My anxiety

Jenni:
I've always been an anxious person. I hate large gatherings. I'll do just about anything to avoid them, especially when I don't know a ton of people there. I've never been a house party person. In college I never went to bars or out at all, really. Gotta love some social anxiety.

Oddly enough though, I'm a super bubbly person. I'm often mistaken as a huge b**** in later gatherings mostly because I have a mad case of RBF (Morgan actually asked me what was wrong yesterday and I had to explain it was just my face...lol) and I just often would rather keep to myself and wait for someone to approach me instead of doing the approaching.

Sarah always says she'd love to see me at school because I seem to be a very different person there than I am at home.

Anyways, this transition has put my anxiety into overdrive. It's hard not letting it rub off on her. When Sarah first started going out as "Sarah", about six months ago, or really, just confusingly androgenous, I felt like my senses were on overdrive. I was constantly in this state of protection mode. Constantly terrified that someone would say something to her or my family. Constantly thinking about what I'd say or do if they did.

As much as I teach my boys about "you be you" and "who cares what other people think", I do. I'll admit it. I DO care what people think but I'm not proud of that.

Everytime she goes out in something new and we "survive", it just gets easier the next time. The first time she went out with her nails painted, I was a mess. Now, it's nothing. She went to Comicon in a skirt for the first time. It was Comicon. At any given time there was a Wookiee standing next to us or Sailor Moon. No one looked twice. We survived. She wore Jesus sandals to breakfast on Mother's Day. Not only did we survive, but she got recognized as a mom needs(another post). On this Hawaii trip, she's wearing a tankini top. A few stares, but the world hasn't ended.

At some point, someone WILL say something. It's just going to have to be handled eloquently, especially if the kids are along. I guess we take care of that when it happens. My anxiety lessens a little bit each time we survive the next new thing.

Jenni's Story... Part One.

Jenni:

Wow, so... there's a lot here that I've never said to many people, but I've always been one to find writing cathartic and I've always been able to be more open on paper. Here we go... I'm going to "say" some things I haven't said to many people, but it will help understand who I am and where I'm coming from. This will probably be a surprise to many, but maybe not, now that I've got myself a wife :)

So... I've always dated guys. Always. But, for some reason, the thought of doing anything "intimate" with one, always freaked me out. Always. I didn't want to see body parts, I didn't want to touch body parts- I didn't want to be in a position where anything was "expected" of me. Ever. Nothing put me more into panic mode than a guy I was dating trying to be "nice" and get us a hotel room/night away. This has always been the case. Even with Sarah when we first got together. I've never had a libido. Ever. When the TV show, Friends, made having a "List" popular, you know... the list of celebrities that would be safe to cheat with, I always had my "list" in my head but honestly, all I ever wanted to do was hang out and have coffee. My lack of interest in anything sexual started to affect our marriage. I hit some really depressed points- I remember having weekends where I would just sob on the floor of our closet, thinking something was wrong with me. I got to the point of trying to pinpoint if I had ever been molested or sexually assaulted and just didn't remember and I couldn't come up with anything. It was only last year when I was trolling one of the LGBT Facebook groups and found a quiz post titled, "Are You Asexual". I looked the word up, as I'd never heard it before. Holy crap. That was me. I took the quiz. BINGO. The heavens opened and angels sang. I had an "answer"! 

From then, I researched the hell out of it. I think I clicked "yes" for every single question it asked me. For those of you who don't know what it means to be asexual, it's a little confusing, but the gist of it is that I don't find anyone sexually attractive. Sex/typical intimacy isn't something I want to do. It made sense. It's why my "list" never involved "doing it". It's why I was always so terrified of being alone with someone who may "expect" something... things I should "want" to do with someone I cared about. Some aces are completely repulsed by sex and the like... I'm not. I "enjoy" it and can be ok with it as long as it's with someone I care about... (OK, this is weird to tell you all) however I've NEVER initiated it. I just don't "need" it. Basically, when given the choice of pizza or "that", I choose pizza. Every time. No questions asked, and with extra cheese please!

So, now I had an answer. Just because I knew now, it didn't make it any easier when it came time to tell Sarah. It took me MONTHS. In fact, I learned it about myself in February of 2016, and it took me until June 16th of that year to finally say the words out loud, to her, and even then, it was in the dark, right before bed, with my head under my pillow. I was terrified she'd leave me. TERRIFIED. In retrospect, that's ridiculous. She was so relieved. She thought it was her, she thought I had some totally crazy past experience that "damaged me". I'm asexual. Wow. It was a relief, and ever since then, we've been great. She's done her own research and realized that it's just who I am, and that it has nothing to do with her.

So, that leads me to more... Once we started discussing Sarah's "things", the word "transgender" only got actually used in the last year or so, I realized something else... holy crap. I like girls. My crushes on various female actors and singers, all of that... it all made sense! It was ok! Then... guess what... as time as gone on, maybe I'm not as "asexual" as I thought... maybe I'm straight up GAY. I realized I can TOTALLY think about girls "like that". Hmm.... interesting. That part is even newer to me and I'm working on sorting it all out. Maybe that's why Sarah and I clicked from the get-go? Maybe I just "knew"? I don't know. That's for another post. Both concepts- my additional discovery and more on Sarah. 

So that's a little bit about me. Wow- I said some words here that I've never said to about 95% of you that will read this. Eeeek. So there it is. 

Intro to the family

Hi, everyone! It's Jenni here!

I've quickly learned that we are a very special family. Here's why:

Sean and I met in 2004 when I was a junior and he was a senior at ASU. He patiently waited for me to end a long term romance with my high school sweetheart, quietly, we'll call it "stalking" me through a friend. Ha. Finally, when given the "go ahead" from a mutual friend, once I was officially "broken up", Sean swooped in, and well, two months later we were engaged. When you know, you know. We were instantly best friends and spent every waking moment together from the start.

We graduated together in 2005, and started our teaching careers- he as a high school math teacher and me as a special education teacher. Fast forward to December of 2005, and we got married. In 2007, we had a little boy, Morgan. In 2009, our next son, Toby came along. We went on living our lives as a happy hetero couple... until we weren't.

Sean publicly came out as transgender in May of this year. From here on out, SHE will be referred to as Sarah.

I knew for a long time, but I'll save that as another blog post- I don't want to make this ten miles long. Trust me, there's a LOT to talk about! The boys had known for a while too, but not as long as I did. The final steps were telling friends, family and finally, our schools. Thankfully, we have been met with nothing but encouragement, support and love from nearly everyone who has been part of our journey thusfar.

When we first started navigating this world or at least looking into what in the world we may be headed into, "researching" stories, blogs, articles, just about ANYTHING reassuring for a marriage to survive, or what it's like to come out as a teacher, parent, married couple, anything... there was very little that resulted in a positive outcome. I'm hoping this can be a place for others who may be starting their journey can find a positive place to find information or at least, relate to anything we're going through.

We'll both be doing updates... I imagine it will be mostly me, but we'll always start by saying who is doing the post so you know who's story/perspective it's from.

Thank you for reading!