I am a 29 yo post-op transsexual female. I met a great guy 34 yo one year ago. We have been dating one another for a year and he just recently told me that he didn't think he was sure he was in love with me. He said that he's felt broken since his divorce four years ago, that he didn't know if he could give me any sort of commitment for the future, that he is afraid of what his peers and parents would think about him if they knew my medical past, that he felt like his biological clock was ticking, that he didn't want to be too old and have arthritis that could possibly prevent him play catch with his children. I can't say that I am in love with him either, but I do know that we thoroughly enjoy each others' company every weekend when we see one another. He said to me that he misses me immensely when I am not around. However he asked to take a step back and reevaluate the relationship. I didn't ask him for marriage or a ring. I transitioned in my late teenage years. I blend in very well in society with few people even knowing that I am trans. I tell people on a need-to-know basis. I am like any other woman in that I want a husband and children. I asked him a few days ago if he could give me an answer as to whether I should move on, if I should let the foundation that we have created crumble, or if he wanted to work past these issues. He couldn't give me an answer. I have my own life. I am a full time MSN student training to become a nurse practitioner. I made time for him because he became important to me, but am I beating a dead horse here?

Transitions And Crossroads

My response after the jump.

You enjoy spending time together, you miss each other when you're apart, you want similar things (commitment, kids)—that sounds like love to me. If it's not quite love, well, it's close enough that you should be able to round it up to love.

A (longish) aside: I sometimes think the way people in established, successful, long-term relationships talk about their relationships—I sometimes think the way people like me talk about mine—does a real disservice to people who are single. The further the pre-commitment stages of our relationships recede into the past the likelier we are to blithely toss off bullshit like, "Oh, I knew the minute I met him/her that he/she was the one. I was sure." In reality we didn't know. We weren't sure. We had doubts, we had insecurities, we had issues—doubts, insecurities, and issues that we had to set aside in order to make that big, fat, scary commitment. Truth is, TAC, no one in a successful LTR knew his or her partner was "the one." No one in a LTR knew for sure that it was love. But once the passage of time proves that we placed our bets on the right person—hey, we were in love (or close enough)—we stuff all those early doubts, insecurities, and issues down the ol' memory hole and start telling people how "sure" we were. (For the record: there are lots of smug married people out yammering on about how "sure" they were who have divorce proceedings in their futures.)

Anyway, TAC, the partnered get lazy and smug, or simply forget, and stand around paying our partners—and ourselves—the false compliment of a backdated "sure." And that would be fine if single people weren't forced to listen to our bullshit, single people who sometimes go home thinking, "Well, this person I'm seeing—this person I enjoy spending time with, this person I miss terribly when we're apart—must not be the 'one,' because... I'm not sure."

Back to you, TAC: I'm glad you have a life and goals, TAC, because that's going to make it easier for you to do what you need to do. Go and tell this guy that there are no sure things, only leaps of faith, but that you're as confident as a person can be that you two are a match. (But he's not your only potential match—just as no one is really "sure," no one is "the one," only one of many potential ones.) Tell him that if he can get past his issues and fears, you two could make a go of it. Then tell you're not going to wait forever while he hems and haws and stalls and stresses. He has your number. Tell him to give you a call when he's ready to make at least a mini-commitment: going steady, on a track toward engagement and ultimately marriage.

Then go back to your life, TAC, back to school and your career goals. Your presence in his life is the only real leverage you have and you have to be prepared to use it. You could love him and he could love you—and that's all either of you can be sure about—but don't wait by the phone or pass up other dating opportunities if and when they come your way in the hopes that he'll get his shit together.