I’m in a really difficult situation.
I met a really cool girl when I was living far from home in 2017. We were both in Tokyo, but both from the US south(generally, we were about a 5 hr drive from each other). We met by accident as strangers and shared some fun times together platonically.
I was there for the long haul — work, school, etc. for another year or more after I met her. She was just on a vacation and was headed back home about a week after we met. We exchanged messenger info and continued talking. Stayed platonic — I updated her on happenings in Japan, really enjoyed talking to her(it was nice to have another American who was interested in what I was doing honestly, most people at home would talk to me once a week or w/e and I don’t blame them the time difference was killer and I had so much going on that I was probably not the best friend to keep up with anyway).
When I was about three months from coming home we video called because she wanted to see my porch view at a new apartment I had temporarily(you could see Fuji from my balcony, super cool). On that call I asked her if I could take her out when I got back. She said yes, but mentioned the distance/etc. which I said was no big deal(and stood by that).
Well, the distance was no big deal. I visited her. We had a really awesome date, though we were an hour and a half from her house and 4 hours from mine so we did not go home together or anything. I kissed her but that’s as far as we went. I then had to go on a short work trip to Seattle, kept talking to her, things got a little intense, and I asked if she would let me fly her to stay with me where I was working. She said she couldn’t, I respected it, and we finally ended up in a position where we didn’t live an undrivable amount of time away from each other in late 2018. I was settled back into the south and so was she.
Asked her out on a second date, told her if it wouldn’t be too crazy I would like to just pick her up and go to the mountains for a weekend(or as long as she could stay). She said yes. It was only at this point, after nearly two years of talking, that she revealed to me she was trans. She had identified as female since her early teens and passed well enough that I never even had suspicions — I 1000% see her as a girl who happens to have different genitals, despite not really giving trans girls much thought before that weekend. We had a great weekend, I did not miss a beat regarding the revelation and we made sex work despite me never being with someone having those genitals, but it started a cycle of worry for me that maybe hasn’t stopped.
Well, 2019 was pretty good. We had several more long term visits where I rented places for us to stay, she stayed at my place once, and we had a lot of day-dates where I drove to that city that is 1.5 hrs from her and 4 from me.
Come 2020 lockdown I asked if she wanted to come stay with me for a while. We are now pretty serious and she has been living with me since June 2020.
I really like her. She mentioned marriage for the first time over Christmas, and it hit me like a bag of bricks. I am having MASSIVE second thoughts regarding the idea of not having kids. I am also not really super into her genital situation, and I know that is so awful to say, but I am terrified that one day I will wake up and not be as satisfied as I am now. I am REALLY into her and have made it work mentally but it feels like it takes effort some days and I really do not know what that will look like in 10 or 20 years. Having two years to become attached to her I had no problems in the moment accepting her situation down there, and I have continued to be OK with it, but I feel like I am making reverse progress rather than forward progress on being cool with it. I never considered myself gay and have zero attraction to guys. She is a very attractive person and that is what has made this work for me so far but I am having a kind of existential moment of fear that I might wake up one day and not know what I am doing.
Has anyone else ever had to go through being surprised by someone being trans? Again, when we began our relationship I was making it work because I loved every other part of her, but she is getting really serious now mentioning marriage and I have not yet really come to terms with the fact that the woman I fell in love with does not have the genitals I expected of my forever partner, and with that comes potential long-term sexual and reproductive repercussions that I never considered. I have always wanted kids. I know I can adopt, but I think I have been living in a sort of fantasy where I acted like she would not always be this way.
I feel like a piece of garbage human. I love her but it is getting harder, not easier for me to reconcile her being trans. I want to marry her and be the good guy who lives an awesome life with the person he fell in love with, but this feels like a hammer dropping and reminding me that my fantasy she will not always be different than what I expected is just a fantasy and I am on the precipice of committing my life to someone who has features I never even considered being with sexually. I feel like the time I have spent with her was a dream where I kept, deep in the back of my mind, thinking I would wake up one day and things would be “normal” — but I am facing reality now and I did not know how much I was sheltering myself until this last week of inner turmoil. I would really appreciate any advice.
