When friends and family show you that you are not alone

I won’t hide it.  My recent life has been very stressful.  Very.  When people say to me, “you’re dealing with a lot,” I don’t even acknowledge it, because if I do, I might get overwhelmed.  And in truth, almost everything that is working against me stems from one place, my divorce and the unrelenting anger of my wife.

This is my reality:

• I no longer have any credit left on any credit cards…they are all in default
• I cannot pay the utility bills on my home
• The house that the wife occupies is on a mortgage which I have not been able to pay for several months and for which we are now getting repossession notices
• I am living in the rented family home with one of my kids and have been told by the landlord that we will be kicked out in January unless we pay rent.  I cannot.
• My wife has blocked access to the funds I need to pay for my surgery
• I cannot afford to be generous to my children over the holidays
• I now owe my lawyers so much money that they have said they will not represent me any longer

In the meantime, I brought in more money last year than I ever have in my life.  But it sits frozen by a court order, and can only be released if my wife agrees.  What are the chances of that?

Additionally, she has kicked me out of the business that we built together over 25 years, and which I paid for.  Submissive men: let this be a lesson to you (that’s what happens when you sign assets over to your spouse).  To add insult to injury, I was ordered to pay her maintenance pending final resolution from money I don’t have and was threatened with arrest if I did not comply.  Thankfully my wife allowed the disbursement of funds from the frozen account, in effect paying herself from my money. So I am not spending the holidays in jail.

I would say that was a near perfect storm.

What else?  Well, when I asked for the kids to be with me over Christmas she said, “You had them last year, so I will take them this year,” forgetting that me having the children mean her coming with them, breaking down my bedroom door, sleeping in the house overnight, and driving me from my home—there was no way I could stay there when she insisted on coming in…I left before they arrived.  I think she might even gaslight herself.

And I know that I would have just cried my eyes out all Christmas long until my kids came home.  I would have been a mess.  Maybe worse.  I don’t do alone as well as I used to.

But when I saw this coming some months ago, I asked two family members who had never come to see me ever, largely because we have never been so close, to come and stay with me over the holidays, and to bring their families, I was amazed to find they agreed, and then really did come.  And are here.  They are all sleeping upstairs right now.

I feel so deeply supported by their presence, I can’t even begin to say.  One of my siblings asked me for my pronouns before we had finished saying hello…and although they all struggle, they are all trying to gender me as the gender I am stepping into.  They are also all very sensitive to my financial situation and taking care to not put me in a position of feeling I have to pay for things.

And this is really weird because I have always been the generous one, the patriarch [isn’t that funny], the big man, the one who paid for everyone and everything.  By being pushed with my back to the wall in this way I am being forced to learn to receive.  This is a lesson that I have to learn and might have never learned any other way.

A week ago, I asked a family member if they thought I could ask someone who is a friend of the family whether I could use their address to sponsor a move and a change of residency to make my surgery more accessible. The answer was that it might be burdensome and that I should ask someone else.  And then I began to think, who else do I know that lives in that area?  And suddenly I remembered friends and family that I haven’t spoken to in years.

I wrote to all of them.  It was a weird message.  More or less along the lines of, “hi, I know we haven’t spoken to, seen each other, written to…” in some cases for as long as 20 years…so it was “I am transgender and am out” and also “I need your address”…apart from the beautiful messages of support I received back and how every one of them hoped that this meant we would see more of each other, every one of them said I could do it.  So too, the original couple who heard about my request through the grapevine and just spontaneously wrote to me.

In the meantime, I feel good that my very last £300 of credit on my American Express card was used to support a homeless charity called Crisis UK.  As I face eviction and homelessness of my own, I still recognise that there are many who are less fortunate than me.  And since I continue to have full disclosure in my divorce about all of my financial goings on, I look forward to seeing in court papers that I have given this money when I “cry poor”.

It is beyond the scope of this blog to get into the discrimination in the judicial system that exists towards trans people, but I am living it.

There is a moment where we resign ourselves to fate that comes with a sense of relaxation.  I can’t believe how people have rallied to my side and provided emotional support.  Look no further to see the gift of holiday cheer.

Bless you all and have a wonderful love-filled week.