The train trip itself down to California, was pretty cool. I was seated next to Karen. A lovely woman from Eugene, Oregon. She was originally from Denmark, so I actually had quite a bit to talk to her about, as I had spent many hours around Danes. I did not need my mp3 player until she got off the train many hours later. I even got a hug.

Also of note, I was not the only transwoman on the train. There was one other (that I saw) and she commented on my purple/burgundy outfit, so that was nice. It looked like she was with 3 or 4 other people, so I didn’t wind up talking to her at all.

Dinner was interesting, as I had decided to partake of the dining car reservation. When I got to the table, there was already a gentleman seated ahead of me. It was quickly apparent that he was not very social. We exchanged names, and destinations. After a bit I tried to initiate conversation again, and we had a very stilted conversation about Vancouver.

Thankfully, a couple (man and woman) got seated with us pretty quick. They were much more chatty. They were from Oregon as well, and it seems I tend to get along really well with people from there. Must be a forest/coastal/ocean thing. Conversation went from Canada/US differences, to local govt infrastructure idiocy. Dinner was really good, but portions were smallish, and VERY expensive.

I managed to get a little bit of sleep on the train, and the rest of the trip was mostly me watching Monty Python on my Sony Walkman.

I arrived in Sacramento about half an hour before I was supposed to. Luckily Melissa is like me, and likes to arrive places half an hour ahead of time, otherwise we feel late. So, she actually showed up about 5 minutes after I got outside the station (as I was trying to find wifi to send her a message).

My face must have lit up when I saw her, but it was very cold, and I was so tired, so we only managed a hug before getting into the warm car. It was at this point that I knew this was going to work. Without ever having been around her before, it all just felt so comfortable. I slid my hand across to her thigh, as we drove to get some breakfast.

The 13 days went by so fast, but I feel we got a lot out of them. We saw Star Wars Rogue One in IMAX 3D, saw Cirque Du Soleil: Luzia in San Fransisco, had ostrich burgers at Fudruckers, walked a bit around the San Fran waterfront, ate a lot of amazing home cooked meals (Melissa is a wonderful cook), gamed together, slept together, showered together, but more important than any of that, is we got to touch.

We are so completely compatible. We are so incomprehensibly similar, and yet any differences we have are perfectly synergistic. It’s like we were made for each other. Even after dating for a few months now, we both marvel at how good we are for each other.

I cried a lot on the last day. I didn’t want to leave. Maybe it was a good thing the train coming home was so horrendously late, and that I didn’t sleep well on it. I was over tired, and the tears seemed to stop. The last few nights have been tearful though. I figured this would happen after finally being with her. I’m prepared for it, and I’ll continue to cry, because it’s how I deal with it. I have amazing friends that will distract me from missing her as much as I do. And of course, we talk every day.

Neither of us knows what our future is. Nothing can be figured out until we’ve both had our surgeries. Until then, since we both identify as non-monogamous, we’ll try and find other partners that are close for now, probably just casual things. That being said, we will be together sooner than later. Where? Who knows at this point. I’m willing to move to her. She’s willing to move to me. Whichever makes more sense when the time comes.

I have known Melissa for quite a few years. We were introduced to each other in an online game (World of Warcraft). At the time, we were both still trying to pass as guys. We wound up in the same guild, and spent many weekends raiding together. I developed an actual affinity for this person, and was genuinely sad when she missed a weekend, or I had to miss a weekend.

A brief description of what ‘raiding’ is. For us, it was a mostly disorganized attempt to kill boss monsters as a group of 10 players who all got along more or less and didn’t yell at each other as we died many times. Somehow, this was fun for us. We were WAY more successful than we had any right to be. *lol*

Melissa played a character named Gnomerology – a gnome (duh) mage. I played a an elf (again duh) priest. Most of the time we were both filling damage inflicting roles. Meaning we went pew pew pew a lot.

When raiding, some semblance of communication is required, so we all used a program called Ventrillo which allowed us to speak to each other with headsets. This is where a lot of the camaraderie developed between all of us. Speaking allows you to convey more information, and at a faster speed, than typing. So you wind up getting to know people a lot better.

Gnomer and I developed a rather healthy competition each week to see who could do more damage throughout the raid, and thus claim that it was her or I (or Sunilt – rarely *lol*) that made the day successful. (as opposed to the healers or the tanks)

When she quit playing, about a year before I did, I actually missed her. And we lost contact with each other.

Fast forward a few years, and I had our Guild Mother on my friend list on Facebook, and she happened to still be in touch with Melissa. This is when I get a fairly random message from her…

“Pssst! Remember Gnomerologyyyyyyyyyy?
“Xxxxxxxx” has become Melissa, and is just starting her own journey. I was just wishing her well, as she had posted new pics and her announcement.”

Many of you already know, but I think most do not. Teresa and I are no longer a romantic/sexual couple.

There are a myriad of reasons for this, and I’m not going to go into the details publicly at this point (if ever).

It is not because I’m a woman. I’m the one who has lost the romantic spark, not Teresa. Teresa did everything right (for the most part) to keep us together during my transition. Transition did play a role, but not in the way most relationships fail during transition.

This actually happened many many months ago, and I/we tried to work on it.

We still love each other, and support each other. We’ve both committed to helping the other change careers. Our dynamic is different now though. More like sisters or best friends. We don’t fight nearly as much, and we don’t hurt each other as much either. This is a good thing.

We sleep in our separate rooms more often than not lately. We’re not against sleeping together, but with my school schedule, it makes sleeping in the same room difficult. Our finances are separate now as well for the most part. It’s like having a roommate again.

I have a fair amount of guilt over this. Logically, I don’t believe either of us are to blame. It’s something that happened, and not on purpose. But, as I’m the one that was not able to rekindle certain feelings, emotionally, I feel to blame.

The guilt is lessened by the fact Teresa is in a great relationship with someone. I would feel a lot worse if she were feeling alone during this. I still have that protector mentality, and when I hurt someone, it shakes me to my core because it’s the antithesis of what I’m about.

That is sometimes, why I make the mistake of not being honest with someone when I need to. Because I don’t want to hurt them, I try too hard not to, and then it all blows up in my face. I’m getting better at this, but I still fuck it up from time to time. Quite recently in fact.

So, anyway, we don’t know exactly what the future holds for us. For now, we’re still married and not legally separated or anything. It’s likely that will change, especially as our own personal relationships change, though we will always be in each others lives.

Please read with an open mind. This is about changing relationship models, and ever changing relationships within those new models.

As in my coming out messages to everyone – I’m just going to rip that bandaid off. Teresa and I opened our marriage in April, 2015, and became polyamorous (or poly for short).

For most of you, that term won’t have any real meaning yet. So, allow me a definition.

Polyamory: Polyamory (from Greek πολύ poly, “many, several”, and Latin amor, “love“) is the practice, desire, or acceptance of intimate relationships that are not exclusive with respect to other sexual or intimate relationships, with knowledge and consent of everyone involved. It has been described as “consensual, ethical, and responsible non-monogamy“,[2] and may or may not include polysexuality (attraction towards multiple genders or sexes). 

There are other definitions, but this one, from Wikipedia, will suffice for now. It should be very much emphasized that this is not polygamy. A practice largely associated with Mormon church, and almost always misogynistic.

Part of our move away from monogamy was precipitated by my change in sexual orientation. Part of it was from marriage troubles that have been ongoing. Part of it was because we both fell in love with another person (the same person). Part of it was because of my transition. And there were probably a dozen other factors that influenced the decision.

At first, it was something that was joked about or talked about very lightly. Things like, “Now that you like guys, I suppose you’ll want a boyfriend.” Or, “I’d really like to just have that guy experience once in my life.” Or, “It’s just puberty, you want everything that moves.” Or even Teresa saying from the very beginning of our relationship, that if I ever wanted to be with someone else, I just had to be up front about it.

It became more than a joke one night in April. We had mutually fallen for a particular friend, that we wound up having over for a long weekend. She was supposed to stay in the spare bedroom. We cleaned it, put all sorts of comfy, fluffy pillows out, but it never got used. She wound up sleeping with us instead.

And life was grand. Everyone was in love with everyone else. We had no idea how to ‘poly’ properly. We were flying by the seat of our pants, and it turns out, doing so many things wrong.

This triad (as we called it) didn’t last long, as the feelings weren’t all mutual. Yes, we all loved each other, but it wasn’t the same kind of love all around. I was the odd one out. She did not have that romantic spark for me. I had a bad reaction to this, but that’s another story. Eventually things got kind of smoothed out as 2 couples: Teresa and I, and Teresa and her girlfriend.

I discovered a couple things during this time. 1, I don’t really have jealousy issues in the classical sense. 2, I don’t do well when I’m alone, most times.

I had no problem seeing Teresa with her girlfriend. Had no problem being the third wheel at times (I was used to this from other friends). But, when left alone, I was suffering pretty bad depression. In hindsight, a lot of my issues were very likely hormone related – either caused by, or accentuated by. My estrogen levels were very low early on, combined with very very low testosterone levels, combined with elevated progesterone levels. That’s not a good mix, for anyone.

We made a lot of mistakes with this set up. We had no knowledge of what we were doing, thinking that we’d just figure out as we went, and it would work because: love. But that didn’t work out. We had not set up any boundaries, any rules, and especially did not have the required levels of communication that are essential to poly working. (of note, communication is JUST as essential for monogamy to work well).

Eventually Teresa and her girlfriend ended with hurt all around. None of us were in good head spaces for this. Depression, envy, neglect, more depression. It kind of imploded. Out of it, we kind of stayed friends, more or less. As time went on, my friendship with her strengthened. Teresa’s faltered for a bit, but is still there.

On the day that Teresa’s relationship ended, I wound up with my girlfriend.

Getting a girlfriend wasn’t supposed to happen. I was trying to find a boyfriend, at the behest of Teresa and her partner, I had an online dating profile and everything. The search wasn’t (and still isn’t) going that well, but that’s, yet again, another story.

Our version of polyamory is working for us. We communicate extremely well now and openly about our needs, wants, and desires. We work very hard to respect everyone involved (and seem to be very good at that now – I had some hiccups early on. Sorry Teresa.)

Teresa and I are working at rebuilding what we had. It’s tough. I think currently I’m the biggest problem with that. Or rather my feelings are the biggest problem. I’ve been experiencing something I’m calling ‘relationship induced dysphoria’. When we get too close, it starts to come up. All my memories are of trying to be a man with/for her. When we would get close, more and more often, these memories would come to the surface and make me feel incredibly dysphoric. To the point where I would push Teresa away and say, ‘no.’

Then Teresa would feel rejected, because that’s of course what it was. Not because of her, but how I felt, yet it was still rejection. Then she’d get depressed. Eventually we decided to become non-sexual to stop the hurt all around. For my part, this has helped immensely. I no longer feel pressured, or have this dysphoria, and I can slowly let my mind rework itself.

The other issue we have is miscommunication. We do both try very hard to communicate. There is often a disconnect between us though. This is something we are both working on. I’ve been working on not saying anything while I’m reacting to what’s been said. Teresa is working on not taking my reaction as a part of the conversation. Making sure we understand what the other meant is another part of it. Sometimes we think we’re saying one thing, but that’s not how it’s being received.

Having other people in our lives, is allowing us the space to work on ourselves and rebuild. We don’t feel resentment towards each other for the things we aren’t able to provide.

Many of you will ask why I felt the need to post such information about our private lives.

The simple answer for me is, I develop feelings of shame and guilt very quickly from having to hide aspects of my life. It’s a carry over from years of self denial and the shame and guilt I felt from being myself, and not being able to be out. I *am* proud of who I am. It was still a hard decision because other people are implicated. Especially Teresa, but also our partners are at a slightly increased risk of being outed.

From the beginning, over 10 years ago, I told Jessica that if she ever wanted to be with someone else, that I was okay with it, as long as she was open and honest about it (no cheating). So it was actually my idea to open the marriage and not for the reasons a lot of people think.

Back then, when I had no idea what being open or poly meant, I just never wanted to have to go through the pain of being cheated on. Not that I thought she ever would, but just in case, I’d throw that disclaimer in the ring every once in a while.

Also, now with her transition, it wasn’t because I needed to replace my husband and had to have a guy in my life. Though I am very happy that I have one in my life. He makes me very happy and not because he’s a guy, but because he loves and respects me for me.

After Jessica started her transition, and we decided to open our marriage, it was originally because I didn’t feel it was fair of me to ask Jessica to remain in the confines of a monogamous marriage because of a vow or promise she made on our wedding day that happened before she realized who she truly was.

As time has passed, I’ve realized I was also doing it, in the beginning, to save our marriage. (note: This is not a good or healthy reason to open your marriage. It only makes things more complicated and the marriage harder to work on if at all.) My reason for being poly no longer has anything to do with saving my marriage or letting Jessica be free to explore herself.

Being poly has opened my eyes to self love, discovery, and growth. It’s made me realize I can’t be all things to each partner but I can be the real me and bring what I have to offer to the table and accepting that that is enough. It means being happy when my parter(s) are giving and receiving the love that they need with their partner(s). It’s accepting that there are all kinds of love and we don’t have to settle for just one kind. It’s about learning to be secure within myself to be myself and attract those to me that want that, respect that, and honour that.

– Teresa Reimer