Editors note: Usually in this series I share a letter someone writes or a comment they make on our blog. Then I respond. However, this message I received this week was so touching, I figured I’d just share it. It’s that good. You’ll notice the struggle this person is going through while at the same time marveling over his powerful attraction to the person he describes. His experience reveals the real, intense struggle men go through while coming to terms with their trans attraction. There are powerful learning opportunities in this letter. Not only for men, but also for Transgender Women and for Cisgender women who discover their husband is trans-attracted.
Dear The Transamorous Network: I read an article online you posted and it really hit home on my current situation. To be more specific, the article was about trans “addiction”. Almost everything was spot on about how I feel. I swear you were writing this article for me personally.
For almost 25 years I have had this “addiction”. I’m 37 now…Cheating and heart break had almost ruined my marriage more than a couple of times, but we survived. Kids and grit got us through.
I love my wife and kids…very much. I have recently met someone who is trans. Well kinda. We met 5 years ago, I knew we connected when we first met but life took us different ways. Almost 3 years passed and I had no contact. She moved away with a boyfriend and I continued my life.
It seems fate had brought us back together…I unknowingly walk into a local food chain were she works and there she is, just as beautiful as I remember…Immediately sparks fly for both of us.
We kept in contact for 3 months and I have fallen for her very hard. I have looked past the sexual aspect of this and tried to understand…
Why?
Is it like a drug? Am I in love? Just why am I so magnetically attracted to this person? It just feels right. She knows I am in a relationship and has tried as hard as me to keep this from progressing. It will not stop. We both are frustrated and are drawn closer and closer every time we meet. I feel I must come clean and tell my wife about this, which is terrifying.
It is very complicated with so many emotions its hard to keep them in line. For years and years I have been repressed. [I’ve been] judging myself, thinking demons are controlling me. I’ve prayed for god to take this away. “I don’t want this, please lord” [I would pray].
Am I wrong to feel this way? Am I wrong to wanna be with a trans woman? I grew up were these thoughts were wrong and forbidden. My father caught me watching trans porn when I was a teenager and I had to beg him to not send me to therapy. Growing up in a very small town I was unable to explore this with anyone and am just now finding the strength to be real with myself and understand that this will never go away.
I am very lost but I feel most authentic and genuine when I’m with my trans friend. Knowing I want her and to change her life. She has told me she wants to be with me, and I have expressed the same in return. I am scared, in doubt and worried of the aftermath.
I just wondered if any of this has been familiar? I do not know what to do and I’m worried if this continues I will loose both my marriage and this compelling other relationship that feels so right. Any input comments or guidance would be appreciated. I trust things will be ok. I’m just afraid of making a glaring mistake. Thanks.
Many trans-attracted guys and transgender women ask me how to get love they want. Some aren’t ready for my answers. Others, become clients. Those folks not only live happier lives, they eventually get what they want.
They get a lover, or a job. They stop thinking of killing themselves. In short, they become happy.
Sometimes clients will ask why what they want isn’t happening. I tell them it is happening. When the client can’t see it happening, it means they’re telling stories which block their perception.
Whether we perceive our progress or not makes all the difference. Every thing we want does manifest. But often, important “manifestations” slip by our awareness. For example, most transgender women will not celebrate the thought “My joyful, attractive lover is on the way”. They’re too focused on not having that joyful attractive lover. Or they complain about men they’re meeting.
Chasers, scared guys and guys just looking for dick pics abound. When they fill transgender women’s dating lives, it’s easy thinking they’re the only men out there. It’s true for trans-attracted men too. When trans-attracted men can’t find a transgender woman who will take them seriously, or can’t find any in their area, it’s easy to say “there are no transgender women near me.”
The problem is whatever we look at or talk about becomes our reality. So when a guy shows up representing an improvement on the kinds of guys the woman usually meets, she’ll look at that guy through her past experience. She will look over the improvement. Then say “nothing is changing”, or, like a recent client: “I always meet these kinds of guys.”
And when a transgender woman appears in the man’s neighborhood, he’ll literally not see her.
Incremental improvement
Meanwhile, improvement, evidenced in the new guy, still exists. So does the transgender woman living in our neighborhood. Just because we don’t see them, doesn’t mean they’re not real. But if our perception stays stuck on past negative experience, then for all intents and purposes, they’re not real. We’ll keep creating more negative experiences instead of seeing what we want coming true.
Which explains why so many transgender women and trans-attracted men struggle with everything from negative self image to negative dating experiences. Or no dating experiences at all. Loneliness, depression and sadness or dismal online dating results all indicate chronic focus on past negative experience.
But something cool happens the moment a transgender woman or trans-attracted guy changes their perspective. In that moment, a new dimension shows itself. In that new dimension, improvement shines everywhere. It was always there. But with our changed perspective, we now see it. We see our men getting better. And we start seeing transgender women everywhere.
We change our perspective through stories we tell about what we’re looking at. So long as we tell stories about things we don’t like, we keep seeing those things. We keep experiencing them too. But when we focus on improvement and talk about how improved our life becomes, we support more improvement showing up in our perspective.
Anyone can find that partner they want (Photo by Caleb Ekeroth)
Evidence abounds
For example, one of my clients, who I’ll call Karen, dates exclusively online. These days she only does so when feeling lonely or depressed. That’s improvement. Another improvement though, shows up in men she’s meeting. Karen is on her 52d week of practice. She’s improved her stories a lot. But she still has many other stories needing cleaning up.
Nevertheless, she acknowledges small improvements in men she meets online. She really wants to meet men in person. But for now, the story “I can’t find a man locally” dominates her attention. So she doesn’t notice when men compliment her or strike up conversations with her, which they do often whenever she goes out.
Karen didn’t agree when I told her men she meets online have improved. After detailed analysis, however, she couldn’t disagree. The men still ghost her. Or they are early in their trans-attraction and thus unwilling to meet in person. But Karen had to agree, they improved in terms of their willingness to talk with her, the things they had in common with her, and how they treated her.
Noticing incremental improvement is crucial. That’s because that’s how all manifestations happen, including relationship manifestations. It’s also crucial because noticing that improvement adds momentum behind the improvement. Without noticing the improvement, or worse, noticing no improvement, we perpetuate what we’re getting; whether that’s sucky men, crazy transgender women, or no relationship nibbles at all.
Getting what you want can be hard when we keep looking at what we don’t want. (Photo by Adrian Swancar on Unsplash)
How to not get your true love
Appreciating incremental improvement also holds back impatience. Impatience happens when we overly focus on the relationship we want. We recognize it’s not there. Then lose sight of the incremental improvement. Impatience tells us we’re creating a reality we don’t want. Usually that means more of what we now have.
It’s also important knowing what “manifestations” look like. Impatience is a manifestation. So is recognizing the impatience. Doing something about it is a manifestation too. Appreciating ourselves for doing that is too. It’s important to understand everything is a manifestation. It’s important because even an emotional improvement is progress. And going from impatience to appreciation represents an improvement.
Anyone wanting a relationship they think they can’t have stands amidst manifestations telling them something they really want to know. Those manifestations include negative emotions they feel while standing where they stand. I help clients practice everything I shared in this post. Not only do clients live happy lives as a result, they also eventually find the guy or girl of their dreams.
It doesn’t happen in an instant. It happens gradually. The good news is, on the way to that ultimate relationship, my clients find their lives becoming increasingly happier. Want what they have? Contact me.
Every once in a while, a cis woman will write us in despair. These women share “betrayal, shock and sadness” they feel after discovering their husband’s involvement with transgender women. Their discovery usually comes “by accident”, which is why such women express so much shock.
Such a message came our way in the comments section recently:
My husband is trans attracted. He has completely broken me. My self-esteem and self-worth are destroyed. My home is broken and I feel he has no remorse. We are getting a divorce. I do not feel that marriage counseling will help because at the end of the day I cannot satisfy my husband.
His constant porn addiction and running to grindr everytime we argue shows me that his real desire is to be with a trans women. I feel betrayed, angry and stupid to think that he would ever just love me and want me. I’m completely defeated and spend my days reading articles about trans attraction and cry myself to sleep at night. My husband is so quick to defend the trans community but not our marriage and this is a feeling I cannot describe.
Many trans-attracted men wind up married to cis women. That’s because the shame and self loathing they feel about who and what they are has them repress what they want. In exchange, they go for what society tells them they “should” want.
Acceptance is hard
But the price they pay is far too great. Not only do they set themselves up for pain later on, they also, potentially, set up their partners and perhaps children. I totally understand their choices though. I married two cis women. The first I married totally oblivious to my trans attraction. The second marriage I walked into with my eyes open. It wasn’t about love. It was about giving the girl I married what she wanted. She knew about my trans attraction.
So I understand when men like me choose a cis woman over a transgender one. They don’t know what they’re missing when they do that. And, in my opinion, trans attraction will not suffer compromise. Soon or later, it will express itself. That’s why more and more cis women speak of betrayal and shock when they discover their husband “fucking trannies”.
Accepting our trans attraction can be a fraught-filled path. We face potential ridicule from friends, ostracism from family and potentially debilitating self-condemnation. As if that weren’t enough, men like us also often face humiliation, ostracism and ridicule from targets of our affection: the very women we find ourselves irresistibly attracted to.
So I don’t blame guys like me who try resisting their trans attraction. As I said though, that comes at a cost. The most expensive cost is lack of self acceptance.
When guys like us don’t embrace our natural, normal attraction, we give off insecurity vibes. Those vibes attract transgender women who are matches to that. Which is why men like me struggle with their attraction. They wonder why they keep meeting less-than-desirable trans girls. Trans girls who reject them.
Shame is common among many trans-attracted men (Photo by Aaron Blanco)
Self loathing masked as attacking men
Getting rejected by trans girls, while common, needn’t be any trans-attracted guy’s experience. But it will be if guys don’t accept themselves. When they do though, their entire dating experience will change.
The same happens, of course for transgender women.
Transgender women who don’t accept their trans-ness can’t abide by a guy who finds them attractive, in part, because they’re trans. Some trans girls agree with society. They think they are somehow “a mistake” or “born in the wrong body”. They can’t accept and embrace the fact that they chose this path as does every trans-attracted person.
Why anyone would choose transamory or being transgender is easy to answer, but it’s beyond the scope of this post. The point is, when a transgender woman calls a trans-attracted person a “tranny chaser”, “chaser” or some other derogatory term, they’re essentially saying “my status as a transgender person isn’t valid. So if you’re wanting me for that reason, you must be a freak, a fetishizer, fiend, or abnormal.”
We don’t call men who chase vagina “chasers”. We accept their behavior as “normal”. But what is normal? And is normal something someone really should strive for?
I don’t think so.
It’s better embracing one’s trans-ness as well as one’s trans-attraction. Men go through a “hyper” stage wherein they try fucking as many vaginas as possible. Girls go through their own process, but society makes it bad and wrong to express that overtly, so women don’t talk about it, or express it as directly as guys.
Many transgender women go through similar experiences. They seek out as much dick as they can. In other words, they’re exploring themselves.
Transgender women hating on trans-attracted men say more about their self-image than the men they hate (Photo by Engin Akyurt)
We’re a match to what we get
Trans-attracted men go through similar stages. If a trans woman doesn’t want to meet such men, who are going through a period of radical self-exploration, they need to up their story game. They must tell different stories about a number of subjects. Stories about themselves, about dating, about men and about relationships to name a few of many.
Diana Tourjeé, a journalist who happens to be transgender wrote an interesting article about cis women discovering their partners’ transamory. In it, she gives her own take on this perspective.
This is the danger in stereotyping all trans amorous men as chasers. Many are just discovering their sexuality, or finally want to be honest about who they are. They may well be living with severe anxiety or depression due to their reasonable fear. So the outright rejection of all men expressly interested in trans women ultimately alienates whatever number of trans amorous men are capable of, or actively are trying to overcome that fear. [These men] are an example of people who desire an authentic, fulfilling connection with trans women; rejecting them has only caused harm.
I agree. Tourjeé goes on to say many people, including transgender women, hold flawed and harmful ideas. These ideas say anyone who loves transgender women is abnormal. And that’s as harmful as thinking that transgender women themselves are abnormal. For if trans-attraction is abnormal, what does that make transgender women?
It’s a question every transgender woman might want to ask themselves the next time they want call some guy interested in them a “chaser”.
Good advice for cis women
As for cis women married to trans-attracted men, I think we’re going to see many more such women suffering shocking surprises. The more society leans toward accepting transgender people, more men will cast off their shame. I think that’s a good thing.
Women married to trans-attracted men are settling. As much as a shock as it might feel, if such women really look at their relationship with their trans-attracted husbands, they will discover clues existed throughout their relationship.
It’s hard to see the signs the universe shows one when one is on the wrong path. Often, such signs only become clear in the rear-view mirror. I would suggest to such women that the end of their marriage, rather than being the worst thing that ever happened, could become the exact opposite.
It could become an inflection point leading to a more genuine and authentic relationship containing more of what the woman wants. And when that happens, doesn’t that mean the ending of the marriage was actually a good thing?
I think so. Life tends to work out. Life is more fun when seen from that lens and lived with that expectation. Telling positive stories about life helps build such perspectives. Want to know more?
In any case, here’s what you need to know from that research: Not a fucking thing!
Why on earth do we need to know what other people think about us? WE DON’T. We don’t need to know anything about what others think about us! And here’s the great news about that: The less we care, the more of what we want we will get. Including that perfect love many of us want.
It’s not our business
When transgender and trans-attracted people care about what others think about them, they unwittingly put the kibosh on everything they want. Nothing we want will come to us if we care about what others think. Doing so makes us feel like shit. And when we feel like shit we’re not a match to what we want.
Caring what other people think about us usually generates negative emotion in us. That’s intentional. Why is it intentional? Because the negative emotion tells us what we’re doing isn’t what we should be doing. Caring about what others think about ANYTHING we’re doing, or anything we want, makes us a match to their stories instead of our own.
And if those people think we shouldn’t exist, or they think we’re going to hell or whatever, then those negative stories instantly become ours. Unless we seek other’s approval – and I don’t know why anyone would want that – adopting other people’s negative stories serves us not one whit. When we do do that, we feel like shit. Feeling like shit tells us something important. It says “what you’re thinking about is going to get you more of what you’re thinking about. So knock that off!”
Besides, what can you do about what others think about us? Nothing at all. So it’s better to focus on our own business and let other people have their opinions.
What other people think about us is none of our business. It’s way better living life focused on ourselves, going for what we want and getting that.
How do we do that?
By telling better and better stories about ourselves. Telling better and better stories about the world around us. And choosing empowering stories about what we want instead of unwittingly adopting ones we don’t want.
Keeping focus pure
Why do we even care what others think anyway? Think about that. I mean, I get it. When little, parents indoctrinated us into thinking we needed to please others over pleasing ourselves. Teachers and education in general did that too.
But we’re not little anymore. We’re all grown. And so it’s time to start deliberately charting our course towards the life we came to live.
That means living our life our way. Not living the way society or parents or Christians or Americans think we should live. Their stories are their business.
It’s way more important that we care about why we care about what other people think of transgender and trans-attracted people than what their opinions are. That’s because the story behind why we care misguides us. It’s time to do something about that story. Start by giving up caring.
If we keep our focus pure, meaning, we tell stories only about what we want and not about what we don’t, things we want come to us fast. They don’t come instantly though. That’s because most of us have been telling stories opposed to what we want. Especially about love.
But over time, pure focus will replace that old momentum. Then, things wanted will start flowing in so fast, it will amaze.
It’s meant to be
That’s already happening. We all are allowing so many things we want, I’m surprised so many transgender and trans-attracted aren’t seeing that. Then, again, I’m not surprised. Because awareness is a powerful thing. If I’m not aware that all I’m wanting flows to me constantly, then I can’t see it flowing constantly. Not seeing that, I get cranky or impatient, which slows things down more.
If I develop a chronic criticism about myself, about life, about transgender women or about being trans-attracted, then life becomes depressing.
Thankfully, my life flows with all kinds of abundance. Which is why I’m sharing this and other posts I share.
LIFE CAN BE FUN. AND IT SHOULD BE. Because that’s the way it’s intended.
That includes every transgender person and every trans-attracted person getting all they want in love. We needn’t struggle with that or anything else. But we do struggle when we tell stories contrary to the story “life can be fun”. Or when we worry about what others think about us.
Everything we want is flowing to us. But if we’re now aware, if we can’t see it, then it appears as though that’s not happening, even though it is. (Photo by Fuuj on Unsplash)
Let life love you
Caring about what others think about trans-attracted and transgender people doesn’t serve us. All it does is put us on a trajectory that includes more crappy feeling experiences.
Aren’t you tired of feeling crappy? How long do you need to feel crappy before doing something constructive about it?
Drinking, smoking weed, or wallowing in complaints about life aren’t “constructive”. By constructive I mean changing your stories. Then being on the lookout for the change your changes stories create. Then celebrating that, thus building momentum in the direction of what you want. Once momentum happens, what you want will come. Including love you think is impossible.
Turn your attention to things you care about. Then tell positive stories about those things. What should you care about?
How great it is that I’m transgender or trans-attracted.
That it’s wonderful being alive at this time when so many others like me exist out loud. Seriously, have you seen this new thing called Instagram?
Care about how fantastic it is that medical technology can do what it does for some transgender people.
It’s also amazing that more men and women are coming out as trans-attracted, thereby making the dating field more plentiful for us all.
Find your positivity. Love life and watch life love you back. Give up caring what others think. Then everything you want will flow.
Transgender and trans-attracted people seem to worship a false idol. It’s called hard work. Look around. So many of us are working so hard (and spending a lot of money) to find love. When instead, love can come easy. But it comes easily only if we take it easy and let it happen.
I’m not surprised so many struggle and spend a lot of money trying to find love. We’re on all kinds of dating sites. We go to bars, spend money on drinks trying to look cool. Then go home alone.
It’s the same approach we take to life in general. We spend, on average half or more of our waking lives working. Some dedicate far more of their waking hours to working hard. (For the record, because I follow my own advice, I now only work 8 hours a week and cover all my living expenses.)
Americans in particular are known for their workaholism. A client of mine on vacation in Spain talked with someone, a Spanish citizen, who described her opulent and leisure lifestyle. In doing so, she said “Americans live to work. We Spaniards work to live.“
There’s no honor in being transgender or trans-attracted and venerating working hard as the path to a relationship. If we knew more about how life works, our struggle at getting a relationship would dramatically decrease. We’d instantly find ourselves in a loving relationship. Then, everything else we want would easily flow from that.
Indeed, the easy life carries far more productivity potential. That’s because when one takes it easy, following both intuition and passion instead of doing what others expect of them, remarkable things happen. And they happen because them happening expresses nature’s grace for everyone, including transgender and trans-attracted people.
Runaway success is natural
Take a look at the paradox described by “working hard“. Many people work very hard in their lives and barely get anywhere. The working poor are a great example. But so are many of the middle class. Many people in the middle class struggle mightily working hard and just barely cover their needs and wants. Or they get far enough to amass material pleasures. But since many middle class people finance such things, they end up working even harder to pay off credit cards, mortgages and car loan debt.
Others enjoy a smattering of success evidenced by promotions, vanity titles or a real supervisory role. But those “successes“ usually lead to more work as well.
And when it comes to runaway success, an even greater paradox exists. Some of the most successful put in hardly any work at all and find success near immediately, while others work very hard in the same field and get comparatively nowhere.
Take the case of Sir Lewis Hamilton, the first Formula One driver who happens to be a person of color. He is described as a race car “prodigy“. From a very early age, his parents recognized his instinctual attraction to racing. Everyone saw it. So everyone supported him as he rose far beyond others. Others working equally hard and some working even harder.
Racing prodigy Sir Lewis Hamilton owes his racing prowess to something more than hard work. Indeed, people marvel at his avant-garde approach to his sport, which included forays into music, fashion and enjoying life instead of working hard like others in the sport. (Photo By Morio)
Hamilton does behind the steering wheel what others rarely or never do. Indeed, his “hard work“ was more about further developing his natural gifts, his passions, not struggling to achieve “success” or accomplish anything.
Something else must be happening
I was just about to write “not to diminish the effort Hamilton put into becoming a skillful driver”. But my desire to write that evidences my own indoctrination into our collective distortion; the distortion that “hard work” is the key to success. If it were the key to success, if it were instrumental in things going the way we want, why are so many hard working people not successful?
Which leads me to the following. Something else must be happening that allows some people to succeed with little effort and others, despite lots of effort, hardly ever get anywhere. This is the case for something larger having more influence on one’s success than how much effort or action one dedicates toward that goal. See where this is going?
So why is it some people who work so hard achieve comparatively little? I assert the answer has nothing to do with their hard work. Instead, it has far more to do with stories people tell.
Stories we hold create a resonance, or lack thereof, with whatever it is we decide is “success”. One’s image of oneself, what one believes is possible, and what one chooses to do from those perspectives shapes everything. That’s why transgender and trans-attracted people first must love themselves before trying to find love from another.
Action of any kind, especially in relationships, means comparatively little.
The easy life for all
That resonance giving rise to inevitable success feels a certain way. And that feeling indicates a gradually emerging life that, initially, feels better than what it feels like when working hard towards a goal. It feels like freedom, adventure, positive expectation and empowerment on a consistent basis.
Most people experience such feelings infrequently or not at all. Such experiences explain why so many struggle or live mediocre lives or lives of compromise. They’re not resonating with success they claim they want. Especially transgender and trans-attracted people when it comes to finding a partner.
We’re too busy trying to get there, copying what others do: wading through online dating profiles, for example. We won’t slow down and get in touch with that which will bring our lover to us. We don’t believe such a thing possible. So the relationship we want eludes us.
We all enjoy free will. All That Is wants us focusing our time and action living the easy life. That’s because doing so adds to or fulfills that which we each as transgender or trans-attracted people came to fulfill. And in that fulfillment, All That Is becomes more.
People who struggle contribute to more too. But how many of those people – were they in their right mind instead of the mind that has them struggling to find love – how many of those people would trade what they have for the easy life? I would argue such people, in their right mind, would make that trade.
The easy life creates a path filled with joy ease and fun. It’s a life wherein transgender and trans-attracted people can leave the struggle behind. (My artwork)
That’s because everyone knew that’s the life they would live before coming into the world. That easy life available to everyone of us, trans or trans-attracted.
Nature wants us happy
Instead, so many of us choose struggle. We all have free will, as I’ve said. We are all also eternal. So eventually, each of us, as individuals, learn to give up the hard life for the easy one. For many, that takes several lifetimes.
But for a select few, it can happen in this lifetime. By “select few“ I don’t mean to imply that someone else, like some god, chooses the lucky ones. The select few select themselves. They are those who do something about stories they tell, about their lives, about themselves and about the love they want.
And when those people do that, their life becomes the easy life. In time, they leave struggle behind.
Many struggles we transgender and trans-attracted people have stem from thinking we must do it all to get what we want. Thinking that way, we usually end up feeling discouraged and bitter. We complain about life, men, transgender women. We even complain about who we are.
I suggest we give up all of that. Do that and a whole new world opens up. One in which everything we want happens easily.
Like any false idol, working hard to get love results in emptiness and a poor substitute for fulfillment. I suggest we give that idol up. Of course, I can help with that.
