I'm straddling an ever growing crevice where on one side I lose who I am...
You're not losing yourself, you're finding yourself. And you'll still be you, transition isn't like a shitty remake of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde.
I can't live without my husband but I can't live this lie.
Believe me, I understand this...When I come out my wife and daughter - are gone. As in 12,000 miles away, gone. The really rotten thing is I've never loved her more, and more unreservedly than I do now, after I started HRT and my self-hate and depression receded.
I think you have to love yourself fully before you can love another completely.
I dealt with it by crying nightly for several months, working through the stages of grief, until I accepted she would never accept me as who I am, as her wife. And I decided I'd make sure we'd do the things we want to do, spend time together, and pack 5 years of life into the next 12 months.
The urge to suicide rears it's head sometimes; I've never hefted one of my pistols nor "tried it on" so to speak. They're always available. When I get overwhelmed and afraid, and start to think along those lines I pin the blame on the Cyproterone I'm taking - suicidal ideation is a known danger - and face the threat by telling it that it "won't get me." So far this has worked.
I also paint a fantasy where I'm transitioned, and my ex has miraculously failed to poison our daughter against me, and we reunite some decade hence. And she calls me mom.
If your husband cannot be with you as he is now, is there a reason he cannot stay as your friend and supporter?
I don't think either one of us can not not transition; it has to happen. So accepting that we cannot control those we love and that they are free to make their own choices - including rejection us, this eventual acceptance is all we can hope for.
And I can mouth the transgender incantations as well as anyone: "Your spouse cannot be expected to be able to change their attraction blah blah blah..."
Intellectually that concept can be sussed out and accepted, but emotionally it's like someone kicking you in the heart every hour of evey damn day.