I just wanted whatever was going to help her be her best self. We have a young child. I wanted her to have stable employment and be a good role model for him instead of being crippled by drugs, alcohol, and depression. If transition was the answer, I was willing to go along with it.
And for a while, she was happier than I've ever seen her. She quit using drugs. She cut down her alcohol use by a ton. She was working full time. She was actually smiling and she liked the pictures of herself. But it's really hard for people to accept sometimes. And the criticism wore on her. It got to a point that everyone who had even the smallest bad thing to say was to be banned from our lives. That's how we lost contact with most of our friends and family. That was when to have contact with anybody, they pretty much had to be on her list of approved people.
As her mental health declined, it got really draining to try to take care of our child, of her, and of myself. December 2015 she was admitted to the hospital for her mental health. That was really hard for us, since we'd only spent a single night apart in nearly eight years at that time, but it was also the first chance for me to see "oh, wait, the kid misses her but his behavior is improving, he's showing affection more often, he's learning some skills he didn't have a week ago". When she returned, life went to hell again and I'll be honest, that was when I ended up in the mental hospital myself. (I read your threads, I know you think I'm an unfit parent. But I'm trying, okay? And my therapist says I'm doing a fine job.)