Tips on How to Handle and What to Do When Your Partner Says "NO"!

You're in a relationship, marriage, or long-term partnership. You've come out as trans. Your partner may even be fine with you being transgender, but they're absolutely against you going through gender transition. They issue an ultimatum: "If you transition, I'm leaving."

Ultimatums never work. They may appear to work, but what actually happens is that you accumulate tremendous resentment that inevitably turns into contempt. You might accept the ultimatum initially because you're terrified of abandonment, terrified nobody will ever love you, terrified of being alone. But eventually, your sense of "I am worthy, I deserve to be happy" always kicks in.

The destructive dynamic:

Imagine you've carried a heavy backpack filled with rocks (dysphoria) for decades. When you come out, you finally put that backpack down—you feel liberation and freedom. But now your partner picks up that backpack. They're carrying the heavy load of processing this news.

You want action NOW. Your partner needs time to process. These don't go hand in hand.

You move too fast without allowing your partner time to find a doorway into the newly developed relationship. Your partner backs into a corner, upholds rigid boundaries ("if you do something, I'm leaving"). The more they uphold boundaries, the more suffocated you feel. The dynamics are self-destructive.

In this video, I address how to cultivate mutual compassion and open dialogue when timelines don't align. What constitutes a "reasonable timeline" when you exist as a unit. The critical accountability question about who's actually holding you hostage. Why "sacrifice" might be victim mentality—and what to ask yourself instead.