My wife and I were together 10 years before I realized I was trans and started transitioning, and she thinks of me as a totally separate individual from my pretransition self. In her mind, she is married to current me, and we had to take down our wedding photos because it upset her to see her ex-husband plastered on our walls. We also both pretty regularly say [deadname] was an asshole, like that person isn’t me. Does anyone else’s partner compartmentalize like this after you transitioned during your relationship?
I would think while your change has been positive and you consider the prior an asshole, they’re still inseparable. But so are light and dark. Warm and hot. Yin Yang. To thy own self be true. You wouldn’t be here without the prior… There’s nothing wrong with who you were, necessarily. You’ve nevertheless changed. It’s like the ship of Theseus. Replace enough boards and when exactly does a ship become a ‘new’ one? It’s subjective. Yet the spirit carries on.
It’s so great you’ve grown, changed, found a new you. Perhaps the old ship has sailed. Be the new you. Or simply just be you, and be here now.
Calling myself an asshole is to be honest, accurate. I wasn’t an overall horrible person, but I could sometimes be unpleasant to be around because I compensated for not understanding myself in ways that weren’t healthy and my wife and I both acknowledge that. Our marriage is better now, and I don’t know that I would have ended up with her where we are now had I transitioned earlier, so I don’t regret it. Yes it would have been nice for me if I had figured it out sooner, but it wouldn’t have been nice for us.