Transgender Ex-Boyfriend.
When your mind and heart are truly open abundance will flow to you effortlessly and easily.
Question:
My (now ex-) boyfriend wants to be a woman, but has not opened up to me about this. It is so obvious but he remains in denial and refuses to get anywhere near the subject. How do we best deal with each other on this because we remained on good terms since we still care greatly about each other. Here’s the situation:
I love him for his spirit, for who he is by nature, he does not love me and shuts me out because I get too close and deep to his reality. He now only wants my friendship as a ‘female very close friend’ to safely keep pulling through life as a man for the outside world. I have already told him that I am in love with his spirit, unconditionally, and that a spirit has no gender. I encourage him to let himself flourish and no longer hide this ‘deep dark secret’ as he calls it. He is a wonderful, beautiful person with qualities he never allowed to flourish.
After reading several accredited reports about transgender and transvestite behaviour, the confrontation was mega-hard for me to deal with because what I read could have been his life story, so exact: Coming from a very strict Christian upbringing (you go to hell if you’re gay or lesbian and to heaven if you serve), having lived in a male environment all his life, riding a huge Harley Davidson, two failed marriages, and keeping up a tough appearance, his true nature must stay in hiding. He has been trapping himself all of his live, doesn’t know what he wants or who he is, has no goals, cannot plan, cannot commit, is always restless and on the run. A constant battle between his male and female side, mindboggling and so very hard to get a grip on.
Our relationship has ended because we were not going anywhere with me loving him, yet him not loving me, and him clearly being afraid of me finding out what I already know. He is doing much better now, a week after our break-up, and he feels relieved over living life again as if all is grand and in hiding for everyone.
Without a doubt, it is extremely hard for me to cope with the fact that our relationship will never be the same again, and him not being able to commit to me. But I also long to share my abundant love with him for who he really is by nature, his pure spirit. I want to comfort and hold him, allow him to be who he wants to be, in loving care, safely and peacefully. Not the whole world has to know if he wants to keep this private, but then at least he is no longer alone in it. He refuses any help, talk or counselling on anything in his life because that is for ‘sissies’ and not for him.
Perhaps a relationship between us is possible once he surrenders to his true self, either as a couple or as genuine friends. I hope this so very much because I can’t believe how much I love his spirit, it’s taken over my life I must admit.
Thank you so much, dear Deepak, for your advice and never-ending love. You forever changed my life since reading Perfect Health many years back.
Response:
It is harder to come to terms with the end of a relationship when you are the one still in love and the other person isn’t. But that is what this is about—not whether your ex should come out to the world about being transgender.
Because he said he doesn’t love you and has made it clear that he isn’t going to commit to a primary relationship with you, you feel there isn’t any hope of winning him back based on the experience of a prior love you two shared. Instead, you have placed your hopes on the idea that the wall of secrecy he has created around his deep dark secret is the wall that keeps him from loving you. You believe that if he would only admit his gender issues and resolve them, he would break down and also admit he deep spiritual love for you as well.
That is not realistic thinking, it is magical thinking, and not the good kind of magical thinking.
Clearly you love him dearly and see his true spiritual nature. That is a rare and wonderful gift. You want him to love and accept himself the way you do. However, it’s important to recognize that whatever his difficult secret may be, he is going to have to find self-acceptance on his own terms. Paradoxically, encouraging him to come out as a transgender and accept himself can actually have the reverse effect by discouraging him. It sends him the subliminal message that he isn’t handling his situation correctly, he is doing something wrong, and his emotional self understands this as: “I am not accepted for what I am, something about me is wrong.”
It’s similar to trying to help a teenager feel good about herself and being accepted by others by telling her you do love her and she really should feel good about herself, and if she doesn’t there’s something wrong with her and no wonder people don’t like her. All that the wounded psyche understands is “I hurt because I feel rejected, and now I am being rejected because I still hurt.”
The fact of the matter is that your ex-boyfriend is going to develop his self-acceptance as soon as he is ready to—no sooner and no later–and you really don’t have a say in that. Your love for him is going to require the added wisdom of knowing that his time and circumstances of his unfolding will be at the divine timing that is right for him and all concerned, but not necessarily when your personal heart may want it to happen.
Love,
Deepak
