STRUGGLE SESSION: Chosen Family, Pocket Altar Boys, Muppet-Faced Men and more!

...te>To the gay guy about to have kids I would recommend the podcast Dads and Daddies. One of the hosts has two kids with his husband and they have an open marriage and he talks about the hookups they both have and how they navigate it with kids. …and if you’re wondering where you can get your hands on a Pocket Altar Boy, a sex toy I mentioned in this week’s show, you can order one from Good Vibrations! We haven’t been doing the Muppet-Faced Man of the Week for a while… but Diana wanted one and, in all honesty, I feel like we need one and Instagram’s algorithm really came through. Especially love this post with Grandma DGAF sitting on the couch. Alright, here’s a letter that came in this week that’s not going to make it into the column because it’s too long… Late 40s bisexual woman here with a question: How do you say goodbye to a love that has chosen to transition from male to female? More than thirty years ago, I was in a relationship that would end up being my “standard by which all other relationships are measured” sort of thing. The love of my life. Teenage love. We met organically as if the universe intended for us to find one another. This was on the East Coast, and eventually his path returned him to the West Coast. I definitely self-sabotaged a bit here, since I was young and didn’t know how to handle losing this amazing connection. One of the greatest regrets of my life. Since this was before any sort of internet or social media option, we lost touch. I would call him sporadically when I missed him. We connected a few times when I would visit the West Coast. I always, always, always thought of him and wondered where life continued to take him. Four years ago, I went on a journey to find him — perhaps I stalked him a little — after years of not being in touch. I found his address online, bit the bullet, and wrote him a letter. I apologized for any negative impact my behavior may have had all those years ago. Weeks went by, and I assumed I had not, in fact, found him, but then one day I received a response. He had sold the house and my letter took some time to get to him, having been rerouted. I had included my number in my letter, so I’m sure you can imagine how pleasantly surprised I was to receive a text saying he got my letter… and then how crushed I was when he said that his wife wasn’t sure why I would be writing him after all this time… but that he’d like to catch up. I dive in and go for it. We share texts, photos, and memories. A bit of healing happens for me. I’m thankful for the opportunity to reconcile this yuck I had felt for all these years about how our relationship had ended. Eventually he purchases a ticket for me to fly to see him. It was amazing to reconnect in person. We had both aged and changed in ways that bodies naturally do, but he was still the same old him and I was still the same old me. Then he starts to open up. He discloses that his marriage could barely be described as a marriage. They haven’t had sex for years. He had been intimate with men outside his marriage. (We are both bisexual.) At one point he was taking medications in an effort to transition. Dresses, wigs, and heels hung in his closet. He claims his wife never knew and any attempts made to broach the subject were met with disapproval. He was fearful to tell me, even after all these years, because all he had ever felt was rejection. When I accepted him for who he is, he was relieved. His expectation was that I would refuse him because it would be too much to take. For the first time, we slept together. It was beautiful and tender and everything lovely. We talked a LOT about what he wanted to do with his life — trying to keep ME out of it, because he has to stand on his own two feet. He made some choices, and I gave him a hard time about choosing to stay in a loveless marriage and disrespecting himself and me in the process. Between our reconnecting four years ago and now, he packed up and moved back to the West Coast again. This was him making the move to prioritize himself — starting the divorce process, living alone, going back to school — all good things. This year, the communications slowed. Then last week, after five months of silence, he started love bombing me – telling me how often I’m on his mind, how he’s worked hard on himself, how he’s always loved me, how his heart has always belonged to me, time and distance cannot change this, how he aches for my touch, longs to hold me in his arms, knows that he should have been loving me and showing me this love all along, and the only future he can imagine has me in it. But the kicker is… he didn’t tell me his divorce was finalized (which I have been agonizingly waiting to hear) and he didn’t tell me he “came out” to his family as presenting female. (I stumbled upon this as I realized he had changed his displayed name on social media accounts. So, I finally find out his divorce was finalized… and that I can have him back… but I won’t have a chance at the relationship I thought I would have with the person I thought I would have it with because he’s not that person anymore. I’m happy to support her in her choices and love her for who she is, but I also feel like I am 100% mourning the loss of the man I was waiting for all this time and the “what could have been” can now never be. I’m just not really sure how to process all this and would love some feedback on how to process her transition in a healthy way. This Really Is The End P.S. Can you please explain the “tech savvy at risk youth” thing? (Sorry, I’m new!) I’m sure everyone who had such good advice for CISBOB this week is going to have equally good advice for TRITE. Drop it in the comment thread….