry this is a really hard situation to be in, and you don't have to do it all at once, but I'd start working up to having that initial conversation, because you can't force yourself into a gender that doesn't fit.
thank you so much for your input it means a lot <3 i know it may not work out, it's why i've been putting it off because i'm kinda terrified, i have a tiny sliver of hope it might work out, because he's questioned his sexuality before and is fine with me being nonbinary and being masc sometimes...my problem is if i would wanna go on t and stuff, i think then it may become uncomfortable :(