Struggling with Girlfriend

Backstory:

I am actually very happy with my girlfriend in a general sense. But we/I/she is struggling.

My girl has gender issues; she is male to female transgender. She also has some pretty severe trauma in her past - in fact, she found her father after he committed suicide.

Now generally when I experience trouble in relationships, that would be it - but we love each other so much (and it's a progressive, willing-to-work-and-talk-it-out, more adult love than I've had before).

She has anger issues. Not in the sense that I'm ever in any danger, but she gets so mad - and I believe it's a combination of our poor communication skills due to our histories, and the fact that she is technically still pre-surgery. She has had reconstructive surgery for breasts, but not her main surgery as sadly it is not covered here - we can't afford it. So, she remains stuck inside a body she feels is not hers. I love her as she is; It doesn't matter to me if she EVER changes fully. But I know she's not happy.

However - she's not had much luck with therapy. She's saying that therapy won't help - and why should she bother. I've said she needs to give it a real chance - and that even if she goes and SAYS "I don't think this will work, and I'm not sure why I'm here" there is potential for it to help (because I believe a good therapist WILL be able to help her even work through that, and identify the things she can work on.)

I am not interested in forcing her to do anything. I want this to be her choice, but I also want to empower her to see the value that is potentially there. So - I'm wondering about tips on how to argue with someone that therapy can be good - minus the "Arguing' lol...if that makes sense. I think as a product of her poor experiences, and maybe of her underlying anger, she's just not able to see how it could help.

You could simply point out that it is always worth a try, and ask her if she actually wants to try to control and get past the anger issues. Point out that anything to make her happier has got to worth a try? And a happier relationship too.

Also, I'd like the mention, is she on hormones? Those can have horrible side-effects like depression. I wonder if that may be contributing to her apathy towards trying therapy? Maybe its worth mentioning it, when everything is calm.

I do have to say tho, that sometimes therapy just doesn't work. A bad therapist, or simply not in the right mindset for therapy. I tried it once, and it actually made me worse, because facing things made me relive everything and get more angry.

I hope you guys are able to sort things out. Hugs

MandiePoo,

I am sorry to hear that your girlfriend is dealing with such traumatic memories. I can understand her desire to leave her past in the past, rather than try to work through things with a T. It takes a lot of strength and courage to face those horrible images and feelings again!

I have heard that gender transformation won't be done until the prospective patient has gone through psychological tests, to be sure that they'll be able to handle things well. Has your gf had that testing done?

I would assume that your gf is undergoing hormonal treatment ~ which can certainly add to the intense emotions that she's fighting. I would advise you to look into T's in your area that specialize in transgender issues. Print up a list of possibilities to show your gf.

Perhaps she will be more accepting of your suggestion (in seeing a T) once she sees the list of various T's that specialize in the issues that are currently triggers in her world.

Best wishes to you both ~ take care!

thanks for your response! I am fully confident with the way our relationship has gone, that we will indeed work things out. I suspect both of us tend to "avoid" certain areas of our past - but both of us are now more willing to work on ourselves than we ever have been. She has said all on her own that she DOES want to amend her anger - she knows it makes her feel terrible and sad. The desire to change is there, which is excellent

She is on hormones - both testosterone supressants, and estrogen. I didn't even consider the fact that her hormones may be causing issue - it's quite possible. I personally notice a difference when she's OUT of meds, which hasn't happened often - but I notice a sharp increase in anger. We've agreed that for now, until she is evaluated, she should probably not miss meds unless it is an absolute emergency. That seems to be a trigger point for her anger too. She could in fact be on the wrong meds/wrong dose of meds, or even not enough meds. As a possibly unrelated side effect, she's also getting breakouts which she normally doesn't. I know that can be testosterone related...thanks for pointing that out. Could be a very valid point.

Yes, I think that therapy - or heck, even someone both of us could see together - could at the very least give her and I the tools to properly deal with each other and communicate. I have PTSD; she likely does too with the traumatic history and there is the obvious gender issues. I think it's not really surprising that we are butting heads at points!

That's the thing - here, how our system mostly works is that you are assigned a therapist. You don't get a whole lot of choice (Canada). I've been thinking this over and to be honest I'm wondering if, even though it may be hard to afford, we should evaluate a private therapist or psychiatrist or something - and pay for the specialty skills. I think someone with knowledge of both issues would be amazing

It may be better to find a way to afford such instead of ending up matched with a therapist that is not a good match. Gender issues especially around here I find don't have a lot of support at all - therapists seem to mostly know about it but don't have much skill in the area. I think they feel it's simply not common enough but quite frankly, it's become very common!


This is something that I've thought about too. I *do* feel that she is avoiding the past a bit - hell, who wouldn't avoid the past? I do it myself because that crap is DIFFICULT to deal with. It doesn't feel good dredging up those memories. Sometimes it needs to be done though. It's worth mentioning that her gender issues came before finding her father - she'd already been through some therapy re:gender and on hormones for a few years when the incident with her father occurred. But - if we were to, say, run into enough money for surgery right now - I don't think she'd fully pass the psych exam. I haven't said that directly to her as I think that is a devastating thought that doesn't need to be brought up just yet.

Some of this resistence may be because her last three medical professionals (her doctor, her therapist, and even her endocrine doc) have all had to move on to different things. One had a baby and stopped working; two moved out of province. So I think she felt like she just got started and was left hanging (as for some unknown reason, they didn't transfer her to someone else.)

We did have a chat about this last night and there is some progress - she's willing to go *with* me to a generic therapist, on the basis of getting some assistance with learning how to argue more effectively/communicate. She's said she's not sure about addressing our issues seperately in the same session - which makes sense to me - but she WILL see someone with me to help iron out the kinks in our communication. So that's great, and I'm actually fine with that It's a start, right? And perhaps after a little bit, that therapist can give us some ideas on how we can move forward, too.

It's a start anyway. I'm not willing to give up on this relationship just yet She's otherwise a wonderful person, with an amazing family who has taken me under their wing as if I was just another of her moms "kids". Kids in quotations because her mom does foster care work

I think I will also take the advice of making a list of ways I think a therapist can help. Communication is a big one. I'll also attempt to express that she's not ever forced to remain in therapy - if it doesn't work, it doesn't work - and we can move on from it