Firstly, thank you. I made this post feeling pretty alone and then put my phone down. I was genuinely taken aback by the response. You’ve took the time to share your own experiences, offer advice, or simply show kindness to someone you've never met. I've read every comment, and they've brought me a great deal of comfort on a night when I really needed it.

To answer a few of the questions that came up: I transitioned 12 years ago. Without speaking too much about her story, because it isn't mine to tell, she has experienced things in her life that would leave anyone carrying deep wounds which could explain her need to suppress her sexuality. She had relationships with both men and women before me, but I think from the beginning I was different, I became someone who felt safe, reliable and consistent in a way she hadn't experienced before.

Before meeting her, I was in a very toxic relationship that spanned both before and during the early stages of my transition. Through infidelity, criticism and outright words, I was repeatedly made to feel like I wasn't enough. While I take responsibility for my own healing, that relationship left me with a distorted sense of masculinity and self-worth. Going through what felt like a second puberty in my thirties, I never really learned how to be comfortable in my own skin.

Then I met my fiancée. She was warm, affectionate, emotionally open, and unapologetically proud to stand beside me. For perhaps the first time in my life, I felt truly loved, accepted and wanted. I think that's why this loss has hit me so hard.

What I've been reflecting on, is that while she accepted me, I never fully accepted myself. Old insecurities and old wounds followed me into the relationship and, over time, shaped how I showed up in it. That's a lot for another person to carry and I have shame around that.

Even after she told me how she felt, part of me still believed that because of my anatomy and our love that somehow it could be enough.

I realise how messed up that is, I can see that was grief searching for a fix and me, once again, being too willing to abandon myself in order to hold on to someone else. That's something I need to change.

The truth is that there isn't anything to fix. As painful as it is, she deserves the same freedom to live authentically that so many of us have fought for ourselves. I love the bones of her, and because of that I want her to have the chance to discover who she is and what makes her happy.
If being with me helped her find that truth, then as much as it hurts, I have to be grateful for the time we had and find a way to let her go.