We met at 17 in senior year, dated ever since. She stuck by me and I stuck by her, we moved out of her mom's house and into our first place. It was a shitty duplex with druggie neighbors, but it was ours. We got a dog. I proposed, and she said yes.

We moved back into her mother's house so that we could save up the money to get a house. We were married, then we closed on the house. Perfect. Two years go by like this, until one Sunday in November 2013 I came home from work, exhausted like usual. She had this annoying habit of wanting to have deep conversations right when I was about to sleep, and that night was no different. I asked her if it could wait, and she said no. I rolled over, pretty grumpy, but you could tell by the way she was talking that it was kinda important.

"Lets say your wrist is male, and your shoulder is female. I feel like...I'm at the elbow, or a little more toward the wrist."

"What the fuck are you saying?"

"I feel like I was born into the wrong body, like I should have been male. I want to change my body to look like how I feel."

Between November 2013 and February 2015 I tried. I tried to be there through the name change, the confusion from her parents, my parents, the testosterone shots, the therapy, the deepening voice, the facial hair, all of it. I powered through the super-libido that he now had, and felt worthless every time we slept together. I wasn't attracted to him. Half the time it felt like rape, half the time I was upset I couldn't get him off. I didn't know what to do.

He decided to leave the state to give me some time to be alone. We tried an open relationship, but I couldn't bring myself to sleep with other people. He couldn't make it out there, and he moved back in. We gave it one more try, but my nights alone were spent searching things that would have close friends really worried about me. We decided on divorce, and it was relatively painless. We agreed to split the house 50/50 when I do sell it, and now I've got a best friend instead of a wife.