Actually, Alison, there is a simple explanation for my determination to retain my male persona. I've been married for 35 years. Neither my wife nor I have any other family of any consequence. And she could not tolerate me doing anything more than nibbling around the edges as I'm doing now. I have said, in the past, to individuals I've talked with about this that I am determined to gift my wife the future she always assumed she had with me. That doesn't make it any less difficult. But it's what I'm determined to do My primary purpose in writing these posts has been to, hopefully, give others who are struggling the opportunity to see what life as an untransitioned transsexual person looks like from the latter stages of the journey. Hopefully it will be of use to them as they try to figure themselves out.