"The conversation seemed unhaveable. But we had to have it. The vacuum in which my husband had been living since we had returned home with our newborn was now unbearable. Something had come loose and was unspooling irrevocably.

 

“I think you need to have some therapy,” I heard my voice say, a few days later.

 

“You keep changing things about your appearance instead of accepting who you are,” I continued. “It’s what’s inside that matters. You’re wonderful, we both love you so much.”

 

My husband replied slowly and reluctantly – knowing how the axis of our family was about to tilt. “Yes, I do need to see someone. But… it’s not because I can’t, but because I have finally accepted who I am.”

 

“What do you mean?” I asked, unsure if the news was good or bad.

 

“I mean I have accepted that I am not this.” A hand gestured at the body I had lain next to each night for the last five years. “I have accepted that this body doesn’t represent who I am.”

 

I almost heard my world crack in two."

 

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