Myself or my Children?
General Question
I find myself in an impossible situation. To give a brief background I am 35, recently divorced (separated 2023, divorced last august) with 2 kids (10+12). I finally decided to start transitioning (MtF) so that I could live as my authentic self in august, started HRT and laser hair removal in September. I didn’t have a lot of support so I kind of rolled out slowly, telling a few of my friends first, then my parents (who haven’t really been supportive), then my ex. She seemed ok at first but then came back and said she had major problems with it and I shouldn’t do it and shouldn’t tell the kids at thanksgiving or at all and I should wait until they are 18. Which seemed unreasonable. I ended up telling my kids while I had them (their mother moved them to FL in august) for Christmas/new years and that pissed off their mom. They initially seemed ok with it. Maybe thinking it’s weird or struggling to process it, but they seemed ok with it, like they would be willing to work with me.
A couple of weeks ago my ex told me that my daughter (10) didnt want to talk to me. She was uncomfortable with my transition and only wanted to talk once or twice a week. Ok. That turned into just not ever wanting to talk to me quickly. Now two days ago my ex told me that neither of my kids wants to talk to me at all (which the part of my son really bothered me, I didn’t see that coming), that they don’t want to come see me as we had planned for spring break, that they had asked if they could change their last names so that they didnt share mine and wanted her to start court proceedings so they dont have to see me anymore.
Now all this is kind of coming out of left field for me, and I don’t think it’s fair because I don’t get much opportunity to talk to them, they have her influence constantly, they see a therapist she picked and only ever hears her side, and I’m hundreds of miles away. But it’s not just coming from her. She put my daughter on the phone that night who said a lot of the same things her mother said and wouldn’t listen to me or let me try to reason with her. I talked to my son yesterday and things seemed better at the end of the conversation, but today when I tried to talk to them it was back to nothing, and then I was sent a picture of my son crying immediately after and told by him that he doesnt want me to transition, he wants a dad, etc. The point has been made multiple times by my ex and my daughter that me transitioning is a selfish act and that I only care about myself and not them. We all say we would die for our children, but what do you do when your children are the ones asking you to die for them? for no reason other than they are uncomfortable?
All of this cuts me to my core. I never imagined things would go this way. Difficult? Yes. But not impossible. They have said and made it clear that they do not want me to transition, and that me continuing to transition will mean them cutting me out of their life.
We do have a court order and I feel reasonably confident especially since we already bought plane tickets that I can compel them to come regardless, I think my son would still be willing to, but I don’t know if it’s the best course of action to force my daughter if she really doesn’t want to (and she is adamant about that). I can’t help but think they are parroting their mother and just pawns in her game to hurt me. At the very least she is fanning the flames in the direction she wants instead of helping persuade them to show love and compassion towards me as I have for her. I can understand why they would be nervous, uncomfortable, confused, etc about this. It's not something they have seen in life or have any idea how to handle, but I feel like she threw out just dont talk to your dad anymore and they ran with it. Either way it doesnt change the fact that an ultimatum has basically been thrown down.
And the choice is lose my kids, or lose myself. I can barely begin to process this. It is a lose-lose scenario for me and I don’t know what to do or even how to start figuring that out. And there’s always the possibility that I could detransition and the cats out of the bag and they still wouldn’t want anything to do with me. But I either am true to myself and pursue being my authentic self (which I feel comfortable in my own skin for the first time ever now) but lose my kids, possibly forever. Or I basically destroy myself for their sake and keep my kids but go back to a life in misery. I don’t know how to do either and I don’t know if I’m strong enough to do either. I can’t see myself living without my kids, and I can’t see myself living as a man going forward. I don’t think I can split myself and not continue to transition medically and just be myself in private or with select people. But I also don’t think I can repress like I did before and move on.
I feel impotent to try to make anything positive happen here. Maybe if I can get them to still come for their spring break in a couple of weeks I can get them to work with me. But I don’t know how.
I’m not looking for a magic bullet - there isn’t one. But any guidance, experiences, wisdom, insights are helpful. Or just support.
